Matt Kenseth Wins Sprint Unlimited; Breaks Winless Drought

Matt Kenseth and his crew pose in victory lane at Daytona (Google Images)

The 2015 Sprint Cup tour is officially underway and Matt Kenseth took the first trophy of the season Saturday night. While it wasn't a points paying win, this also snapped a losing streak for the No. 20 team; one that stretches back to the September 2013 race at Loudon.

Saturday's race was also a big one for second place finisher Martin Truex Jr. The New Jersey native put his defensive driving skills to the test and blocked all of his challengers to lead 28 laps in the season-opening event. Last season, Truex and his Furniture Row team only led one lap the entire year so their season started off great as well.

The race began with Paul Menard and Kasey Kahne leading the field to green and drivers like Truex quickly asserting their dominance. Drivers got close to bumping into each other, but it wasn't until lap 23 that one car got too close to the edge. Second year driver Kyle Larson tried to squeeze his No. 42 Chevy in between Penske Racing teammates Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano. This sent Keselowski spinning through the infield and back up the track. While he managed to avoid collecting other cars, Keselowski did hit the frontstrech wall head on, demolishing the front of his Miller Lite Ford and ending his night early. The wreck also provided a dramatic end to the first  25 lap segment, which was won by Truex Jr.

Once the second half of the Unlimited began, fans were treated to a no holds barred shootout for the first trophy of the season.

The racing was still really hard and really close, but drivers managed to avoid taking each other out. But just like a 200 mph game of musical chairs, once the music stops, someone is going to wind up without a place to sit.

One tap, one big wreck and a  bunch of cars done (Google Images)

On lap 46, Greg Biffle tapped the rear bumper of Jamie McMurray off of turn four and sent the No.1 car spinning down the track and back up in front of traffic. But unlike Keselowski's wreck, the rest of the field wasn't lucky enough to miss him. The wreck collected Clint Bowyer, Paul Menard, Kasey Kahne, Jimmie Johnson and last years Unlimited winner Denny Hamlin. Kenseth also suffered a couple scrapes from this accident. Once the carnage had been cleared, only 11 cars remained on track. More than half the field had been eliminated in one spin.

After that wreck, with just a handful of cars remaining, you'd think the drivers would've calmed down a bit and preserved their cars. Wrong. With just eight laps remaining, Tony Stewart got loose and collected Biffle and Kurt Busch. The wreck sent Biffle into the backstretch wall (really hard) in a shower of smoke and sparks.

Once the race went back to green, Kenseth grabbed the lead back from Truex and managed to build up a pretty sizeable gap. Normally at plate tracks this is a bad thing and everyone was waiting for Truex to build a run and slingshot the No. 20 for the win. But surprisingly that didn't happen and Kenseth held off Truex and teammate Carl Edwards for his first win in the Sprint Unlimited and his first win in a year and a half.

After the race, the fireworks continued as 2014 champion Kevin Harvick and Logano exchange words on pit road after late contact. You can watch the FOX footage of this little skirmish here.

But one thing Logano said is, "new year, same stuff." And that's absolutely true. Last season ended with some wrecks, some fights and a nail biter of a final race. Now, in this opening race we saw some wrecks, a fight and an exciting fight to the finish.

NASCAR is back and they're picking up right where they left off. We should be in for one heck of a year