Ryan Reed's daring move in overtime wins him the Xfinity Powershares QQQ 300

Reed held off three Cup regulars to win his second Xfinity race in three years at Daytona International Speedway despite Elliott Sadler having the dominant car all day.

For other sports that are worried about the pace of play, maybe NASCAR should look into this new segment thing. Before the completion of the first one in the Xfinity Series 36th Annual Powershares QQQ 300 on Saturday, there was a pair of major wrecks that stopped the action dead on the track.

The chase for points could have inadvertently created the potential for more early race incidents in the future where being patient gets thrown out the window. Last year’s series champion Daniel Suarez may have put his finger on why things seemed to get out of hand as quickly as it did.

“I feel like we were racing too hard,” he said, after being taken out in one of those wrecks. “It’s too early. I feel like we have to be a little bit smarter than that.”

Despite all the initial mayhem and a late wreck, there was still some great racing in the Xfinity opener, and it would come down to the first green-white-checkered overtime of the season. Despite some Cup regulars trying to run him down, Ryan Reed scored his second Daytona victory in three years even with a banged up car.

“I’ve had so many people come up and tell me how amazing my first win (Daytona) was,” Reed said after the race. “A lot of people know that I have Type 1 Diabetes and to see what (that) win meant to so many people drove me to get back to victory lane. These guys right here (crew members), so many of them were with me last year, a lot of new guys. Having Lilly Diabetes stay with us, our fourth year, that’s something that a lot of people can’t say that they have the privilege to do. Thank you to them.

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“What an amazing sponsor. Ford, Jack (Roush) American Diabetes Association, stood by me when things weren’t the greatest. But the end last year I said that we were going to go to Speedweeks and here we are. We’re locked into the Chase. I hope everyone at home watched it on their Xfinity X1. That right there was fun.”

Reed, in the No. 16 Lilly Diabetes Ford for Roush Fenway Racing, was dominant in overtime and made a brilliant block of Kasey Kahne on the backstretch to secure the win. What made it so impressive is that he held off Kahne, Austin Dillon, and Keselowski. The next Xfinity regular was Brendan Gaughan who scored a top 5.

“We had a good car,” said Kahne. “Just gave up the lead there with about six to go, and then came ‑‑ the restart got a little bit bottled up there. I think the 3 (Austin Dillon) was out of gas. So we all got split up, and there just really wasn’t a lot of momentum anywhere, so we ended up second. But still a good performance for our team, and guys did a nice job. 16 (Reed) did a good job of holding everybody off.”

The first big wreck came on Lap 23 out of turn 2 when Scott Lagasse Jr, tapped Tyler Roddick, sending him into the wall. It involved numerous cars including Austin Dillon and Brad Keselowski.

Cole Custer, who was making his first start for Stewart-Haas Racing’s inaugural Xfinity effort, was taken out plus some others who had a shot at winning like Michael Annett, and Ryan Reed. That would bring out the first of two red flags before the conclusion of the first segment.

“It looks like we got collected there,” said Custer. “I saw the 42 (Reddick) get turned and I think we just tried to make our way through, but there was nowhere to go. It’s a shame because we had a really good Haas Automation Ford Mustang.”

It didn’t take long for another big one to be triggered; Daniel Hemric slid up the track and clipped Justin Allgaier who took out polesitter Brandon Jones with just one lap before the new green checkered flag was to signal the end of Stage 1. Both Allgaier and Jones had hard hits to the outside wall. Darrell Wallace Jr. and Daniel Suarez also suffered damage not to mention all the cars behind the accident that spun into the grass.

“I think the 7 (Allgaier) got turned by somebody and I saw Erik didn’t lift, so I didn’t lift and we were trying to go through the middle, and I think me and Daniel collided there. It was just unfortunate circumstances that put us there. We probably looked like a boy band group walking out all together, but I just hate it for my guys.”

Just 29 laps into a 120-lap event, there were only 13 of the 40 cars who started who were not involved in an accident: Elliott Sadler, Ty Dillon, Ross Chastain, Matt Tifft, Chris Cockrum, Dakoda Armstrong, Benny Gordon, Brennan Poole, Joey Gase, Brendan Gaughan, Joey Gase, Kasey Kahne, Mario Gosselin and David Starr.

Stage 2 was uneventful until the final lap (29/30) when Brad Keselowski turned Brennan Poole into Blake Koch to bring out the seventh caution of the day.

The third “big one” was the most costly because it came with just 1y laps to go and took out a lot of contenders who were running up front. Elliott Sadler, who won the first two stages, was running second when cars started flying all over the Daytona track.

Austin Dillon hit Sadler from behind who hit the outside wall before grazing Keselowski on the inside. As many as ten other cars were hitting each other or sent into the grass. That would put Kasey Kahne on point with another Cup regular, Brad Keselowski alongside at the restart with just 11 laps left.

A 10th yellow flag flew with three to go with a pair of cars, Ray Black Jr. and William Byron, taking a trip through the grass and Michael Annett scraping the wall, all adding to the damage they had absorbed from previous encounters.

Next: NASCAR issues new concussion protocols

By the time the track was cleaned up, it was overtime and Reed could call himself a two-time winner at the World Center of Racing.

STAGE 1 (Lap 30) Top 5:
Elliott Sadler, Kasey Kahne, Brennan Poole, Ty Dillon, Blake Koch.

STAGE 2 (Lap 60) Top 5:
Elliott Sadler, Austin Dillon, Ty Dillon, Ryan Reed, Brad Keselowski

STAGE 3 (Winner – Lap 120):
Ryan Reed

PIT NOTES:
Austin Dillon lost a set of race tires due to NASCAR finding the team had used some cleaning solution on the sidewalls before qualifying, which is illegal.

Jeff Green made his 450^th career Xfinity start which ranks fourth all-time behind Kenny Wallace (547), Jason Keller (520) and Mike Wallace (494). It was also his 24^th Daytona start tying him for fourth with Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kenny Wallace.

POWERSHARES QQQ 300 FINAL RESULTS:
1 – Ryan Reed
2 – Kasey Kahne
3 – Austin Dillon
4 – Brad Keselowski
5 – Brendan Gaughan
6 – Scott Lagasse Jr.
7 – Joey Gase
8 – Garrett Smithley
9 – William Byron
10 – Harrison Rhodes
11 – Matt Tifft
12 – Dakoda Armstrong
13 – Brandon Hightower
14 – Michael Annett
15 – Blake Koch
16 – Ross Chastain
17 – Mario Gosselin
18 – Ray Black Jr.
19 – Ty Dillon
20 – Tyler Reddick
21 – Ryan Sieg
22 – Anthony Kumpen
23 – Aric Almirola
24 – Elliott Sadler
25 – JJ Yeley
26 – Brennan Poole
27 – Benny Gordon
28 – Chris Cockrum
29 – Brandon Jones
30 – Justin Allgaier
31 – Daniel Hemric
32 – Erik Jones
33 – Darrell Wallace Jr.
34 – Daniel Suarez
35 – Jeremy Clements
36 – Spencer Gallagher
37 – Cole Custer
38 – Clint King
39 – Jeff Green
40 – David Starr

BOLD: Denotes Rookie

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Ryan Reed’s daring move in overtime wins him the Xfinity Powershares QQQ 300

By Ted Fleming | Feb 25, 2017

Reed held off three Cup regulars to win his second Xfinity race in three years at Daytona International Speedway despite Elliott Sadler having the dominant car all day.