Logano trailed race leader Kyle Busch by five seconds with 40 laps left, but a two-tire under the fifth and final caution got Logano out front for a restart with 34 laps left, while a four-tire choice on the same pit stop buried Kyle Busch in traffic and changed the course of the race.

The victory was Logano’s first of the season, his third straight at the Monster Mile and the 19th of his career. Brian Vickers ran second, .576 seconds behind Logano. Matt Kenseth finished third, followed by Trevor Bayne. Busch passed Sam Hornish Jr. for the fifth spot in the closing laps.

“It feels great to get back in Victory Lane,” Logano said. “This is my favorite race track. I love coming up to the Northeast — that’s where I’m from (Connecticut)…

“Really the winning call was on that last pit stop, when (crew chief) Jeremy (Bullins) made an audible and decided to do two tires.”

Bullins made the decisive call after observing that Busch was taking four and that there were enough other cars taking two tires to form a buffer between Logano and Busch.

Bullins said he made the snap decision as his crew was dropping the jack on the right side of the car.

“We had to let the jack man run around, but, luckily for us, there was still enough room for us to let the jack man come around the front of the car, leave pit road and still come out with the lead,” Bullins said. “That was really the difference. It was late (making) the call, but that’s just the way it plays out, and a lot of times you have to make a split decision like that.”

Kasey Kahne was an integral part of the third caution, on Lap 113, when he made Mike Wallace pay for repeatedly holding him up by punting Wallace’s car off Turn 2. Kahne used the opportunity to grab the race lead, thanks to a two-tire call under the yellow on Lap 114.

Kahne held off Busch after the restart on Lap 121, but a quick caution a lap later — after Reed Sorenson’s Chevy stalled at the exit from pit road — gave Busch another shot at a restart on Lap 129. Busch cleared Kahne into Turn 1 on the restart lap and opened a lead of nearly one second.

But a caution for Dexter Stacey’s spinoff Turn 4 on Lap 161 turned the race upside-down.

Busch and Kahne took four tires on a Lap 163 pit stop under caution, while nine other lead-lap cars went with two-tire calls and came out ahead of Busch and Kahne, who restarted 10th and 11th, respectively.

Mired in traffic, Busch struggled to move forward, and Logano, who led the field to green on Lap 167, drove away.

Vickers, the 2003 Nationwide Series champion, mirrored Logano’s tire strategy on the final caution and left the track with the satisfaction of a runner-up finish — but with an unsated hunger for a victory.

“Today was a good run for us,” said Vickers, who is in his inaugural Nationwide season with Joe Gibbs Racing. “As much as I want to win, I can’t deny that. We’ve got to take those moments when they come. Starting with a new team, a new organization, a new crew chief, a new everything this year, it’s most certainly taken us a little bit of time, probably a little longer than we wanted to really get into the rhythm of things.”

Unsinkable Matt Kenseth capped a banner week for unsinkable Joe Gibbs Racing with a victory in Saturday night’s Bojangles’ Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway with a substitute crew chief on his pit box—the unsinkable Wally Brown.

The past four days could hardly have been better for JGR, with Wednesday bringing a substantial reduction in penalties on appeal for an engine infraction Apr, 21 at Kansas. On Friday, Gibbs cars ran 1-2-3 in the Nationwide Series race at Darlington, and the organization followed that Saturday with a 1-2 finish from Kenseth and Denny Hamlin in the 11th NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race of the season.

Kenseth took the lead from JGR teammate Kyle Busch on Lap 355 of 367 and pulled away to win by 3.155 seconds over Hamlin, as Busch faded to sixth. Hamlin also had much to celebrate in his first full race back from a compression fracture to his first lumbar vertebra, sustained during a last-lap crash at Fontana, Calif., in late March.

It was a race of significant numbers. Jeff Gordon finished third in his 700th Cup start, all consecutive. Jimmie Johnson ran fourth and extended his series lead to a massive 44 points over seventh-place finisher Carl Edwards. In a race that saw just four drivers pace the field, Kyle Busch led 265 laps but faded to sixth at the finish, thanks to a cut tire on the final 30-lap green-flag run.

