Four years after being diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes and told he would never race again, Ryan Reed is now a winner in the NASCAR Xfinity Series.
Even better, his first win has come on NASCAR’s biggest stage.
Reed blew by Brad Keselowski on the final lap and then held off Roush Fenway Racing teammate Chris Buescher to win the season-opening Alert Today Florida 300 at Daytona International Speedway. It’s not only Reed’s first career Xfinity win, but also the first Xfinity win ever for the Roush team at the “World Center of Racing.”
A wild final lap started with Brad Keselowski leading the way. Then, going into Turn 1, Kyle Larson charged on the outside but appeared to be tapped from behind by Aric Almirola and was sent spinning into Ross Chastain.
While Larson and Chastain went into the grass, Keselowski got out to a big lead - but became a sitting duck for it. Reed was pushed down the backstretch by Buescher, enabling Reed to pass Keselowski on the inside of Turn 3 while Buescher got around Keselowski in Turn 4.
Buescher then moved inside to try and reel in Reed, but ran out of time.
“Oh my God, we’ve won Daytona!,” Reed exclaimed in Victory Lane to Fox Sports 1. “This is not only for me and my family, but every kid that gets diagnosed with diabetes - or anything that says you can’t do something. Just go out there, overcome it, win it, and do the best you can.
“We got shuffled back there with like three to go and I was like, ‘Alright, our race is done - just salvage.’ And when the wreck broke out on the last lap, Keselowski was left on an island. We got a massive run and we set it up for a victory.”
As for Keselowski, he said that something happened with Almirola exiting Turn 2 to cause the gap on the final lap.
“I couldn’t react fast enough to that to try and stay with the field,” Keselowski said. “I drove away from them and they went rubber band on us. The 16 [Reed] and the 60 [Buescher] got a great run with some really smart drafting and flung by us. That was just the way the cards were dealt.”
Almirola would later confirm that he suffered a tire rub following the Larson contact and then lost his right-rear tire.
Brothers Ty and Austin Dillon finished third and fourth respectively, while Keselowski fell back to fifth at the finish. David Starr, Almirola, Larson, Chastain, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. completed the Top 10.
The first 80 laps of the race ran caution free, but things soon turned dicey with two major crashes in the final third of the 120-lap event.
With 27 laps remaining, contact between Larson and the lapped car of rookie Daniel Suarez sent the latter spinning into defending race winner Regan Smith. Smith was flipped over before landing right-side up and took hits from Scott Lagasse Jr. and Brendan Gaughan before coming to a stop (Smith would walk away under his own power). More than 10 cars were involved in the incident.
Then with less than 10 laps to go, another Big One ensued coming out of the tri-oval when Kyle Busch made contact with his Camping World Truck Series driver Erik Jones. Jones spun out, and Busch then bounced off Larson’s machine before going hard left and smashing into an inside retaining wall.
Busch climbed out of his car but then went to the grass where he was tended to by medical teams. After being put on a stretcher with a protective sleeve over his right leg, an awake and alert Busch was taken via ambulance to Halifax Medical Center for further evaluation.
Busch has since been ruled out of tomorrow’s Daytona 500 after suffering a injury to that right leg. When we have more details on his condition, we will pass it along to you.
NASCAR Xfinity Series - Alert Today Florida 300 at Daytona
Unofficial Results
1. Ryan Reed ... 120 laps ... $128,770
2. Chris Buescher ... 120 laps ... $101,035
3. Ty Dillon ... 120 laps ... $82,710
4. Austin Dillon ... 120 laps ... $74,735
5. Brad Keselowski ... 120 laps ... $64,245
6. David Starr ... 120 laps ... $67,520
7. Aric Almirola ... 120 laps ... $57,820
8. Kyle Larson ... 120 laps ... $57,745
9. Ross Chastain ... 120 laps ... $61,495
10. Dale Earnhardt Jr. ... 119 laps ... $55,445
11. Dakoda Armstrong ... 119 laps ... $59,445
12. Darrell Wallace Jr. ... 119 laps .. $59,070
13. Mike Wallace ... 119 laps ... $52,595
14. Jeremy Clements ... 118 laps ... $58,270
15. Mario Gosselin ... 118 laps ... $58,570
16. Jeffrey Earnhardt ... 118 laps ... $57,670
17. Eric McClure ... 116 laps ... $57,420
18. Erik Jones ... 116 laps ... $57,295
19. Elliott Sadler ... 116 laps ... $57,145
20. Blake Koch ... 115 laps... $57,520
21. Chris Cockrum ... 115 laps ... $56,895
22. Derek White ... 115 laps ... $56,765
23. Josh Reaume ... 115 laps ... $50,590
24. Mike Harmon ... 114 laps ... $56,465
25. Brian Scott ... 112 laps ... $56,465
26. Kyle Busch ... 111 laps ... $52,690 ... Accident
27. J.J. Yeley ... 111 laps ... $56,090 ... Accident
28. Chase Elliott ... 111 laps ... $56,990 ... Accident
29. Brendan Gaughan ... 110 laps ... $55,990 ... Accident
30. Cale Conley ... 110 laps ... $56,065
31. Landon Cassill ... 108 laps ... $55,590
32. Joey Gase ... 107 laps ... $55,495
33. John Wes Townley ... 106 laps ... $55,445
34. Justin Marks ... 93 laps ... $55,640 ... Accident
35. Regan Smith ... 93 laps ... $55,224 ... Accident
36. Chad Boat ... 92 laps ... $45,650 ... Accident
37. Scott Lagasse, Jr. ... 92 laps ... $50,500 ... Accident
38. Ryan Sieg ... 92 laps ... $49,500 ... Accident
39. Daniel Suarez ... 91 laps ... $48,500 ... Accident
40. Dexter Bean ... 5 laps ... $41,500 ... Fuel Pump
Time of race: 2 hours, 0 minutes, 59 seconds.
Margin of victory: 0.089 seconds
Average speed: 148.781 mph
Cautions: 4 for 17 laps
Lead Changes: 24 among 9 drivers
Laps Led: Busch 27, Wallace 18, Ty Dillon 16, Smith 15, Reed 14, Keselowski 13, Buescher 12, Larson 4, Austin Dillon 1.