Yesterday (2/9) was The Busch Clash at Daytona. Could that exhibition race be a preview of what we will see in next week’s Daytona 500 when the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series season officially gets started?

There were 18 drivers that qualified for this non-points race for braggin’ rights and money. It was a 75 lap race that gave drivers and teams a chance to find out how their cars will handle in the Daytona 500 with new rules and racing packages.

Most of the race saw the drivers feeling out their cars, watching their competitors cars and letting their race strategy play out. The final laps were a very different story.

There were five caution periods. The first was a competition caution on lap 25 of the race. The final four cautions came from lap 67 to lap 88 of the race. That’s right there were 86 laps raced in this contest that had been scheduled for 75 laps. There were three green-white-checkered restarts in NASCAR’s overtime policy.

After the final restart that included only six of the 18 cars that started the race, it was Erik Jones that took the checkered flag with the help of his teammate Denny Hamlin who was a lap down.

I don’t think next week’s race will have quite as much carnage. There will be points on the line beyond just winning the race. However, it is NASCAR’s “Super Bowl” … so I guess one never knows for sure.

We will all get to find out next week when the drivers race in the Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway.

By: Buck Stevens