DAYTONA BEACH - With third stage early leader Joey Logano spinning into a rain-drenched infield to create a yellow caution flag in the late stages of the Coke Zero Sugar 400 in Daytona Beach, the final lap became a race of inches as Ryan Blaney, 12th at the start of the final lap, squeezed his way to a three-way front trio to win the race by just 0.31 seconds over runnerup Daniel Suarez with Justin Haley, who had spurts at the front, third 0.36 off the winner's pace, according to a NASCAR press service press release.
"What a wild last couple laps, honestly," Blaney said. "I was with Cole, I kind of asked him on the restart, if you go to the top, I'm going with your. We kind of just waited and waited and then the opportunity came, and he made a good m ove to get to the top, and we were able to really get good shoves."
The race had an average speed of 130.909 miles per hour with just eight caution flags with Blaney third in stage one and seventh in stage two.
Racers and race fans ventured through tortuous rain storms just prior to the race, but the Gods of NASCAR gave the venue a perfect night for the world's premiere race site.
Early festivities included country singer Gretchen Wilson, a couple fly-bys by a quartet of fighter jets and even a double Black Hawk helicopter stop and drop that was an unexpected bonus feature of the day's activities.
With the field of 16 drivers set for the championship playoffs that will start on August 31 in Darlington in the Cook Out Southern 500.