generic Justin Haley — yes, Justin Haley — wins rain-shortened Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona
Well, this was a bizarre NASCAR finish.
Justin Haley was 27th when Austin Dillon and Clint Bowyer spurred a 17-car crash while running 1-2 during the rain-delayed Coke Zero Sugar 400 on Sunday. And thanks to some lightning and some thunderstorms, Haley wound up as the winner of the race despite no more green flag laps getting run after the crash.
Kurt Busch was in first after the crash. When NASCAR said the race would go green in one more lap after the caution for the crash, Busch and others behind him in the running order pitted to make sure they could make it to the end of the race in 34 laps as rain was near Daytona International Speedway.
NASCAR puts races in a 30-minute hold for rain and storms if lightning strikes within an eight-mile radius. And, somehow, between Busch’s pit stop and the time the field hit the backstretch on the final caution lap, lightning struck just inside that radius.
So NASCAR red-flagged the race. And, thanks to the pit stops, Haley was in the lead.
He became the eventual winner when lightning struck within the eight-mile radius just after the first 30-minute hold stopped. Rain picked up at the track during the second 30-minute hold and NASCAR appeared like it wanted to wait the rain out. But at approximately 5:30 ET — over five hours after the race began — NASCAR called the race and Haley was declared the winner.
It’s not a stretch to say the win is the biggest fluke in NASCAR history. It’s also not a stretch to say that Busch should be declared the winner, either. By saying there was one lap to go in the caution, Busch and others pitted with the tacit agreement that NASCAR was restarting the race with storms not that far away. The lightning strike within eight miles wasn’t a surprise.
Alas, NASCAR didn’t revert the scoring order and Haley is now a NASCAR winner in just his third Cup Series start. He’s not eligible for the playoffs because he’s running full-time in the Xfinity Series. And his team, Spire Motorsports, is a backmarker team that solely exists to make money off NASCAR anyway. The team doesn’t run competitively and had an average finish of 32.5 entering Sunday’s race.
Oh, Spire is also a driver and team agency as well. The NASCAR team only exists because the agency got the charter from the now-defunct Furniture Row Racing team and wouldn’t be allowed in any other major sports series. No other league allows team owners to also be agents for the league’s participants.
But this is NASCAR.
Those factors are why Sunday’s race may go down as the dumbest finish in NASCAR history. It’s certainly the flukiest.
Full results
1. Justin Haley
2. William Byron
3. Jimmie Johnson
4. Ty Dillon
5. Ryan Newman
6. Corey LaJoie
7. Aric Almirola
8. Matt DiBenedetto
9. Matt Tifft
10. Kurt Busch
11. Landon Cassill
12. JJ Yeley
13. Michael McDowell
14. Kyle Busch
15. Bubba Wallace
16. Paul Menard
17. Chris Buescher
18. Daniel Hemric
19. Brendan Gaughan
20. Kyle Larson
21. Alex Bowman
22. Martin Truex Jr.
23. Erik Jones
24. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
25. Joey Logano
26. Denny Hamlin
27. Joey Gase
28. BJ McLeod
29. Kevin Harvick
30. Ross Chastain
31. Parker Kligerman
32. Ryan Preece
33. Austin Dillon
34. Clint Bowyer
35. Chase Elliott
36. Ryan Blaney
37. Quin Houff
38. David Ragan
39. Brad Keselowski
40. Daniel Suarez
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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.
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