Aric Almirola grabbed the lead in the closing laps to earn the victory Thursday night in the Bluegreen Vacations Duel No. 2 qualifying race at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Fla.
The 38-year-old Almirola, a Florida native, claimed his second career duel win. The Stewart-Haas Racing driver beat Austin Cindric by 0.122 seconds.
“I did have my hands full,” said Almirola, who won one of the Duels in 2021. “We kind of went for it in qualifying, put all the speed in the car and sacrificed the handling. It was a handful.”
The win was Ford’s fourth straight in the duels and its ninth in the past 12 qualifying races.
Chase Elliott came home third in the No. 9 Chevrolet, with Brad Keselowski and Corey LaJoie close behind.
The evening’s lone incident occurred on Lap 41 down the long, flat backstretch when Daniel Suarez, while pushing Kyle Busch, loosened the rear of Busch’s No. 8 RCR Chevrolet and sent it head-first into the outside wall.
“Just a lot of pushing and shoving a few laps straight there,” said Busch, who led a race-best 28 laps. “You’re doing everything you can to try and hang on and make sure you keep it straight. It just finally overloaded the left rear and hooked it to the right.
“We had a long way to go, and I just don’t understand (the wreck).”
IndyCar regular Conor Daly, who had an oil-line issue in Wednesday’s single-car qualifying, developed rear-end problems before taking the green but rallied to make the Daytona 500.
“We were inherently unlucky for the last 36 hours,” said Daly, who finished 17th. “We went out there and the car was bouncing around. … So much crazy stuff can happen, and we were on the right side of crazy.”
Unlike pole-sitting teammate Alex Bowman in Duel No. 1, Kyle Larson elected to keep his No. 5 Chevrolet out front instead of falling back in the field to avoid any kind of calamity that would keep him from starting on the front row Sunday.
The night’s first caution waved on Lap 7 when the side window on Justin Haley’s No. 31 Chevrolet blew out. Nineteen of the 21 drivers opted to hit pit road for the first service on Lap 8.
Busch, the 2015 and 2019 NASCAR Cup Series champion, held his No. 8 Camaro out front as the field narrowed up and raced single file with 20 circuits left. Suarez, Larson and Almirola lined up second through fourth, respectively.
–Field Level Media
