With a strong push from defending NASCAR Nationwide Series champion Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Kurt Busch won a wild Subway Jalapeno 250 Friday night at Daytona International Speedway, as Austin Dillon was turned sideways and wrecked in the tri-oval as Busch crossed the finish line.
Stenhouse came home second, followed by Michael Annett, who was pushing Dillon during a green-white-checkered-flag finish that took the race one lap beyond its scheduled distance of 100 laps.
Dillon slid sideways across the stripe in fourth place, with Joey Logano and series leader Elliott Sadler taking fifth and sixth, respectively.
Busch picked up his fifth victory in 23 Nationwide starts.
Danica Patrick led 14 laps and escaped one major wreck before being collected late in the race.
As Kevin Harvick and Mike Wallace tried to swap positions at the front of the field on Lap 66, Patrick pushed Allgaier to the front as a 15-car wreck erupted behind her. Wallace moved down the track into the Chevrolet of James Buescher, then bounced up into Brad Keselowski’s Dodge in the outside lane.
The chain-reaction wreck also collected Harvick, series leader Sadler, Kurt and Kyle Busch, Cole Whitt (Patrick’s JR Motorsports teammate), Clint Bowyer, among others. Sadler’s damage was minimal, and he soon regained the lead.
In fact, Sadler held the point on Lap 83, when an off-center push from Ricky Stenhouse Jr. turned Jeffrey Earnhardt sideways in front of the main pack of cars. As drivers checked up in reaction to the wreck, Patrick was launched toward the inside SAFER barrier and took a vicious hit when her No. 7 Chevrolet slammed into the wall.
Busch made six pit stops under caution as his crew repaired the damage to his car — enough to get it to Victory Lane.
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