Journeyman Brown won his first race as a Cup crew chief, after serving with four different drivers before his one-week shot on the pit box with Kenseth, who will get regular crew chief Jason Ratcliff back next week at Charlotte after Ratcliff’s six-race suspension for an underweight connecting rod was reduced to one event on appeal.

But the day belonged to Kenseth, whose resilience under trying circumstances was emblematic of the organization he joined this season.

“Honestly, I’ve only dreamed about winning the Southern 500,” said Kenseth, who notched his first victory at Darlington, his third of the season and the 27th of his career. “This to me probably feels bigger than any win in my career. I really feel bad that Jason isn’t here. This is obviously his team and his effort, but Wally did a great job filling in.

“We had a fifth- or sixth-place car, fighting loose, (and) those last two adjustments (on pit road) were just awesome.”

For Hamlin, second place was the best he could have hoped for, given the strength of Kenseth’s car in the closing laps.

“For me, we kept grinding away,” Hamlin said, clearly tired from the effort of his first race back at one of NASCAR racing’s most demanding tracks. “Pit crew picked us up some spots, obviously, throughout the night.

“It was one of those days where we got our car better, pit crew picked us up positions, took us to the most optimum spot we could get to—and that was second.”

From a physical standpoint, Hamlin admitted the race took its toll.

“Really, it’s just like starting your season over,” he said. “To start it back over at Darlington for 500 miles, there’s some muscles that have gotten weak. I’ve gotten pretty sore and tired, mentally tired as well. We’ll have a couple of weeks really to rest until the next long event (Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte), and we’ll be good to go then.”

A caution for Regan Smith’s spin off Turn 2 on Lap 302 of 367—only the second yellow of the race—interrupted a cycle of green-flag pit stops. After Juan Pablo Montoya took a free pass as the highest scored lap car, and Harvick availed himself of a wave-around, there were 11 cars on the lead lap for a restart on Lap 309.

By then, Kyle Busch had led 218 laps and had dominated the race ever since he wrested the lead from his brother, polesitter Kurt Busch on Lap 74. But the pit stops on Lap 303 put the lead-lap cars on the edge of their fuel windows.

They need not have worried. On Lap 311, Casey Mears tangled with Kurt Busch and reigning series champion Brad Keselowski off Turn 4 to cause the third caution. All but the top-four cars came to pit road for fuel under the yellow, leaving Kyle Busch, Kenseth, Kasey Kahne and Gordon out front on slightly older tires.

Johnson was first off pit road with new tires and quickly moved to third. Busch fended off a challenge from Kahne right after the restart and held a lead of .850 seconds when an accident involving David Reutimann and Josh Wise brought out the fourth caution and gave the lead-lappers a chance to pit for tires.

Kahne briefly took the lead after a restart on Lap 333, but one lap later, Kahne’s Chevy slapped the wall near the apex of Turns 1 and 2 and the race went yellow for the fifth time.

The result was the same. Busch pulled away after the restart and opened a comfortable advantage, this time over Kenseth, only to have Kenseth run him down and pass him on Lap 355.

The strategy was basic—win the pole, stay out front and win the race with the strongest car, and Busch did an admirable job in every category. He dusted the rest of the field at the venerable track in the South Carolina sandhills, pulling away to win the VFW Sport Clips Help a Hero 200 by .935 over Elliott Sadler, who recovered from an early spin to finish second.

Brian Vickers came home third, followed by Joey Logano and Matt Kenseth. With cars in first, second, third and fifth, Joe Gibbs Racing became the first organization to place four cars in the top five of a Nationwide Series race.

Rookie Kyle Larson ran sixth, followed by Regan Smith, who extended his series lead by 28 points over eighth-place finisher Sam Hornish Jr.

The victory was Busch’s fifth in eight NNS starts this season. Busch, who led 107 of 147 laps, extended his career win record in the series to 56. Busch scored a perfect Driver Rating of 150.0, his 16th perfect rating since NASCAR started keeping the statistic in 2005.

