Haley parlays rain, wreck into first Cup win
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Teeth chattering, hands shaking and stomach churning, Justin Haley anxiously waited for NASCAR to pull the plug on a rain-wrecked weekend at Daytona International Speedway.
Haley, a 500-1 long shot making just his third career Monster Energy Cup start, won the rain-postponed, rain-shortened race at Daytona on Sunday. He inherited the lead after a 17-car accident decimated the field and a lightning strike forced NASCAR to stop the 400-mile race.
Haley waited out the delay in a conference room inside the historic speedway, admittedly too nervous to do more than pray for the skies to open and the race to be called once and for all.
The wait of 2 hours, 12 minutes was well worth it for the 20-year-old Indiana native driving for first-year team Spire Motorsports.
“I had no expectation to win this race,” said Haley, admitting that he would have quickly been passed for the lead if the race resumed. “We were just trying to keep the fenders on it. That was the whole goal of the race, to finish with no scratches. Yes, I really did pray for rain.”
The race — the last surrounding the July Fourth holiday at Daytona since the event began in 1959 — was scheduled for Saturday night but forced into Sunday afternoon because of persistent rain and lightning that washed out most of this final Independence Day party at NASCAR’s birthplace. The race is being moved next year to August as the regularseason finale.
NASCAR finally had to stop the race and bring the remaining cars to pit road as a safety precaution. The move came just minutes after Kurt Busch, who had slid through the massive accident to take the lead, made a quick pit stop.
Busch relinquished the lead because he thought the race was one lap away from resuming, and Haley, an Xfinity Series regular, cycled into the lead. He was making his third Cup start for Spire.
In other motor sports news:
• Matt Hagan and Steve Torrence repeated as winners at New England Dragway in Epping, N.H, racing to victories at the NHRA New England Nationals. Hagan won for the third consecutive year at the track in Funny Car, clocking 4.014 seconds at 322.81 mph in the final round in his Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat to beat Shawn Langdon’s 4.046 at 317.49. Torrence’s win in Top Fuel came in the 13th of 24 events in the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series season. The points leader and defending world champion kept his dominant stretch going, rolling to his seventh victory in eight races with a run of 3.861 at 321.58 in the final round.