Fittingly, the driver who put on the most spectacular show also won the race.
"I don't know how many times I spun out and didn't spin out," Kyle Busch said. "Amazing race. It was fun to drive when I wasn't getting turned around."
MORE: Helton: Penalties likely for No. 48 team
RESULTS: Bud Shootout, 1 through 25
PHOTOS: Who to watch in the Daytona 500
Busch passed Tony Stewart off the final corner to win Saturday's Budweiser Shootout by 0.013 seconds, the closest finish in the history of the exhibition event that effectively starts the Sprint Cup season as a warm-up to the Daytona 500 on Feb. 26.
The debut of NASCAR's new rules was a smashing success, eliminating the two-car tandems (which were reviled by many fans and some drivers) but also taking out virtually half the field in three multicar wrecks. Only 10 of 25 drivers finished on the lead lap.
Busch had to overcome plenty of adversity, getting spun by Jeff Gordon on lap 74 in the scariest of the big crashes (Gordon walked away unscathed after his No. 24 Chevrolet flipped several times and landed on its roof). After repairing his No. 18 Toyota, Busch charged from eighth to first in the final two laps of an overtime green-white-checkered finish.
But Busch's most impressive move came midway through the race, which was extended seven laps beyond the scheduled 75-lap distance. Busch was coming down the banking in Turn 2 when he collided with Jimmie Johnson's No. 48 Chevrolet. The contact turned Busch's No. 18 Camry onto the apron twice, as Busch worked furiously to regain control without correcting.
"The first time might have been luck," said Busch, who delivered Toyota its first win in the Shootout. "I'm going to say the second time was all skill. I was steering, stabbing, braking, gassing, everything in between, trying to keep the thing straight, get it back under control."
Though he might have "scared everyone half to death, including me," Busch also impressed Stewart, who had a front-row seat for all the sparks scattering in the windshield of his trailing No. 14 Chevy.
"He had to catch it three times before he saved it," Stewart said. "There's a lot of guys that wouldn't have caught that. I'm like, 'Man, that's the coolest save I've seen in a long time.' "
The racing also was as good as the defending Cup champion had witnessed in quite a while at the 2.5-mile oval, where restrictor plates are used to choke down horsepower and keep speeds reasonable.
Until three years ago at Daytona and Talladega Superspeedway, the plates kept cars bunched together in large packs inches apart at nearly 200 mph. But the repaving of both tracks and the improvement of cooling systems led to the prevalence of two-car trains last season, making drivers dependent on a partner in order to contend.
That bothered many such as the three-time champion, who said he grew bored with "staring at a back spoiler for 500 miles" as the pushing car in a two-car train.
NASCAR modified cooling systems so that drivers would risk overheating their engines by hooking up and also banned in-race communication between teams.
The changes seemed to work as the tandems that had been prevalent last season disappeared.
"I actually had fun racing at Daytona again, which I haven't had for a while," Stewart said. "I don't know what the consensus is from everybody else, but I had more fun as a driver tonight than what we've had in the past.
"This is a lot more fun than the two-car stuff was. I still like the (non-restrictor plate) races better where we can literally control our own destiny, but this is by far a lot better than what we had with the two-car stuff. ? We had control of what lane we got to run in. We got to move whenever we wanted. You didn't have to not move because you had a guy behind you that you had to rely on. We had more control as drivers."
But the packs also returned with the multicar pileups that were emblematic of past pack racing.
Several big names with strong cars were eliminated from contention on lap 55 when Joey Logano's Toyota wiggled in Turn 2 and was hit by Marcos Ambrose. Both cars spun and also collected Dale Earnhardt Jr., who led 12 laps after starting second, Kevin Harvick, Matt Kenseth and pole-sitter Martin Truex Jr.
But the increased number of crashes was a worthy trade-off, said Ambrose, who finished third ahead of Brad Keselowski and Denny Hamlin: "It's definitely a lot more fun, more entertaining for the fans, and more in control for the drivers. Even though we crashed more, you just feel like you were in control of your own destiny a little more. ? It's way better this way. It's much better racing. We're more in control, even though it doesn't look like it."
Harvick blamed the crash on inexperienced drivers who seemed unaccustomed to pack racing after it virtually disappeared for a full season.
"All the wrecks have been caused by people hitting (others) in the left rear," Harvick said. "The biggest problem is the tandem racing has been so easy for these guys to stay attached that some of them haven't raced in pack racing. It's going to take a lot more patience from a lot of guys who haven't done this before. You just can't hit guys in the left rear. There's two pedals in that thing. We'll have a different strategy next Sunday (for the Daytona 500), I can tell you that."
But even those affected by the crashes seemed to view the changes as an improvement.
"It's pretty wild and crazy but I like this better than what we had last year, definitely," said Gordon, who landed on his roof for the first time in his 19-year Cup career.
Stewart and Kyle Busch both said there was enough time in practices and Thursday's two qualifying races for drivers to get acclimated to packs again, but Busch was one of several to note that an accelerated closing rate makes it more treacherous by decreasing reaction time.
"It's all in the drivers' hands," Busch said. "With the old style pack drafting from 2000 to 2005, whatever it was, the closing rate was really slow. Sometimes you never even got to the car in front of you. You couldn't blow through that space of air.
"Now you can't stay off the car in front of you. You got somebody pushing up your butt, you're running into the car in front of you. It's a product of what the drivers are all faced with and how we can all work through it better."
Said David Ragan, who triggered a nine-car wreck by hitting Paul Menard on lap 9: "NASCAR definitely accomplished their goal. We can't run together very long at all, unless we're overheating. A lap or two is really about all."
Menard described the racing as a mix of the tandems and packs, and he thinks it will be a combustible combination for the Daytona 500.
"It is going to be chaotic," he said. "It is going to be exciting for sure. We have to figure out if we want to just ride around or not because it is a big, big chance you are going to wreck. ? The old-style pack racing seemed to be less chaotic than this is because you can still get to the bumper and push but just not for very long. So there is a lot of that going in the middle of a pack. It is chaotic."
Source: http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/UsatodaycomSports-TopStories/~3/pX_o9zE70T8/1
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