Busch won the race on a track that has started to regain the abrasive characteristic of the racing surface that was a hallmark of the Darlington before a repaving project in 2008. Realizing that, Busch insisted on a four-tire stop on lap 121, even though his tires were only eight laps old, and that move helped win the race.

Busch also was able to pull away from his rivals trough Turns 1 and 2, the wider end of the egg-shaped track.

“You want to be good at both ends here, but there’s a lot of speed in 1 and 2, so you’re going to have to take advantage of that as best you can,” Busch said. “Three and 4 is an end where—I’m not going to say slower is faster—but maintaining a minimum speed is faster down there.

“But it seems like it’s a little easier to do than not having a good-handling car in 1 and 2. There’s a littler margin of error in Turn 1 and 2.”

Sadler found that out the hard way when he spun in that corner while trying to keep up with Busch. Sadler explained that he simply misjudged the corner and got loose.

“I was pushing it, trying to keep up with the 54 (Busch),” Sadler said. “I wanted to get up there and try to lead some laps and just went in there too hard and got loose and had to make a decision whether to spin out or try to correct it, and I overcorrected and spun out.

“Lady Luck helped me from not hitting anything.”

About the only thing that could slow Busch’s progress was an issue on pit road. Busch came out sixth after a slow stop on Lap 51 under yellow for Sadler’s spin.

Charging forward after the restart, Busch was on Kenseth’s bumper, challenging for the lead by the time the race reached Lap 74, just past halfway.

For the next eight laps, Busch hounded Kenseth, finally clearing his teammate for the lead on Lap 82. Busch held the top spot until a caution on Lap 119 for Kyle Fowler’s wreck changed the running order again.

Logano and Austin Dillon stayed out on old tires and led the field to a Lap 125 restart. Sadler restarted third after a two-tire stop, while Busch took the green in fourth on four fresh tires.

Busch made short work of the drivers on older rubber and passed Logano for the lead on Lap 130. Game over.

One of the engines was going to be his primary engine in the Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond International Raceway. The other two were his primary and backup engines for the Aaron’s 499 at Talladega Superspeedway.

David Wilson, of TRD, said:

We took every connecting rod in our inventory and removed anything that was too close for comfort.

The review revealed that one connecting rod in each of the three recalled engines was too close to NASCAR thresholds for comfort.

According to reports, the connecting rod in Kenseth’s race-winning Toyota was outside of the tolerances the manufacturer allows on weight before it was shipped. TRD employees missed it, despite the fact that the connecting rod came with paperwork that clearly stated its weight.

Related Story

• No. 20 Team Penalized For Kansas Infraction
• Kenseth’s Racing-Winning Car Fails Inspection

NASCAR found the No. 20 violated Sections 12-1 (actions detrimental to stock car racing); 12-4J (any determination by NASCAR officials that the race equipment used in the event does not conform to NASCAR rules); and 20-5.5.3 (E) (Only magnetic steel connecting rods with a minimum weight of 525.0 grams will be permitted; connecting rod failed to meet the minimum connecting rod weight) of the 2013 NASCAR rule book.

As a result, crew chief Jason Ratcliff has been fined $200,000 and suspended for the next six NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship points events, including the Sprint All-Star Race. He has also been placed on probation until Dec. 31.

Car owner Joe Gibbs has been penalized with the loss of 50 championship car owner points; the first-place finish from the Kansas will not earn bonus points toward the accumulated aggregate car owner points total after the completion of the first 26 events of the current season and will not be credited towards the eligibility for a car owner Wild Card position. Gibbs’ license for the No. 20 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series car suspended for the next six championship points events, which means the car will not receive owner points during that period.

Driver Matt Kenseth was also penalized with the loss of 50 championship driver points; the Coors Light Pole award from Kansas will not be allowed for eligibility into the 2014 Sprint Unlimited; the first place finish from Kansas will not earn bonus points toward the accumulated aggregate driver points total after the completion of the first 26 events of the current season and will not be credited towards the eligibility for a driver Wild Card position.

NASCAR has also penalized the manufacturer with the loss of five manufacturer championship points.

