Daytona Speedweeks 2018 began with a bang in the ARCA Lucas Oil 200 and with that it also saw a great exercise in throwback as a Richard Petty #43 (Sean Corr) and a Ranier Racing #28 (Sheldon Creed) make it like 1984 all over. The Advance Auto Busch Clash and Can-Am Gatorade 150s raised questions going into the 500 and then the features provided answers -
But Speedweeks is not just the Daytona superoval. Surrounding tracks like New Smyrna Speedway offer delicious competition as well and following the Busch Clash NASCAR's K&N/Busch East tour squared off at New Smyrna and squared into a Todd Gilliland-Harrison Burton showdown that got physical and ended in a terrific win for Gilliland, slated to drive in the Truck Series for Kyle Busch later this season
The Nextera 250 turned into a torridly competitive affair from the opening lap onward. Unable to run due to not being old enough, Todd Gilliland gave way to dad David in Kyle Busch's Toyota and David squared off in a gigantic sidedraft war for the lead that raged almost all race until a shunt by his Kyle Busch teammate Spencer Davis with seven to go ruined his race. Given his employment with Kyle Busch's team the nickname of the larger organization can now be The Spencer Davis Group, except it was Maury Gallagher's Chevrolets given some loving with their 1-2 finish.
An eye-popping stat - Maury Gallagher has now won three straight Nextera Truck 250s, giving Chevrolet three straight after going 0-for-lifetime in the race until 2016.
Another eye-popper was the ejection of two Busch-Xfinity Series crew chiefs - RCR's Nick Harrison plus his car chief Mike Searce, and Robert Scott of Mike Harmon's team - for multiple inspection failures with NASCAR's new laser-based inspection scanner.
And yet that got forgotten in the wildest Busch-Xfinity 300-miler at Daytona in years. Kyle Larson in particular became a major issue with blocking and it led to a major crash with two to go on a restart. Blocking in general has become more and more of an issue in NASCAR the last few years.
Yet another problem refocuses on the folly of NASCAR's insistence on overofficiating. NASCAR's Green-White-Finish rule has become a fiasco with a preposterous number of restarts because NASCAR won't let the cars race to the flag and thus finish the race, the same problem that ruined the finish of the ARCA Lucas Oil 200.
And yet the end result was the most amazing finish in recent memory as youngster Tyler Reddick barely edged popular veteran Elliott Sadler in a photo finish, a striking illustration of one of the overlooked sub-themes of 2018 Speedweeks - the synergy of kids battling with longtime veterans. The investment into young drivers in the sport has angered a striking number of fans, yet the sight of veterans more than holding their own in some of the most furious combat in motorsports is a spectacle that can only benefit racing.
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