Kurt Busch Champion at Daytona 500

By ESPN

While the cars of his competition were blowing tires and shedding bodywork in a crash-filled Daytona 500, the only thing that fell off Kurt Busch's Ford was the rearview mirror.

The 2004 NASCAR Cup Series champion used what should have been a disadvantage and embraced the ever unpredictable Daytona madness.

The result? Busch is the champion of NASCAR's biggest race, having held off fellow Ford driver Ryan Blaney in a crazy, fuel-starved finish. It provided a happy conclusion to what often had been a messy and frustrating race, with eight cautions totaling 40 laps and a 17-minute red flag.

Busch didn't even start the 2015 Daytona 500, suspended by NASCAR while accusations of domestic violence were investigated and authorities later decided not to file criminal charges.

Two years later, with a supportive new bride by his side, Busch's win created several story lines in what was often a challenging week for NASCAR. The Monster Energy-backed driver won the first race in the first year of Monster's highly publicized title sponsorship of NASCAR's premier Cup Series. It was the first Cup Series race to feature NASCAR's controversial segmented race format with championship points paid out three times during the course of a race.

It was also a remarkable start to the relationship between Ford and Stewart-Haas, which was a Chevrolet stalwart until making a shock manufacturer switch for 2017.

Most of all, it was Busch's first Daytona 500 victory in 16 tries, and as he stood in Victory Lane with his new wife, Ashley, it was impossible not to think about how much things have changed for the older of NASCAR's Busch brothers since early 2015.

Busch didn't even start the 2015 Daytona 500, suspended by NASCAR while accusations of domestic violence were investigated and authorities later decided not to file criminal charges. On Sunday, Kurt paid tribute to Ashley as he celebrated the biggest individual race win of his career.

"A lot of people have believed in me over the years and a lot of people have supported me," Busch said. "But I met this young woman and she's made more of a man out of me than all of my crew and my sponsors and my team, and I just want to say thank you, baby. This is what it's all about."

For most of the race, the No. 41 Ford did not appear to be a factor. But with several favorites knocked out of the race or delayed by one of the many accidents, Busch moved into the top five with 30 laps to go when the race finally settled down.

Elliott led the single-file train while Busch advanced into third place with 20 laps left. Kyle Larson then charged to the lead on the 197th lap when Elliott's Hendrick Motorsports Chevy stuttered for the first time, but then Larson's Ganassi Racing Chevy hiccupped in Turn 2 on the final tour, allowing Busch to slip into the lead.

His job over the final mile and a half was made easier when his closest pursuer, Ryan Blaney, also in a Ford, ran his car dry and had to settle for second. Busch had just enough fuel to complete a cool-down lap and start some victory donuts in the grass before his engine also quit.

"The more that becomes unpredictable about Daytona, the more it becomes predictable to predict unpredictability," Busch said in a statement that was just about as confusing as the multilevel point system NASCAR implemented this year.

"The more that I've run this race, the more that I just throw caution to the wind and let 'er rip, elbows out," he continued. "That's what we did. Our group put on a fantastic run to the end and everybody did a great job not to wreck each other."

Busch managed not to wreck despite losing his car's rearview mirror after the final pit stop.

Stock car drivers have spotters talking to them on the radio to help them negotiate traffic, but the mirror is a helpful aid nonetheless.

Crediting Ashley for instilling the power of positive thinking, Busch turned what could have been a disadvantage into something that worked in his favor.

"My rearview mirror fell off with 30 to go and I was like, 'That's an omen,'" Busch said. "Because I'm not going to have to look at it anymore. I'm going to have to drive defensively and take advantage of other people's mistakes.

"On the last lap, my spotter was like, 'Four back ... five back!' [the distance in car lengths to his pursuers] and I couldn't even enjoy it because I couldn't see out back coming up to the line. It's unbelievable to have all this teamwork, to build these SHR Fords, and here we are in Victory Lane."

By winning the Daytona 500, Busch accomplished something SHR co-owner Tony Stewart never managed to do in his long and successful career.

It was also a wonderful homecoming for Busch's crew chief, Tony Gibson, who grew up five miles from Daytona International Speedway.

"I ran this damn race for 18 years and couldn't win it," cracked Stewart. "Finally won it as an owner. Man, what an awesome job those last couple laps. You just really didn't know what was going to happen because guys were trying different things.

"It's probably the most patient race I've ever watched Kurt Busch run," Stewart added. "He really deserved that one for sure. This is awesome. I would have retired 17 years ago if I knew it was what it took to win the race. Kurt did an amazing job."

Only 15 cars were running on the lead lap at the end of the race, with seven multicar crashes adding up to a lot of attrition.

Not surprisingly, NASCAR officials expressed satisfaction with the events of the day. There were a lot of crashed cars, but those running at the checkered flag put on an entertaining finish.

"I'd say overall, really pleased," NASCAR senior vice president Steve O'Donnell said. "We saw a lot of great, hard racing. Everybody knows that every driver wants to win the Daytona 500. We had drivers up on the wheel all day long racing hard and that's exactly what we expected from the format.

"I think you never know what's going to happen at Daytona. If you make a mistake here, it's usually a pretty tough one," he added. "All in all, we felt that was fairly normal in terms of the number of cautions we had."

This Daytona 500 may have ended up being fairly normal in the eyes of NASCAR, but it really needed to be more than that. The rules changes introduced to competition this year have been widely questioned outside the Cup Series garage area. And an unflattering assessment of the sport this week by the Wall Street Journal as well as wreck-fest Xfinity and Camping World Truck Series support races leading up to Sunday's main event didn't help perception.

Much like the Daytona 500 itself, the NASCAR season is more of a marathon than a sprint. The Monster Energy era got off to a slow start, but there's plenty of time over the next 10 months to turn things around and assess whether changes need to be made.

Even if that requires NASCAR looking in the rearview mirror to see what went wrong.