Kurt Busch Beats Young Guns to Win First Daytona 500

Kurt Busch won the Daytona 500 in his 17th try (Google Images)

It was a long offseason for Stewart-Haas Racing.

This time last year, the team announced that they would be leaving Chevrolet and their coveted alliance with Hendrick Motorsports to run Fords during the 2017 campaign, new hire Clint Bowyer began his transition into team co-owner Tony Stewart's old ride, and the sponsor of the majority of Danica Patrick's races, Nature's Bakery, announced last month they would be leaving the team, resulting in SHR filing a breach of contract suit and a counterclaim by Nature's Bakery.

So what better way to overcome all this change and adversity than to go out and win the biggest race of the year, right? Well, that's exactly what Kurt Busch and his No. 41 Ford team did.

This race also featured the return of Dale Earnhardt Jr. NASCAR's most popular driver spent the last 18 races of the 2016 season on the sidelines after suffering a concussion. Junior just missed out on the pole for the 59th running of the "Great American Race" and was forced to start second to his Hendrick Motorsports teammate, sophomore driver Chase Elliott. This was Elliott's second consecutive Daytona 500 pole.

Elliott and Earnhardt led the field to green and led NASCAR into a new era. For the first time ever, NASCAR would run their races in stages, rather than non-stop green flag to checkered. Races would instead be broken up into three stages, with Daytona being broken into 60, 60, and 120 lap stints to make up the 200 lap total distance. Stage winners would receive 10 regular season points and one playoff point to count towards their championship run.

Dale Jr (88) and Kyle Busch (18) wreck at Daytona
(Google Images)

The race ran caution free until pit stops began around lap 17 when the Joe Gibbs Racing and Furniture Row Racing Toyotas came in for service. Rookie Erik Jones overshot his pit box, while fellow freshman Daniel Suarez was hit with a pass through penalty for speeding. But both of their issues paled in comparison to Corie LaJoie's problems. While attempting to slow down to enter pit road, LaJoie locked up his brakes, slid past the entrance to pit road, and hit the outside wall.

Aside from these minor incidents, the race got off to a relatively calm start. But it wouldn't stay that way for long.

Restrictor plate tracks are known for close quarters racing and spectacular multi-car wrecks. It's never a matter of if "the Big One" will happen, but when it will happen and how many cars will get swept up in it. So the question on everyone's mind was could their favorite driver avoid trouble as the afternoon wore on.

At the close of the first stage, Kyle Busch was the leader and collected 10 championship points and a playoff point for the win.

When the race went back to green, SHR teammates Kevin Harvick and Danica Patrick on the front row. The team was beginning their switch to Ford look seamless.

Then the first of several big wrecks happened on lap 105. Kyle Busch, Matt Kenseth, and Jones were drafting together after making pit stops and trying to stay on the lead lap. Busch was leading the Toyota trio into turn three, just ahead of the leaders when he blew a tire. Busch's No. 18 M&M's Camry spun into the wall and collected Jones, Kenseth, and the race-leading car of Earnhardt Jr. 

After suffering a serious concussion last year, NASCAR Nation collectively held their breath when Junior's No. 88 Chevy rode over Busch's right front fender and into the outside wall. But he told reporters that his head felt fine and he was ready to head to Atlanta for the next race.

The 2017 edition of stock car racing's biggest event began calmly, but the Daytona garage area would quickly turn into a junkyard in the third segment, as Junior's wreck would be the first of many on the day.

Jamie McMurray pushed Jimmie Johnson into turn 3 on lap 127, triggering a 14-car pileup that collected Patrick, Bowyer, and Harvick. Following an incident involving Roush-Fenway Racing teammates Ricky Stenhouse Jr and Trevor  Bayne, McMurray would trigger another wreck with 59 laps remaining in the race that collected Ryan Newman, rookie drivers Suarez and Ty Dillon, and Brad Keselowski.

Kurt Busch celebrates his first Daytona win with his crew
(Google Images)

The race would resume with 47 laps and only a handful of cars remaining. Aric Almirola grabbed the lead from Cole Whitt after the green flag, but Kyle Larson would wrestle the top spot away just a few laps later. The youth movement at the front of the field continued when Joey Logano grabbed the lead from Larson with 37 to go, followed by Elliott charging to toe front just ten laps later. 

But with seven laps to go, Elliott ran out of fuel handing the lead to last year's runner-up Martin Truex Jr. The New Jersey native looked primed to grab his first Harley J. Earle trophy after losing last year's race by two-thousandths of a second. But Truex, too, would run out of gas after taking the white flag. This handed the lead back to Larson, who's fuel cell ran dry down the backstrech on the final lap. This enabled Busch to grab the lead and win his first Daytona 500.

After finishing second in the Great American Race three times, Busch was finally able to pull into victory lane. The win was also huge for his crew chief Tony Gibson, who grew up just hours from the speedway and had never won the Daytona 500 as a crew chief. It was also huge for all of SHR. After switching to Ford, many wrote the team off, saying it would take a while for the team to regain the strong footing they had while running Hendrick-powered Chevrolets. 

But clearly, Busch and SHR have proven that they will be a force this season. SHR might've missed out on the final four in last year's playoffs, but with Busch's Daytona triumph locking him into this year's title hunt, the sky is the limit for Stewart Haas Racing.