the line. It was just kind of text-
book draft passing at Daytona."
As for Herrin, he was disap-
pointed to miss out on the win,
but looks to the upcoming Mo-
toAmerica season with his new
team.
"Luck just didn't go our way,"
Herrin said. "I rode as hard
as I could, it just wasn't good
enough. Just want to thank the
whole Wheels In Motion Motor-
sport.com Meen Motorsports
Yamaha Team. They really did a
phenomenal job, I'm coming off
of the worst year of my career
so far and these guys couldn't
help but make it any better. I'm
proud to call them my team and
go into the MotoAmerica series
with them."
One thing that didn't play
much of a factor was the tra-
ditional green flag pitstops, an
element that makes the Daytona
200 even more of a "team ef-
fort." Four red flags pretty much
killed that traditional element
of the 200, but that last-minute
splash-and-go with around a
handful of laps to go made for an
exciting finish.
"That's probably the first 200
in history that didn't have pit
stops," Eslick said. "We didn't
have the live green flag pitstops,
but it kept everybody tight and
kind of kept the race close
which was good for the fans."
It also left it a bit of a guessing
for Eslick as he was only getting
straight lap times on his board.
"I was pretty sure I was in the
lead, by the way the schoolbus
VOL. 52 ISSUE 11 MARCH 17, 2015 P57
led out of the chicane, a bit off
line after navigating around a
lapper, but Eslick drafted past,
taking the high line and narrowly
missing the wall to take a thrilling
victory by .086 of a second.
"Those last couple of laps
were pretty crazy," Eslick said.
"I thought I was all by myself
and looked back and there's big
number two. So I kind of eased
up. I knew he was going to catch
me and I didn't want him to catch
me right there at the end. He did
right what I wanted, he went by
me and I drafted past him across
This year's
Daytona 200
came down to
a last-lap battle
between Danny
Eslick (69) and
Josh Herrin (2).
DRAFT
