DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – There were several big crashes in Sunday’s 64th Daytona 500, including the first serious crash of the season on lap 64 that sent Harrison Burton’s No. 21 Ford Mustang airborne before rolling back on its wheels.
It was the first true test of the Next Gen car and how it survives in a crash.
Brad Keselowski was attempting to bump draft Burton by giving him a push coming out of turn two. Instead, he turned Burton’s Wood Brothers Ford into the wall, triggering a crash that also involved Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch, Christopher Bell, William Byron and Alex Bowman.
“I’ve hit a lot harder before, that’s for sure,” Burton said. “It’s just unfortunate. I hate it for the Wood Brothers group. They brought a really fast Ford Mustang down here and ended up on our lid, so that’s never good. I just got pushed and didn’t take it the right way – the car didn’t take it the right way or got pushed in the wrong spot. I’m not sure. I couldn’t really tell. I was looking out front to see what I had to do next to side draft the next guy that was on me, so just a bummer. I don’t really know what we could have done different, but we’ll move on and get better from it.”
As Burton said in an earlier story on SPEED SPORT Sunday night, it wasn’t the force of Keselowski’s push, it was just in the wrong part of the turn. It gave Burton his first experience at getting turned on his lid.
“I’ve never had another one upside-down, so I don’t have any reference,” he said. “Obviously, it got real light and blew over right. I don’t know if it was the diffuser that did it or what, but once I got backwards, I just blew right over. As far as the cockpit and everything is safe. I didn’t get hit hard at all. Luckily, all good there and we’ll move on.
“The roof line itself is lower, but they’ve got us lower in the car as well, so I’d say my head is in about the same spot as it was in my Xfinity car. I didn’t notice any intrusion or anything. I thought it maintained its shape pretty well. Obviously, it’s going to move and bend some, but I didn’t notice any intrusion there. I think, so far, it was a good testament of the car being safe.”
The rookie driver, the son of NASCAR veteran Jeff Burton, was having a pretty successful SpeedWeek up to that point. He had run fast in qualifying and was fast in the Bluegreen Vacations Duel, which put him eighth on the Daytona 500 grid despite being collected in a last-lap crash during his Duel. He would lead three laps in the Daytona 500.
“We take confidence from it,” Burton said. “At the end of the day everyone knew we were here. We were leading when we crashed. Our Wood Brothers group brought a fast Ford down here and we were showing it.
“Stage points really matter and as a rookie it’s big to get them, so I felt like I wanted to push for those, but obviously I’d love to be out there racing still. I don’t know what I could have done different. It’s kind of hard to be in the lead and say, ‘Oh, I don’t want to be up here.’ You feel like that’s the safest spot, so just have to watch. It’s easy to say, ‘Oh, I just got a bad push and spun,’ but I feel like the people that always get better are ones that can look at themselves and learn from it, so that’s what I’m going to try and do and try and get better.”
Hamlin’s Toyota was also involved in the crash and was out of the race, finishing 36th. Hamlin was attempting to win his fourth Daytona 500 for Joe Gibbs Racing.
“The 6 (Brad Keselowski) was pushing the 21 (Harrison Burton) and you could see the 21 was kind of getting out of control there,” Hamlin explained. “You know the mindset was that you’ve got to back off, but I think the 6 was just insistent on pushing him at all costs and eventually turned the 21 around.
“Tough, considering it was just for the stage. We were boxed in there where I noticed that something was going to happen, but I was boxed in, I was behind a teammate, and I wanted to try to help.
“Again, just too aggressive pushing right there when they weren’t lined up and in control.”
Byron’s No. 24 Chevrolet slid across the backstretch concrete and slammed into the SAFER barrier in the infield retaining wall. The driver from Charlotte was not injured after taking a head-on impact into the barrier.
“It looked like the bottom lane was pushing well; nice, balanced and controlled,” Byron explained. “The outside lane was getting a little squirrely the last lap or so. I noticed that, but there’s nothing you can really do. You’re just trying to push your guy out front.
“It was (Martin) Truex Jr. in front of me and Kyle Busch. We were doing a good job of kind of managing that gap on the bottom. I think the No. 21 (Harrison Burton) just got loose, slid down the track and I slid to the inside wall. There was nothing we could really do. I think we were definitely going to finish in the top-five in that Stage. Our No. 24 Axalta Camaro seemed really fast.
“It’s disappointing, but we’ll go onto California (Auto Club Speedway), and we’ll be fast there.”
The crash ended the first stage with Martin Truex Jr. getting the stage win. The second stage was run without incident and Truex once again collected the points.
There wasn’t another yellow flag for a crash or debris until lap 152. There were two caution periods in the final eight laps, which sent up the frantic finish with rookie driver Austin Cindric scoring his first NASCAR Cup Series win in his eighth start.