Following the penalty, JGR issued a statement:

Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) is aware of the penalty issued by NASCAR today regarding the engine in our No. 20 car used in last week’s Sprint Cup Series race in Kansas. It is our understanding that one of the eight connecting rods on the engine was ruled too light. We are working with our partners at TRD on this issue. In the meantime we will plan to appeal the penalty.

Toyota Racing Development issued a statement:

During NASCAR’s routine post-race tear down of Matt Kenseth’s race-winning car and engine from Kansas Speedway, one of our engine connecting rods weighed in approximately three grams under the legal minimum weight of 525 grams. None of the other seven connecting rods were found to be under the minimum weight. We take full responsibility for this issue with the engine used by the #20 Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) team this past Sunday in Kansas — JGR is not involved in the process of selecting parts or assembling the Cup Series engines. It was a simple oversight on TRD’s part and there was no intent to deceive, or to gain any type of competitive advantage. … The goal of TRD has always been — and will continue to be — to build high-performance engines that are reliable, durable and powerful, and within the guidelines established by NASCAR.

Update: Matt Kenseth spoke with the media regarding the penalty. He said:

I think the penalties are grossly unfair. I think it’s borderline shameful. There’s no argument the part was wrong. They weighed it and it was wrong. However, there is an argument that there certainly was no performance advantage. If you can find any unbiased, reputable, knowledgeable engine-builder and if they saw the facts, what all the rods weighed. The average weight of all the rods was well above the minimum — 2.5 (grams) above the minimum at least. There was one in there that was way heavy. There was no performance advantage, there was no intent, it was a mistake. JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing) had no control over it.

Update 2: Joe Gibbs Racing appealed the penalties. After hearing testimony, the National Stock Car Racing Appeals Panel amended the original penalties assessed by NASCAR. Crew chief Jason Ratcliff’s suspension was reduced to one Sprint Cup Series championship event. He will be on probation for the next three championship events following his reinstatement.

Joe Gibbs and Matt Kenseth had their points penalties reduced to 12 from 50. All other components of their penalties were rescinded.

Toyota had their manufacturer’s points penalty increased from the loss of five points to the loss of seven.

Related Story

• Kenseth’s Racing-Winning Car Fails Inspection

The engine of the No. 20 contained a connecting rod that did not meet NASCAR’s weight minimum. Toyota Racing Development provides engines for JGR.

It is standard procedure to take the race-winning engine to the R&D center for a thorough inspection.

NASCAR is currently mulling penalties for the No. 20 team.

If you looked at statistics alone, you’d say that Kenseth dominated Sunday at Kansas Speedway in the eighth NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race of the season. After all, Kenseth won the event from the pole and led 163 of the 267 laps.

In reality, Kenseth prevailed in a race of extraordinary strategic complexity, with divergent approaches shuffling and reshuffling the running order until an opportune caution on Lap 218 put Kenseth back in the lead at just the right time.

Nonetheless, it took all of Kenseth’s consummate skill to hold off fast-closing Kasey Kahne, who narrowed what had been a lead of more than one second to .151 seconds at the finish. Jimmie Johnson ran third, followed by Martin Truex Jr. and Clint Bowyer.

The victory was Kenseth’s second at Kansas, his second of the season and the 26th of his career. The driver of the No. 20 Toyota has won both races at Kansas since the track was repaved last year.

“It was kind of like musical chairs,” Kenseth said. “You had to be out front when the music stopped. Our car was very fast in clean air. It was reasonable in dirty air, but it wasn’t quite good enough to catch all them guys and pass ‘em (in traffic).

“Thankfully, I had a couple of really crazy-good restarts for some reason and made up some ground and got us back in position.”

Kahne started 27th, but the speed in his No. 5 Chevrolet SS belied the qualifying effort. Kahne’s crew tightened up the handling of his car for the final run, but not quite enough. There was a sense of déjà vu for Kahne, who chased Kenseth to the finish line March 10 at Las Vegas.

