The 73rd Daytona 200 is in the books and was dominated almost entirely by Danny Eslick aboard his Riders Discount Racing Triumph Daytona 675R. RoadRace Factory/Red Bull's Jake Gagne and MotoSport.com/Meen Motorsports' Jake Lewis, both aboard Yamaha R6s, finished second and third, respectively.
The 57-lap race wasn't a complete walk in the park for Eslick. A four-rider battle for the lead between him, Dane Westby, Jason DiSalvo, and Jake Gagne went on for a large part of the race. Westby made a mistake in turn one and crashed, however, and then in an attempt to avoid Westby's bike, Jason DiSalvo went down as well. Both riders walked away from the crash, though incredibly disappointed. Yamaha Extended Service/Monster Energy rider Garrett Gerloff ran up front for the first part of the race but went down as well. He would remount and make his way back up to 5th place.
Eslick maintained his gap over Gagne during the closing stages of the race and would acknowledge his fans on nearly every lap with some sort of wave or head nod. His post-race celebration was nothing short of entertaining, either.
Prior to today's race, it'd been 47 years since Triumph had won a Daytona 200. This is also the last year that the Daytona 200 will be contended by the GoPro SportBike class, as next year it'll be run with the SuperBike class.
Full race results follow: