Photo Credit" Noel Lanier/OnPitRoad.com
William Byron was able to hold off Elliott Sadler to secure his second straight victory in the NASCAR XFINITY Series by winning the Coca-Cola Firecracker 250 at the Daytona International Speedway in overtime. Sadler brought home a second place finish while Dakoda Armstrong, Jeb Burton, and David Starr all brought home their first career Top-5 finishes.
The race was moved to Saturday afternoon after continuous rain showers and humidity on Friday night caused the race to be postponed. The race re-started with 11 laps complete and Blake Koch in the lead. A rather calm first stage saw Koch secure his first career stage victory but as he came down for a pit stop, others stayed out and he would restart mid-pack.
As the field started the second stage dark clouds began to loom over the Daytona International Speedway. The caution flag would be displayed and soon turned to a red flag with lightning in the area. That red flag would last two hours and 29 minutes. A few minutes before the red would be lifted, drivers would be called to their cars, but then soon told to find shelter as the unpredictable Florida weather would show its face again.
Finally at lap 40, the field would go back to green and the action would begin to get exciting as drivers started to battle for positions. At lap 51, a crash would begin coming to the line involving stage one winner Koch, the No. 92 of Josh Williams, No. 00 of Cole Custer, No. 18 of Daniel Suarez, No. 20 of Jones, and the No. 90 of Brandon Brown. This crash would end the day of Brown, Koch, Suarez, and Williams.
After that crash the action didn’t calm down but it was more of a controlled chaos with no one making no unnecessary risks and the field would cross the finish line at lap 60 ending stage two with Sadler collecting more stage and playoff points.
The field would go back to green at lap 65 to start the final stage. At lap 87, Jeremy Clements went spinning with Chris Cockrum in a crash that could’ve been worse then it was. Green was displayed at lap 90 with just ten laps remaining in the race. At lap 93 the No. 9 of Byron, No. 3 of Ty Dillon, and the pole sitter, Brennan Poole, would be involved in a crash and this would set up a run for the money with just four laps remaining.
As the field came to green, they knew in their mind that another caution would mean that it could end in overtime and that is just what happened. Toward the front of the field Brandon Jones got loose while pushing Erik Jones sending himself into Michael Annett and chaos just erupted behind them. Ultimately, eleven cars would be collected.
On the final restart, Sadler pushed Byron ahead of the traffic in the lane to his outside as Erik Jones fell out of line giving Byron a clear lead going into turn one. As the field entered the Daytona Super stretch cars began to wreck behind the leader, Byron would pass the overtime line before the caution was flown ending the race.