“We were very close at the end, battling with Matt,” Kahne said. “Felt like Vegas all over again, just kind of felt like really similar to that in how I could catch him but couldn’t really do anything once I got close. It made my car a little bit looser. So I tried a few things there, and he kind of blocked those spots and went those directions and gained the speed that I (had), and then we were even again.

“It was tough, but we still had a great race.”

Defending Cup champion Brad Keselowski came home sixth, despite sustaining heavy damage to his rear bumper when the field checked up on the first lap.

That damage had far-reaching effects — so much so that it changed the complexion of the race on Lap 218. The rear bumper cover from Keselowski’s No. 2 Ford dislodged, causing the eighth caution — right after Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Dale Earnhardt Jr., Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle had made green-flag pit stops.

But since all lead-lap cars came to pit road under the yellow, those four drivers were able to regain the lead lap through wave-arounds. Kenseth led the field to the restart on Lap 225, with Truex beside him and Hendrick teammates Johnson and Kahne on the second row.

Kenseth pulled away after the restart, and Kahne charged into the second spot. On Lap 236, Johnson passed Truex for the third position. That’s the order in which they ran to the finish.

With his third-place finish, Johnson opened a 37-point lead in the Cup standings over second-place Kahne, who gained five spots. Johnson is 38 points ahead of Keselowski in third.

Keselowski position in the standings reflects a 25-point penalty levied after the Apr. 13 race at Texas, where NASCAR confiscated the rear axle housings of both Penske Racing cars and subsequently levied penalties on the organization. Penske has appealed, but Keselowski won’t regain the 25 points unless the appeal is upheld.

Note: For the third straight race, a driver won from the pole. The last time that happened was 1985 (Bill Elliott at Michigan, Dale Earnhardt at Bristol and Elliott at Darlington).

Kenseth held off Kasey Kahne in a 26-lap green-flag run to the finish Sunday to win the Kobalt Tools 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

In winning the 25th NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race of his career, Kenseth, who turned 41 Sunday, became the third driver in series history to win on his birthday, joining Cale Yarborough and Kyle Busch in that exclusive club.

Kenseth crossed the finish line .594 seconds ahead of Kahne, who led a race-high 114 laps. Defending series champion Brad Keselowski ran third, followed by Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards. Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Martin Truex Jr., Kevin Harvick and Paul Menard completed the top 10.

Johnson leaves Las Vegas as the series leader, five points ahead of Keselowski and 10 ahead of third-place Earnhardt.

The victory was Kenseth’s first in the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota Camry after an offseason move from Roush Fenway Racing. It was also Toyota’s 50th triumph in the Cup series.

“I’m not a goal person, but my goal was to win and win early,” said Kenseth, who visited Victory Lane in his third strat with JGR. “Nobody put any pressure on me except for myself, but I also know that Coach (Joe Gibbs) hired me to come here and climb in the car and win races. You certainly want to do that—you don’t want to disappoint people…

“It’s still only week three, but I feel like this is the beginning.”

Both Busch and Keselowski overcame issues on pit road to post their top-five finishes—Busch an early speeding penalty and Keselowski a dropped lug nut that cost him 10 positions during pit stops under caution on Lap 161.

The rally from the mistake left Keselowski ambivalent about the result. He was happy with the third-place finish but felt his car was capable of more.

“Yeah, I want to win,” said Keselowski who finished fourth in the first two events of the season, at Daytona and Phoenix. “It’s a different perspective, because I’m not happy with top 5s–I want to win. The last three weeks, really the last two weeks–and I’m sure when I get home tonight I’m going to go home and throw around some pillows and punch some things–because we’ve had a shot at winning all three races and come up short, whether it’s circumstances or bad luck or, today, just a little bit of execution.

“In retrospect, once you get a day to cool off from it, you say, ‘Wow, that’s really good, three top 5s; that’s how I’d have wanted to start the year.’  But with the way I finished last year, I wanted to win. I wanted to win all three of these races, and I’m not happy unless we can do that.”

Kahne said Kenseth raced mistake-free in the closing run, despite having older tires.

“I was like, ‘Man, this is not the guy you want to have to race with 10 to go because, he’s going to do everything right,’” Kahne said. “You’re going to have to figure out how to squeeze by him. And you know he had a fast car, too, so it was difficult.

