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Luck took its usual twists and turns, but in the end Josh Herrin won a record-setting fourth consecutive Daytona 200 and a record-tying fifth career win in the race, while 18-year-old Kayla Yaakov played the last-lap chess match like a veteran and edged a former MotoGP rider to become the first woman to finish on the Daytona 200 podium in its 84 years.
The win by Herrin Saturday on a Rahal Ducati Moto Panigale V2 ties him with "Mr. Daytona" Scott Russell and Miguel DuHamel with five career wins in the 200-mile race. And while by now everyone knows not to count out Herrin when the 200 comes around, he did not necessarily look like the favorite going into the race while still recovering from a preseason testing injury and an illness. Then, problems with his pits stops made it look like his chance had slipped away through a stroke of bad luck. But Daytona proved once again that a lot can happen in 200 miles.
Due to reduced fuel capacity under the rules, teams planned three pit stops this year instead of two. In the first stint, six riders were contending for the lead, constantly draft-passing each other on the high banks. In his first pit stop, Herrin had a hard time restarting his Ducati and lost touch with the lead, but was able to charge back to get near the front. By the time the last pit stop came around with 12 laps to go, it was down to Herrin and his Rahal Ducati Moto teammate, P.J. Jacobsen. After several laps running nose to tail, they pitted together, stopping just two boxes apart in pit lane. As they were leaving, a television camera operator filming Jacobsen, in front, took a few steps back and into Herrin's path. Herrin nearly dropped the Ducati as he bumped into the camera operator, and those few seconds separated him from Jacobsen.
It looked like Herrin's chance to tie the record was lost, especially as Jacobsen reeled off three sub-1:50 laps, opening a gap of several seconds, while Herrin was turning laps in the 1:52 range as he was getting through traffic. But as it turns out, Jacobsen wasn't just pushing hard, he was pushing too hard. He crashed out of the lead, leaving it to Herrin to cruise easily home to a 38-second margin of victory over second-place M4 ECSTAR Suzuki's Tyler Scott on his GSX-R750, the polesitter for the weekend.
"There's something about Daytona," Herrin said. "I feel like every time we have some adversity, I somehow keep getting carried back towards the front. It was just an amazing race."
Then there was the race for third.
With Herrin and Scott spaced far apart, the last battle on the track was the fight for the final spot on the podium between Yaakov, another Rahal Ducati Moto rider, and Darryn Binder on the Celtic/Economy Lube + Tire/Warhorse Ducati Panigale V2. Everyone knows the way to heartbreak at Daytona is to lead coming out of the chicane for the run on the high banks to the finish line, because the following rider will inevitably draft past. But knowing and executing are two different things, and in this case it was not the rider with MotoGP experience on his resume, Binder, but the teenager who won the strategy battle to become the first woman to finish on the Daytona 200 podium.
"I'm just so happy to be here on the podium and keep showing women they can do it," Yaakov said after the race. "I shied away from that a bit in the past, but I really think it's a special thing I am able to do, and I'm so honored to be in that position now.”
Only six riders finished on the lead lap and four were on Ducatis — those mentioned above and Alessandro Di Mario on another Rahal Ducati Moto machine, plus Scott on his Suzuki and Dominic Doyle in sixth on a Liberty Yamaha Racing YZF-R9.
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