DAYTONA BEACH, Fla – You have to feel for Kurt Busch. While we see the flukiness of Justin Haley and Spire Motorsports winning Sunday’s rain delayed Coke Zero Sugar 400, if Busch never pitted on Lap 126, he’d be declared the winner instead.

See, Busch remarkably wasn’t involved in the Lap 118 “Big One” which took out 17 cars. He was involved in two crashes earlier but somehow found his way back to the front.

On Lap 58, Busch was running the low line in Turns 3 and 4 and had a run at the lead. Race leader Ricky Stenhouse Jr. came low to block Busch as the Chip Ganassi Racing driver didn’t lift. He punted Stenhouse into the infield grass on the tri-oval and continued on.

16 laps later, Busch cut a tire on track and hit the wall in Turn 3. His team would repair his No. 1 Chevrolet to keep him somewhat in contention and it paid off in a big way.

Here he was in the lead with weather approaching. Instead, they hit pit lane while leading and never got a chance to make up for it.

Lightning in the area brought out the red flag on Lap 127. While it appeared that we’d go back to racing a couple of times, we never did as rain hit the track around 5 p.m. ET ending the race on Lap 127 of 160.

Busch threw away a shot at a guaranteed playoff spot too. It would have been his first win in 29 races too. But, he does settle for his first top 10 finish in his last five Daytona starts.