PowerShares QQQ 300: Two ‘Big One’ crashes happen during stage one

The PowerShares QQQ 300 was halted twice during the first stage at Daytona International Speedway as a result of “Big One” crashes.

On the heels of multiple major crashes during Friday’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race, the PowerShares QQQ 300 got off to an eventful start. 25 laps into the first stage of the race, the red flag was brought out. A few laps later another notorious “Big One” crash occurred at Daytona International Speedway within five laps on Saturday.

As shown below, 18 cars were unofficially involved in the first big crash of the XFINITY Series season. NASCAR’s new five-minute rule when it comes to repairs caused the minorly damaged cars to fix the cars as soon as possible. Many of the cars were sent back out under the five-minute limit.

After the race resumed, drivers weren’t able to enjoy a green car for long. Nine more cars were involved in a “Big One” crash. Another mistake by a young driver led to the major crash at Daytona.

With the stage about to end, critical points were up for grabs as the drivers aggressively competed for the lead. In the end, Elliott Sadler won Stage One after the second red flag delay. He earns 10 championship points and one playoff point.

The XFINITY Series has drivers who also compete in the Truck Series and the Monster Energy Series, which provides some different levels of competition between the two groups. Likewise, this is the first race of the season. The drivers and crews are still rusty so a larger amount of mistakes than usual are made at Daytona.

Daytona punishes drivers enough as the cars speed around the 2.5-mile long track. On top of that, cars often go three wide and attain some of the top speeds of the year at Daytona. This leads to more bumping and touching as the cars are in especially close confines. Drivers don’t have much time to react to what is in front of them. When a driver spins out another car, it can easily lead to a major crash on the track.

So far, 27 cars have been involved in a crash at Daytona. The first stage of the race isn’t even over yet. Hopefully, the last two stages can have more laps under green and less time under the red flag. Fortunately, no driver was majorly injured due to either crash as far as fans have heard during the coverage.

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However, there’s going to be even more drama before this race is even over. Don’t be shocked if a car with some tape and damage to it wins this race. There’s a chance this race could finish under the lights and NASCAR fans should extend their DVR’s in order to record the entire race.