By Reid Spencer
NASCAR Wire Service
Feb. 18, 2012
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla .—- Kyle Busch rallied from two near-disasters to win Saturday’s Budweiser Shootout at Daytona International Speedway with a slingshot move past Tony Stewart a few yards from the finish line at Daytona International Speedway.
The victory was Busch’s first in the season-opening exhibition race contested in two segments of 25 and 50 laps. His winning margin over Stewart was .013 seconds.
Marcos Ambrose recovered from a pair of wrecks to finish third, followed by Brad Keselowski and Denny Hamlin.
Stewart had just taken the lead on Lap 74 of a scheduled 75 when a violent wreck in Turn 4 sent Jeff Gordon’s No. 24 Chevrolet barrel-rolling through Turn 4 and sliding on its roof toward the entrance to Turn 4.
Gordon was following Kyle Busch on the backstretch, and contact between the cars turned Busch’s toward onto the apron. Busch made a dramatic save for the second time in the race, but Gordon slid up the track into the Chevrolets of Kurt Busch and Jamie McMurray.
As all three cars contacted the outside wall, Jimmie Johnson’s Chevrolet nosed beneath the right rear bumper of Gordon’s car and turned it upside down.
The wreck left 11 cars on the lead lap and sent the race to overtime.
A close call for Kyle Busch on Lap 48 strung the field out, leaving a 10-car pack fighting for the lead. Busch's Toyota twice turned sideways off the bumper of Johnson, and twice Busch saved the car from calamity despite running onto the apron in Turn 2.
The complexion of the race changed dramatically on Lap 55, when a chain-reaction wreck that started with contact between the cars of polesitter Martin Truex Jr., Ambrose and Joey Logano clobbered those three vehicles and eliminated Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kevin Harvick and Matt Kenseth.
The resulting fourth caution of the race bunched the field for a restart on Lap 62, with Greg Biffle in the lead, followed by Hendrick Motorsports teammates Gordon and Johnson and reigning NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Stewart.
The race was barely eight laps old when contact from David Ragan's Ford turned Paul Menard's Chevrolet and ignited a multicar wreck that also damaged the cars of Kasey Kahne, Denny Hamlin, Matt Kenseth, Juan Pablo Montoya, Michael Waltrip, Jeff Burton and Gordon.
Earnhardt, who had led the first three laps, had just regained the top spot on Lap 8 and was out in front when the wreck erupted behind him. The crash sidelined Menard, Ragan and Waltrip and knocked Hamlin and Kahne off the lead lap. Burton also fell of the lead lap during the first 25-lap segment when he pitted under green with a cut tire.
"Everybody was real racy and I just got into the back of Menard," Ragan said after exiting his car. "You get a good run, and you're pushing a little bit, and I guess he was pushing whoever was in front of him. And when you've got the meat in between the sandwich, you usually get wrecked."
McMurray was at the front of the field when NASCAR called the competition caution after Lap 25. Gordon, undeterred by minor damage to his car, was second, followed by Harvick, Kyle Busch and Ambrose.
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