Drivers and crew chiefs with ARCA experience found success in all of the NASCAR-sanctioned feature events throughout SpeedWeeks at Daytona International Speedway.
While Daytona 500 race winner Denny Hamlin only has a pair of ARCA starts as a driver, including a third-place finish in his debut at Talladega in 2004, his crew chief Chris Gabehart is a former ARCA/CRA Super Series champion.
Gabehart has worked with Hamlin in the past, serving as race engineer for the No. 11 team before moving on to work with Erik Jones and Christopher Bell in the NASCAR XFINITY Series. Gabehart is in his first season as a crew chief in the Cup Series, and the Daytona 500 was his first race in his new role.
Gabehart was the 2007 ARCA/CRA Super Series champion and the 2004 series rookie of the year. He has six career series wins, three of which came in his championship season, including a win at ARCA’s home track Toledo Speedway.
Three-time ARCA Menards Series winner Kyle Busch finished second in the Daytona 500, just in front of his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Erik Jones. Busch’s trio of victories include a trip to Daytona’s victory lane in 2004. Jones, from Byron, Michigan, earned a popular home state win at Berlin in 2013 when he was just 16 years of age.
Two-time ARCA winner Joey Logano was fourth, and four-time ARCA winner Michael McDowell rounded out the top five. Ty Dillon, 2011 ARCA Menards Series champion, finished sixth to tie his career-best Cup Series finish. He also finished sixth at Daytona last July. Kyle Larson fought through several on-track incidents to finish seventh. Larson earned his lone ARCA win at Pocono in June, 2014.
There were sixteen former ARCA winners in the field, and a total of 31 drivers in the 40-car starting lineup had at least one ARCA start on their resume.
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