Matt Kenseth kicked off the 2015 Sprint Cup season by winning the Sprint Unlimited exhibition race on Saturday evening, bringing the #20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota to victory lane after several crashes and two red flags. Finishing second after leading several laps as an underdog was Furniture Row Racing driver Martin Truex Jr., who was in the race for qualifying second in the #78 Chevrolet for last year's Daytona 500. Third was Kenseth's new teammate Carl Edwards in the #19 Toyota. The race was 75 laps long, technically a single segment, with a scheduled caution on lap 25 with those caution laps counting, unlike the past few runnings of the Unlimited.
Just before the scheduled caution, Brad Keselowski lost control of his car in the trioval on lap 23, with Kyle Larson and Kyle Busch getting pieces of the crash. After everyone made their required pit stops, the #88 Chevrolet of Dale Earnhardt Jr. was out front. he led 13 laps before having to pit after getting a piece of paper stuck on his grille. Not long after Earnhardt's unscheduled stop, polesitter Paul Menard spun on the frontstretch and collected Jamie McMurray, Clint Bowyer, Jimmie Johnson, and once again Kyle Busch. The race was then red-flagged, after which Greg Biffle briefly led, followed by Edwards and then Truex. Earnhardt got back into the top ten, but spent the rest of the race riding in the middle of the lead pack.
Another big crash occurred on lap 66 and took out Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Austin Dillon, Jeff Gordon and Danica Patrick, forcing another race stoppage. By now, Kenseth had taken the lead, having slowly worked his way up front. Kenseth then held off Truex and Edwards during the final four-lap sprint to claim his first Sprint Unlimited victory. Kenseth's only win last year was in the non-points first Budweiser Duel qualifying race for the Daytona 500. He went winless in all 36 points races after winning 7 races and finishing second in points in 2013. Kenseth is also a two-time Daytona 500 champion, in 2009 and 2012 with Roush Fenway Racing.
Also after the race, Sprint Cup champion Kevin Harvick and Brad Keselowski's teammate Joey Logano got into a bit of a heated exchange on the cooldown lap. Harvick and Logano bumped each other's cars, with Logano almost spinning out Harvick. The two drivers then got out of their cars and exchanged some words before one of Logano's crew members pulled him away from Harvick to prevent further incident. This incident comes in the wake of a fight-filled 2014 Chase for the Sprint Cup, which prominently involved Keselowski.
Sunday afternoon will see front row qualifying for the Daytona 500, for the first time in the group qualifying format introduced last year at the Phoenix spring race. Thursday evening will be the Budweiser Duel 150-mile qualifiers. The Camping World Truck Series 250-mile opener will be on Friday evening, the Xfinity Series 300-miler on Saturday afternoon and the Great American Race, the 57th Daytona 500 on Sunday afternoon.
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