“He did a perfect job, and we came back second, but still a good run. I think we were seventh maybe after that one restart (actually sixth for a restart on Lap 231) and fought back to second, so we had a great car, did everything right. We just didn’t quite get there.”

Kahne had opened a lead of more than two seconds over Johnson when the engine in Travis Kvapil’s Toyota exploded in Turn 4, trailing smoke and dropping oil on the track.

During pit stops under caution on Lap 226 of 267, Kenseth and Keselowski opted for fuel only and left pit road 1-2, with Johnson, Edwards, Earnhardt and Kahne—all of whom took two tires—trailing behind them.

Kahne lost five spots in the pits after his egress from his pit stall was blocked by Tony Stewart, who had to slow down on the way to his pit box to avoid Kenseth, who was leaving after the fuel-only stop.

Kahne got two spots back after the restart on Lap 231, but his progress was interrupted on Lap 235 when Ryan Newman’s Chevrolet blew its engine on Lap 235.

After the subsequent yellow, Kahne restarted fourth on Lap 242. Kenseth kept the No. 5 Chevrolet at bay the rest of the way.

The victory was the 61st of Johnson’s career in his 400th start in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and his second win in NASCAR’s most prestigious race.

Earnhardt finished second for the third time in the last four Daytona 500s. Mark Martin ran third, followed by defending series champion Brad Keselowski and Ryan Newman. Greg Biffle ran sixth and Regan Smith seventh.

Polesitter Danica Patrick came home eighth, the best-ever finish by a woman in the Daytona 500.

With tandem racing all but absent in the points race for the new Gen-6 race cars, passing was difficult and track position paramount.

“You can’t ride and wait for things to happen,” Johnson said. “You have to race all day long and fight for track position. This race car, this Lowe’s Chevrolet was so good. (Crew chief) Chad Knaus and all of Hendrick Motorsports had me a fast car, and I could really stay up front all day long. I had a lot of confidence in the final few laps leading the train, (because) I knew just how fast the car was.”

Earnhardt got a strong push from Martin on the last lap, but couldn’t catch Johnson off the final corner.

“I couldn’t have done much without Mark helping me here at the end,” said Earnhardt, who was fourth at the white flag. “I was hoping he was thinking what I was thinking as we come off of Turn 2 on that last lap. I felt like we needed to make the move a little earlier than off (Turn) 4.

“I kept backing up, backing up, trying not to let guys get racing behind us too much. If somebody ducked out of line a couple rows behind Mark, I was going to have a gap, (and) me and Mark could take off, not get hung up with those guys. Once we come off of 2, mashed the gas, got a run on Danica, side-drafted her a little bit.

“I don’t know why them guys didn’t pull down in front of me besides Jimmie, but we got through 3 and 4 with a pretty good run. Once we come to Turn 4, we kind of run out of steam, didn’t have enough to get a run on Jimmie.”

After a restart on Lap 182, following the fifth caution of the race for Jeff Burton’s hard contact with the outside wall at the entrance to the tri-oval, Keselowski and Johnson ran side-by-side at the front of the pack, trading the lead as their respective lanes gained momentum.

A caution for debris on Lap 192 set up the six-lap dash to the finish with Johnson in the lead in the outside lane.

Patrick made history when she led the field to green from the pole position. On Lap 90, she reached another milestone. Surging to the lead after a restart, she paced the field on Laps 90 and 91, and, in doing so, became the first female driver to lead a lap in the Daytona 500 and the first female to lead a green-flag Lap in the Cup series.

(Janet Guthrie led Laps 43 through 47 under caution in the Nov. 20, 1977, Los Angeles Times 500 at Ontario Motor Speedway, the only five laps she led in 33 career Cup starts.)

Later in the race, Patrick led three more laps, for a total of five, to tie Guthrie’s five.

Despite the success, Patrick was reluctant to reset expectations for her rookie season in the Cup series.

