Busch: Early "big one" gives Maria Valera her first last-place finish in series debut at Daytona

Maria Valera picked up the 1st last place finish of her SCRL Wrangler Jeans Busch Grand National Series career in Thursday's Goody's 300 at the Daytona International Speedway when her #63 Ashby Sheet Metal & Machine Pontiac was involved in a multi-car crash after 1 of the 20 laps.

The finish came in her 1st career series start. Entering Season 2 of the Busch Series, Valera had limited success in the SCRL, having gone win less until the previous series, where she won at Heartland Park Topeka in the SCRL Rainbow Dash Truck Series, along the way to finishing 20th in points. Throughout her entire career, Valera had only trailed the field one time, when nine races after having scored her breakout victory, Valera was involved in a multi-truck crash at Fontana as she was looking forward to starting her busch series career off on a high note.

On race day, Valera would roll off the field in 36th while starting last was the #04 unsponsored Pontiac of Gatlin Downey, who was also making his busch series debut. Downey would trail the field the first three turns before chaos broke out in Turn 4 when the #22 Miller High Life Pontiac of Danyal Gitirokh turned the #21 Chattanooga Chew Pontiac of Christian Vargas which caused a "big one" to break out as multiple cars would be involved as the #63 of Maria Valera would try and slam on the brakes, but wasn't able to in time as she hit Vargas's car, damaging both cars and knocking Valera out of the race by the next lap.

Finishing 40th was the #89 Plessinger Racing Pontiac of Toby Fox, who was also involved in the multi-car crash and would retire on the same lap as Valera, 39th went to the #2 Smith-Davis Tire Pontiac of Gustavo Arocha who would complete one more lap before retiring as well, 38th went to the #87 Jarvis Racing Chevrolet of Joe Jefferson who broke a Camshaft while seconds later the #19 Gardiner's Auto Parts Pontiac of Nick Kennedy's engine blew up, filling up the bottom five by the start of the fourth lap.

SCRLASTCAR STATISTICS
*This is the first time the #63 has finished last at Daytona.
*This is the first time the #63 has trailed a Busch race since April 29, 2017, when James Barker was involved in a single car crash after completing 1 of 40 laps of the Season 1 Miller Time 300 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway, 3 races ago.

THE BOTTOM FIVE
41) #63-Maria Valera / 1 lap / crash
40) #89-Toby Fox / 1 lap / crash
39) #2-Gustavo Arocha / 2 laps / crash
38) #87-Joe Jefferson / 3 laps / camshaft
37) #19-Nick Kennedy / 3 laps / engine