“The important thing is what’s going on on the front stretch,” Stewart said. “As much as we want to celebrate right now, our thoughts are with the drivers and the fans in the grandstand. I saw it in the mirror, and it didn’t look good.”

As Stewart was en route to the checkered flag, with Sam Hornish Jr. pushing him from behind, Regan Smith and Brad Keselowski made contact, as Smith tried to keep Keselowski behind him.

“He felt like that’s (blocking) what he had to do, and that’s his right,” Keselowski said.

The contact resulted in a wreck that collected several cars, including the No. 32 of Kyle Larson that got airborne, hitting the catchfence and shearing off the front end of the car. Much of the front of the No. 32 wound up on the fan side of the catchfence. At the time of this story posting, there had been no report on the extent of fan injuries. All drivers involved walked away.

Other drivers involved included Elliott Sadler, Justin Allgaier, Dale Earnhardt Jr., and Brian Scott, among others

“It was a pinball effect,” Scott said.

The four-car team of Joe Gibbs Racing, with drivers Kyle Busch, Matt Kenseth, Sadler and Brian Vickers dominated the race early with all four of their cars running up front. But one by one, with the exception of Kenseth, they were each plagued with engine overheating issues.

Sadler, though, was able to overcome the issue to make his way back toward the front, even leading for a team, near the end of the race. Vickers, meanwhile, went two laps down, and Busch’s race was ended with 21 laps to go when overheating destroyed his engine.

“Last year, we ran our cars at 260 (degrees) or 270 all day and today I was about 250 to 260 so I thought being less I was going to be okay and not hurt anything,” Busch said. “Never really thought I pushed too much water out, but there at the end just started to heat up, the oil temperature got hot and the thing never wanted to cool back down.”

Stewart restarted the race outside the top-20 following the yellow brought out by Busch’s engine problem, but he quickly made his way back toward the front to restart second with two laps to go following a caution that came out with five to go.

On that restart, Smith restarted in the lead, with Keselowski behind him in third. But when the race went back to green, Hornish, who restarted fourth, pushed Stewart out to the front. Hornish wound up with a second-place finish.

“The only thing I saw was coming to the white the 33 (Stewart) and I got separated and got back together,” Hornish said. “I pushed him up there as far as I could. It took some dicey moves and I guess the 22 (Keselowski) and 7 (Smith) got tangled up there. I tried to get off the back of the 33 so I didn’t push him into anything and as soon as I got clean air I was right in the back of the 22, so it’s unfortunate that we did get a little bit torn up, but I guess it was a second-place finish. I’ll take that.”

Alex Bowman finished third, Earnhardt was fourth, and Parker Kligerman rounded out the top-five.

– Photo courtesy of Getty Images for NASCAR

Follow Stock Car Spin on Twitter @SCSblog or like Stock Car Spin on Facebook. Amanda’s also on Twitter @NASCARexaminer and has a fan/like page on Facebook: NASCAR Examiner

“I’m just so proud of this team,” Sauter said after driving his newly-numberd 98 truck to victory lane.

Toyota also claimed second with Kyle Busch claiming his third second-place finish in the annual Daytona series season opener.

“We would’ve had a really good race if it had been 100 laps, but it was 99,” Busch said, frustrated by the caution flag that brought an end to the racing action.

The yellow flag came out six times in the race, the last time being on the final lap for a multi-truck wreck as the leaders headed toward the checkered flag.

Ty Dillon dominated the first half of the race, claiming the top spot on lap six and staying up front until Sauter moved into the lead on a restart following a caution that came out for a wreck that involved more than 10 trucks on lap 54 of the 100-lap event.

“I screwed up,” Brendan Gaughan said of the incident. “I got myself back there messing up on pit road. It was my fault, because I had a rookie on one side and another rookie on the other.”

Other drivers caught up in the crash included German Quiroga, Brennan Newberry, Ryan Truex and John King.

After claiming the lead just passed the middway point of the race, Sauter continued to run up front until Dillon moved back into the lead with 39 laps to go. Busch then claimed second.

Todd Bodine, carrying Sauter’s old No. 13, inherited the lead when he stayed out during a caution while others topped off their fuel tanks. But with about 25 laps to go, Busch got by Bodine for the top spot. Busch continued to lead, but the ThorSport teammates of Sauter and Bodine drafted their way back toward the front as a third teammate, Matt Crafton, fell off the pace and headed down pit road because of a tire issue.

Sauter and Bodine restarted first and second after the fifth caution of the race that came out with nine laps to go when Truex suffered a tire issue mid-pack and collected the trucks of Timothy Peters and John Wes Townley.

“Tonight, it was all about track position, and I thought we were in trouble,” Sauter said. “We were about 14th with 30 laps to go.”

Sauter was able to hold his position, as Bodine got caught up in the middle and lost several positions. By the time the yellow and then checkered flags waved to end the race, Bodine had made his way back up to 11th.

Ron Hornaday finished third, Justin Lofton was fourth, and Jeb Burton fifth. Dillon finished sixth, Miguel Paludo was seventh, Ryan Blaney eighth, Crafton ninth and Ryan Sieg rounded out the top-10.

– Photo courtesy of Getty Images for NASCAR

Follow Stock Car Spin on Twitter @SCSblog or like Stock Car Spin on Facebook. Amanda’s also on Twitter @NASCARexaminer and has a fan/like page on Facebook: NASCAR Examiner