Roush Fenway Racing driver Ryan Reed and the No. 16 Lilly Diabetes/American Diabetes Association team finished 16th on Saturday at Daytona International Speedway in the race that Reed won just one year ago.
“Between the damage early and my mistake on pit road, we just couldn’t rebound back or get a place in the draft we needed to get to the front,” said Reed. “That definitely wasn’t the way I wanted to defend the title at Daytona but we will go to Atlanta and hope for better results.”
Reed started the 200-lap event from the 11th position on Saturday afternoon after making it to the second round of the single-car qualifying session on Saturday morning.
After just five laps of green-flag racing, the caution flag was displayed for the first time. Reed had dropped back to the 29th position to stay out of trouble and reported that the car was not good when he was running on the inside. Crew chief Phil Gould opted to bring Reed down pit road for fuel only on Lap seven, allowing Reed to maintain the 29th position for the restart on Lap 10.
Just five laps later, the caution was again displayed for a crash in the pack, while Reed was running 12th. Reed thought he had avoided any damage, but realized during the caution that there was damage to the right-rear wheel well. He said that he felt a hit to his back bumper, which must have caused the damage.
The team brought Reed down pit road on Lap 16 to repair the damage. On the following lap, they changed the tires on Reed’s No. 16 Ford Mustang. After the repairs, Reed restarted 34th on Lap 17.
Another five laps passed before the third caution flag of the afternoon. The team took the opportunity to continue repairing the damage on the right-rear of the car, pitting on Lap 23. Reed restarted 35th on Lap 26 and was up to the 22nd position by Lap 34.
By Lap 40, Reed reported that the car was really tight off of Turn 4 and felt as if it was bouncing up the track. He also reported that there was oil all over the track and covering his windshield, but no caution was displayed.
The team made a green-flag pit stop on Lap 57 for right-side tires and fuel from the 15th position. At this time, Reed had joined a pack of cars that was split from the lead pack, but running lap times .05 seconds faster than the leaders. While running in this pack of cars, Reed had made his way up to the 12th position by Lap 76.
A long green-flag run necessitated another stop under green on Lap 95. Because the car was outside of the pit box and needed to be backed up, the team only had time to take fuel during the stop.
The final caution flag of the race flew on Lap 101 while Reed ran 15th. He restarted 15th on Lap 107 and was in a position to get back on the lead lap had another caution flag flew, but the field coasted to the finish without incident. Reed took the checkered flag in the 16th position.
After the first NASCAR XFINITY Series race of 2016, Reed is scored 11th in the championship standings, 13 points out of the lead. Reed and the rest of the NASCAR XFINITY Series will return to the track on Saturday, February 27th at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
RFR PR