“I think that would be unwise to sort of start telling myself that top 10 is where we need to be every week,” said Patrick, who was third with one lap left but fell to eighth in the last-lap scramble. “I think that’s setting up for failure. The list of drivers in the Cup series is deep. This is a unique track. These (restrictor-plate) tracks are different and unique. (It’s) a lot about the car.

“I mean, you have to be smart enough to do the right thing at the right time, but it’s very much about the car. I feel like I’m still sticking to ‘Let’s see how these first five races go,’ where we go to a bunch of different kinds of tracks, see where we settle in, start to establish goals from there on out.”

The Toyota Camrys of Joe Gibbs Racing were running 1-2-3 as the race neared the three-quarter mark, with Matt Kenseth pacing Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch. On Lap 150, however, Kenseth, who led four times for a race-high 86 laps, brought his car to pit road, having felt a vibration in the drive train. Busch parked his car two laps later, with a blown engine.

That left Hamlin at the point as the field ran single-file behind him, in a lull before the late-race pyrotechnics.

A nine-car accident on Lap 138, thinned an already depleted field. With most cars running single-file around the top of the track, Keselowski tapped David Reutimann and dropped abruptly to the apron in Turn 1.

That triggered a melee as cars checked up behind Keselowski. Carl Edwards was a victim of the accident, as ill fortune at Daytona continued to haunt the driver who already had wrecked four cars at Daytona this year.

Other casualties included 2011 Daytona 500 winner Trevor Bayne and Ricky Stenhouse Jr., making his first start as a full-time Cup driver in the No. 17 Roush Fenway Racing Ford Fusion.

The first major wreck of the race — on Lap 33 as the double-file lead pack of cars exited the tri-oval — dashed the hopes of former Daytona 500 winners Kevin Harvick and Jamie McMurray, as well as those of pre-race favorites Tony Stewart and Kasey Kahne.

As the field stacked up toward Turn 1, Kyle Busch tagged the back of Kahne’s car, turning Kahne into Juan Pablo Montoya’s Chevrolet SS and igniting a nine-car incident that also damaged the cars of Keselowski, Kurt Busch and Casey Mears.

Keselowski suffered damage to the both sides of his Ford, pinballing off both Montoya and Harvick, but was able to continue. Kurt Busch lost a lap on pit road with the nose of his Chevy caved in from contact during the wreck. Casey Mears, who had qualified 17th, also sustained significant damage.

Note: Other drivers who have won their 400th Cup starts include Lee Petty, Richard Petty, David Pearson, Dave Marci’s and Dale Earnhardt.

Harvick passed Trevor Bayne on lap 37 to take the lead of Duel 1. He led the remaining 23 laps.

Danica Patrick, who will start the 500 from the pole, played it safe and dropped to the back early on to ensure her car would not sustain damage.

Greg Biffle, Juan Pablo Montoya, Jimmie Johnson, and Kurt Busch rounded out the top 5 of Duel 1.

The first duel was relatively uneventful until lap 52 when Denny Hamlin appeared to get loose and bumped Carl Edwards.  Edwards was turned into the wall triggering a multi-car accident that damaged the cars of Hamlin, Edwards, Trevor Bayne, and Regan Smith.

Kyle Busch used a fuel-only pit stop at lap 41 to take the lead coming off pit road. He ran most of the remaining laps with teammate Matt Kenseth behind him. But, with two laps to go, Kasey Kahne and Austin Dillon were able to pass Kenseth. They couldn’t mount a charge to pass Busch, though.

Busch said after the race that the original plan was to take two tires, but his crew chief made the call to go fuel-only.

Kahne, Dillon, Clint Bowyer, and Kenseth finished second through fifth, respectively.

Jeff Gordon, who will start the 500 on the front row, led the first 40 laps of Duel 2, before a pass-through penalty for speeding on pit road ended his chances of winning the duel.

Martin Truex Jr, who ran in the lead pack for most of Duel 2, was black-flagged for losing a side window. He finished 19th. Mike Bliss also had to make a pit stop to fix his window net, which came down. That cost him a chance at making the Daytona 500. Brian Keselowski was the only other driver who did not qualify for the race.