For the second Duel in a row, the final transfer spot into the Daytona 500 came down to a side-by-side duel over the final laps.
BJ McLeod, despite receiving damage in the big Lap 48 crash, was still capable of making a charge towards the Kaz Grala with both needing to finish ahead of the other to advance into the Great American Race.
Failing to do so meant going home early.
“We (took) the white,” Grala said. “I see the (McLeod) car. I mean, we’re literally like touching fenders. We got no safety net behind us, just (David Ragan) floating, who also could play a factor in who makes this.
“That was as stressful as it could possibly have been. But I’m sure it was exciting to watch because just like the first Duel, you couldn’t have written a better storyline for the moments coming to the checkered to decide who is going to be in the field on Sunday.”
McLeod, who sold his ownership charter over the off-season, and thus made Live Fast Motorsports a part-time team, was all smiles even after failing to qualify into the biggest race of the season.
Why?
“I’ve got nothing but positivity coming from here,” McLeod told Sportsnaut after the race. I’ve been full-time in the Cup Series for almost three years. I have nine years of Cup racing. 350 starts across all the series. I have a lot of attendance awards, right?
“I’ve never been able to perform on track the way that I want and the way I wanted to for the fans I have. And tonight, I know there’s only 21 or 22 cars or whatever but half of those cars will lead the race on Sunday. It proved that we can get up there and be in the mix with our little team with no manufacturer support nor no sim time of any kind.
“We are literally back to bare bones because we are not a full-time team. We have half the payroll and half the people. All of those things and we still put together a leading lane car in a Cup race at Daytona.”
McLeod doesn’t want it to get misunderstood that he thought he could win the race with it but he could contend and let it sort out.
If he wasn’t in the crash, he believes whole heartedly that he advances into the show instead.
“If I don’t get into the wreck, we’re fast,” McLeod said. “That car, it wasn’t fast enough to lead. When I was the leading line car, I needed help to lead. But, that’s stuff I can work on, drag and undertray stuff. We need more time to figure it out. It was definitely a car that was good enough to be in the top-10 and top-20 on Sunday if I wasn’t in that wreck.”
As for Grala, he was only in this position of needing to race his way in because he didn’t even record a qualifying lap on Wednesday. His teammate, in equal equipment and the same setup, Michael McDowell, put his car on the front row.
But Grala grenade his engine when he shifted from second gear to first.
How did that happen?
“It was a really weird situation,” Grala said. “Just a bolt backed out where the shifter rod actually connects to the transmission. After my first shift, I went to grab the second shift, and the shifter no longer worked. I tried to unjam it. It grabbed first gear, over-revved the engine.
“Really weird situation there, haven’t season that. As a result, we ended up having to do an engine swap for today. That felt great tonight. I think we’re all set engine-wise. We got the bolt in the transmission and we’re ready to rock’n roll now.”
For his part, McLeod is going to keep rocking too.
He sold his full-time team for a profit and is going to keep running a full-time Xfinity Series team and pick and choose his Cup Series schedule.
I’m done with the attendance awards, and I know a lot of people don’t get what I mean by that, but when you own your own team, with a small budget, and come from no net worth, you have to be careful when you’re driving to take care of your people and keep food on their table.
“It’s a slow process to go from a Super Late Model to owning a Cup team and being a driver, also. There are a lot of tracks that are not superspeedways where I race really hard, give it all I’ve got, and we’re still a 35th place team.
“But on the superspeedways, I’ve never cut loose and had fun until tonight. We led a lane for how many laps and were in the top-5 for 20 laps or whatever it was. I’ve never done that and I’ve been here 350 times.
“I am excited to show people that I can race now because I don’t have to worry about tearing cars up and can race the way I want.”
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.