Nationwide Series Results: Daytona

In a potential prelude to tomorrow’s Sprint Cup Series’ running of the Daytona 500, Tony Stewart was able to find victory lane for Joe Gibbs Racing in a wild race at the Camping World 300 at Daytona International Raceway, giving Toyota its third NASCAR victory in the last two days. After Brad Keselowski brought out a late-race caution by spinning and collecting several other cars, including Steve Wallace, Kasey Kahne, Kevin Harvick, Jason Keller, and others, racing resumed with only six laps to go. The Gibbs cars of Stewart and Kyle Busch were able to outrun Dale Earnhardt Jr, Brian Vickers, and Matt Kenseth, with Stewart crossing the line just 0.259 seconds ahead of Busch.

The victory marked “Smoke’s” third win in this event in the past four years, and it was Busch’s second consecutive year finishing runner-up. Perhaps even more impressive is the charge Toyota has made during this Toyota stretch by finishing 2nd last week in the Budweiser Shootout, then winning the second Sprint Cup Gatorade Duel and the Craftsman Truck Series season-opener on Friday, and then winning the Nationwide season opener. As for Earnhardt Jr, he stated that he was just happy to have gotten to participate in the race after failing post-qualifying inspection earlier this week (fines and penalties will be assessed later this week), and appears to be quite content with a third place finish. Stewart will attempt to become only the sixth driver in history to sweep both the Saturday and Sunday races at Daytona.

Complete Results (credit nascar.com):