February 9, 2021 | By Lee Spencer

Opportunistic Kyle Busch wins the Busch Clash at Daytona

Kyle Busch capitalized on Chase Elliott’s miscue to win the Busch Clash at Daytona on Tuesday. 

Busch was lying in wait, running third behind race leader Ryan Blaney and Elliott on the white-flag lap.

Coming through the front stretch chicane, Elliott nailed Blaney, turning him into the wall, but the driver of the No. 9 Chevrolet couldn’t hold the point as Busch passed the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet for the lead and the win.

“I knew to keep my head down and keep focus ahead and see if I could keep hitting my marks to get close enough to have a shot like that--if something like that were to materialize," said Busch after his second-career Clash win. "Fortunately, it did for us.

"I can’t say enough about Ben Beshore (crew chief) and this whole M&M’s team--this new M&M’s team. I appreciate what they do for me, everybody at Joe Gibbs Racing, Toyota, TRD. It’s awesome to start off the year with a win a non-points win, but I would love nothing more than to be right here this Sunday.”

Elliott finished second, followed by Joey Logano, Tyler Reddick, William Byron, Denny Hamlin, Alex Bowman, Erik Jones, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Matt DiBenedetto.

While Elliott didn’t intend to wreck Blaney, he had no regrets about his quest for the win.

"I was close enough to drive it in there and I feel like I’d be mad at myself for not at least trying," Elliott said. "Obviously, I don’t mean to wreck anybody, especially him. Some guys I wouldn’t mind. But he’s not one of them. Hopefully, he’s not too mad at me. I feel like you’ve got to go for it here in an event like this in any situation.

"I can’t be sorry about going for the win, but I certainly didn’t mean to wreck him. I drove in there and, just that corner gets so tight and I didn’t want to just completely jump the curb to the right. But I feel like I tried to get over there as far as I could. And at that point we were coming together at the same time. I hate it. We had a fast Llumar Chevrolet in a position to have a shot at it. We’ll try again on Sunday.”

Elliott spoke to Blaney following the race to assuage his friend’s feelings. Blaney said he would have attempted a similar move had the roles been reversed. 

“Just two guys going hard," Blaney said. "We didn’t really get away from him like I needed to on the last lap there after we passed him. I didn’t get away from him. I kind of slipped up one or two corners and he was able to get into me there and kind of keep me close. I hit the mud hard on the backstretch and kind of let him get even closer. Then I was trying to protect against the dive bomb there and I braked deeper in that corner than I had braked all night and he set it off in there and we came together and neither one of us won the race. 

"Chase and I know each other well. I know he didn’t do it on purpose, but sending it off in there hard like anybody would do it’s just a shame we both got taken out or neither one of us won the race.  If you’re gonna make a move like that make sure you either win the race, don’t let the third-place guy do it.”

For many of the 21 competitors, the event offered drivers the opportunity to knock off the rust from the offseason. Five former champions experienced issues throughout the night. Both Kurt Busch and Martin Truex Jr., locked up their brakes while in the lead. For Busch, the faux pas resulted in falling to the tail end of the field after missing the first turn on Lap 19. 

Truex wasn’t so lucky. Just after taking the lead off of Turn 4 on Lap 28, he slid out of the back chicane and into the wall, ending his race. That wasn’t the former champ’s only error. While leading the race at the end of Stage 1, he missed the front stretch chicane and was forced to drop to the rear.

“I don’t know why I did that,” Truex said. “Terrible job.”

Cole Custer stalled on the front stretch, then his car ignited to trigger the third caution. Logano, who was coming to pit, was penalized for failing to enter pit road in single-file formation and had to drop to the rear.

"I don’t understand the call NASCAR made there," Logano said. "I’ve got to talk to them. That’s a move that’s been made for the 10 years, 11 years I’ve been doing this. I don’t know why it’s not ok now. I just want consistent officiating. That’s all I’m looking for, so just trying to understand that a little bit better. 

"It might be on me, I’ve got to look at it. And then we fought. We got close. I just ran out of tires there at the end and tires ended up passing us.”

Hamlin led four times for a race-high 21 laps. He was running second before the fourth and final caution. When the team elected to pit for tires with six laps remaining, Hamlin lined up 10th on the restart while Elliott, Reddick and Kurt Busch stayed on the track.

Elliott shot out to the lead but Logano faded on old tires and Blaney passed his teammate for second. Busch moved past Logano into third coming to the white-flag lap and patiently held his position, waiting for fireworks to erupt ahead of the No. 18 Toyota. 

They did, and Busch, who won but one race last year, started his season with a victory. The race also provided a great opportunity for Busch to get reacquainted with Beshore and prepare for the next weekend's road course race when points will be on the line.

"That was definitely the focus on this race," Busch said. "It’s like a test session, it’s like our practice. Definitely, I feel like we have a strong car and I think we have a strong program and balance right here. There are still some things that could be a little bit better. The 9 (Chase Elliott) was definitely beating me on the brakes, getting into the turns and just being able to out-brake me. I just didn’t quite have enough for that.

"Obviously, winning never hurts anything, but there is some stuff for us to get a little bit better on, for us to grow on. This is a good start. Doing the work that we did to prepare for this event and getting us in the right spot to be able to win tonight was what its all about. Good all around.”