2017 Daytona 200 Results
The 2017 Daytona 200—a 57-lap endurance race around Daytona International Speedway’s 3.51-mile road course—came down the wire Saturday.
After battling intensely for the remaining five laps with Trackside Suspension and Engineering Yamaha’s Corey West (No. 13 R6), TOBC Racing Yamaha’s Danny Eslick (No. 69) used the classic slipstream and slingshot move to claim the win by a mere 0.041 of a second ahead of West.
Unfortunately for West, he was later disqualified during a post-race inspection due to an unqualified airbox. This gave the second-place win to the 2016 Daytona 200 winner, Michael Barnes (No. 34) aboard the Prieto Performance Yamaha. Claiming third after West’s DQ was M4 Suzuki’s Kyle Wyman.
This was Eslick’s third Daytona 200 win, his others arriving back-to-back in 2014 and 2015. The 30-year-old Oklahoma native was suspended from last year’s Daytona 200 event due to battery charges on Main Street in downtown Daytona, a busy area during Daytona Bike Week.
But Eslick quickly redeemed himself this year, battling to the end to become only the sixth rider to claim three Daytona 200 titles; he now joins Dick Klamfoth (1949, ’51-52), Brad Andres (1955, ’59-60), Roger Reiman (1961, ’64-65), Kenny Roberts (1978, ’83-84) and Mat Mladin (2000-01, ’04). Scott Russell and Miguel Duhamel share the all-time DAYTONA 200 wins record with five.
“It was an incredible race, just good clean, fun out there … good, clean racing,” said Eslick. “I didn’t know Cory was just going to go for it on the last lap.”
“I did have a plan,” said West, of Arkansas, said before the disqualification. “I knew I was going to have a hard time drafting past him to the stripe [from behind]. So when we took the white flag it was kind of just chase him, maybe beat him out of the chicane, stay high by the wall and force him to go low and maybe give me one more opportunity to draft him on the front straight. I stayed high and was thinking ‘Come on Danny, go low.’ But he didn’t. So, once I was up high I turned really hard and went to the bottom. I saw Danny [go by] on the right.”
Eslick says: “He [Corey] couldn’t draft me so I was definitely happy, just sitting on him that last lap.”
Due a three red flags that created the need for three lap-one restarts, the Yamaha R6s quickly settled in up front. Daytona International Speedway reports that on the last lap alone, Eslick led at the outset but lost the advantage to West in the horseshoe turns. West built a seemingly safe lead in NASCAR Turn 2 but Eslick gave chase, eventually getting the needed momentum for a final pass, drafting off the 31-degree banking in Turn 4 on the high side, going on to edge West by 0.041 seconds.
This was also the 24th Daytona 200 victory for Yamaha, the most of any manufacturer in Daytona 200 history, which goes back to 1937. Eslick claimed $25,000 from a total purse of $175,000–plus a steel-and-gold Rolex Cosmograph Daytona watch.
Rounding out the top 10 were Shane Narbonne of Massachusettes (Yamaha YZF-R6); Valentin Debis of France (Suzuki GSX-R600); Kaleb de Keyrel of Minnesota (Yamaha YZF-R6); Jason Farrell of Wisconsin (Kawasaki ZX-6R); Geoff May of Georgia (Yamaha YZF-R6); Darren James of Canada (Yamaha YZF-R6); and Bostjan Skubic of Slovenia (Yamaha YZF-R6).
The top Ducati finisher was Barret Long of Florida, who placed 12th aboard a Ducati 848, and the top MV Agusta finisher was Taylor Knapp of Michigan, who finished 18th aboard an MV Agusta F3. The top Triumph finisher was Ducote, who finished 49th aboard a Triumph 675.
For the entire list of results, visit Daytona 200 Results.
