Two NASCAR Sprint Cup Budweiser Duel qualifier races were ran on Thursday setting the field for the Daytona 500 on Sunday.

On the first lap of the first Duel, Trevor Bayne pulled past polesitter Danica Patrick. Harvick would pass Trevor Bayne for the lead on lap 37.

Danica Patrick quickly fell out of the lead and after 10 laps was 22nd in the field. Patrick finished 17th in her qualifier and will make her second Daytona 500 start on Sunday.

Carl Edwards running on the inside lane of lap 53 when Denny Hamlin came down hitting Edwards’ car. Bayne was running behind Hamlin and was left with nowhere to go. Regan Smith, was also damaged in the incident. This allowed Harvick to get his first Duel victory.

“It’s just like it was 10 years ago. It really is. It’s the same way we used to race with the old style cars, no roof fins, nothing on top of them. It’s the same style race. Handling even is coming into effect as we’ve seen in practice and the race today … Both lines were side-by-side and you were able to kind of feed each line a little bit of air and try to keep ‘em even. That’s the best way to keep ‘em at bay is to keep ‘em side-by-side … I think for us, I want to be in the front and be in control of what’s going on. If we can get to that point and be able to dictate whether you need to block, move up, move down, side draft — you have options as the leader. That’s the position I want to be in.” Harvick said.

Jeff Gordon, had a strong car on Thursday. He led 38 laps in the second Duel before a speeding penalty took him out of contention, he would finish 12th. Kyle Busch capitalized on Gordon’s misfortune to score his second Duel victory.

“These cars so far have shown it’s a little bit harder to pass the leader, especially if you’re the guy that’s on the topside. We showed it again in the second Duel race. Jeff Gordon chose the top, even though he was supposed to be on the pole, chose the outside lane. Him and I, we got going a little bit better than the inside lane. Kasey kind of moved up then … I went low because I thought he would run low, but he stayed up high to get behind Jeff. I got shuffled out a little bit. It’s all circumstantial. If you can keep the good restrictor-plate guys like Kevin Harvick, Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon, if you can keep those guys out of the lead, it might be anybody’s race. But anytime you get a good, smart racer up there like that, it’s going to be hard to beat ’em.” Said Kyle.

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Tags: Budweiser Duel's, Danica Patrick, Daytona 500, DAYTONA 500 STARTING LINEUP, Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch, NASCAR