The Monster Energy season finally got its start today with both Daytona 500 qualifying and the Clash At The Beach race. For Daytona 500 qualifying only the front row was set with Alex Bowman and Denny Hamlin getting on the front row.
The Clash race though has Austin Dillion on the pole as 17 drivers have a shot at the first win of the season. This is also the start of the 5 man pit stops which is down one member from last year.
The early laps had Denny Hamlin in the lead as Chase Elliott was able to get the lead at lap 10. Around lap 24 it was Joey Logano getting the race lead as lap 25 brought out the designated first caution of the day. After cars pitted it was Brad Keselowski getting to the race lead.
As the racing continued we got the first wreck of the day on lap 34 as Jamie McMurray got loose and then smacked into the wall. At lap 43 it was penalty time for Ricky Stenhouse Jr. as he went below the yellow line. With under 30 laps left the race became one single line of cars. With 10 laps left it was still the same single line of cars. With roughly 7 laps left Brad Keselowski had a big piece of trash on the car as he was still leading the race.
With 2 laps left we started out with a single line of cars and at the end of the laps a Austin Dillion and Chase Elliott are first to go low. Then Ryan Blaney get shuffled out to the low line. On the final lap we get the big wreck as Kyle Larson and Jimmie Johnson get together and take Chase Elliott and more. This fully helped Brad Keselowski to win the Clash with Joey Logano coming in second.
“It feels really good,” said Brad on the win. “Great start to speedweeks.”
Joey Logano stated that Handling defiantly came into play there.
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