NASCAR: Five good and bad things from the Daytona 500

The Daytona 500 kicked off the 2017 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series with plenty of drama. Now it’s time to take a look at the good and the bad from The Great American Race.

Kurt Busch won a crash-filled Daytona 500. Those were the headlines everywhere after the race concluded. It’s true, the race was filled with crashes for a majority of the second and third quarter of the race.

However, strategy dominated the first quarter of the race and a long green flag run highlighted the dramatic final 46 laps of the race. Race fans were treated to multiple races within a race, leaving us with a lot racing to evaluate.

Here are five good and bad things from the Daytona 500.

LaJoie’s lockup

This was just bad. Darrell Waltrip and Jeff Gordon in the FOX Sports television booth didn’t even know where to begin to explain it. I don’t either.

LaJoie was making his way on to pit road when he made a crucial high-speed mistake that nearly took out two cars. LaJoie didn’t slow down enough and almost piled into the back of Clint Bowyer. Brett Griffin, Bowyer’s spotter, provided this colorful commentary on the radio after he watched.

It was a bad weekend for LaJoie, after Reed Sorenson complained that he intentionally wrecked him during the first duel qualifying race, subsequently taking Sorenson’s spot in the Daytona 500.

Looking at the loop statistics

Here are some interesting statistics from the Daytona 500 using NASCAR loop data statistics provided by NASCAR.

• Michael McDowell spent 139 of the 200 laps in the top 15
• Kyle Larson’s average running position for the entire race was 8.1
• Kurt Busch had the highest driver rating of 107.0
• Michael Waltrip had the most fastest laps, 8

Next generation drivers were a force

Kyle Larson, Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney all had opportunities to win the Daytona 500.

After weeks of talking about Carl Edwards retiring from NASCAR and Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s return after missing half of the 2016 season, it was a nice change of dialogue.

Not only was it a nice change of dialogue, but it was a nice change to see the new, next generation of drivers all have a chance to win the sports biggest race of the year.

It’s early in the 2017 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, but this is a good sign.

Phantom flat tire

This was bad, not just for Kyle Busch, but for the other drivers who were caught up in the crash. It was also bad for Goodyear, and Busch let them know that during his interview.

On lap 45 after Kyle Busch, Erik Jones and Matt Kenseth made their pitstops, they rejoined in front of race leader Dale Earnhardt Jr. The Toyota’s were on a short pit strategy that they used during Stage 1. This time around, the Goodyear tire of Busch unexpectedly went flat as the group entered turn 3.

The backlash from Busch is a bad start for Goodyear as they weren’t able to make it to the halfway point in the first race of the season without having an unexplained issue.

The only good thing for this was that it didn’t take out more cars. For instance, if Busch and his fellow Toyotas were not on the short-pit strategy, they likely would have been racing in a larger pack of cars which would have resulted in more carnage.

Final three laps

Strategy and lead changes led to some of the best, non-crash filled, final laps in recent restrictor plate memory.

Elliott, Martin Truex Jr., Larson and Kurt Busch all held the lead for some part of the final three laps. Larson’s bold move to overtake Kurt Busch for third fight before Elliott ran out of gas, placed Larson with a great opportunity to win the Daytona 500.

Then the fuel mileage monster struck again, and Larson stumbled on the final lap in the middle of turn 1 and 2, the same place he made the bold move on Kurt Busch.

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Ultimately it was Busch who prevailed and defended his top spot to earn his first Daytona 500 win.