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After being delayed over 24 hours, 500 miles of racing, and two sizable crashes on both ends of the race, William Byron took home the checkered flag in the 66th running of the Daytona 500.
HOW IT HAPPENED:
The drama unfolded pretty early with a key wreck at the end of lap five with Brad Keselowski getting into the back of John Hunter Nemechek, ending the days of Harrison Burton, rookie Carson Hocevar, Kaz Grala, and essentially Austin Dillon, who ran 50+ laps down once he returned.
After a smart pit road strategy with the fellow Chevrolets and a big push from Ross Chastain, Chase Elliott was able to take the Stage One victory and secure 10 early stage points on the season.
The second stage stayed drama-free with strong racing from Joey Logano, Kyle Busch, and Ryan Blaney among others. At the end of the stage, Blaney made a bold move, surging past his Penske Racing teammate Austin Cindric to win the second stage of the Great American Race.
In the final stage is when things got chippy as everyone awaited the famed “Big One” at Daytona. The final stage saw more great racing from Blaney, Logano, and three-time Daytona 500 champion Denny Hamlin making a surge to the front.
With eight laps to go, a big push from Alex Bowman to eventual winner William Byron forced him into Keselowski, pushing him up the track and swallowing 18 cars with him, including Logano, Blaney, Denny Hamlin, and Kyle Larson.
After being released from the infield care center, Logano said: “It’s speedway racing. It’s a lot of fun until it sucks.”
After the cleanup of the track and the red flag being removed, the remaining cars started moving again and prepared for what would be a wild finish. Byron and Chastain led the cars to the restart and raced hard for two laps, but another wreck came with two laps to go as Chastain got into Austin Cindric bringing out another caution. However, since the white flag had already been shown to the lead drivers, the race ended after one caution lap with Byron taking the checkered flag.
BIG NUMBER: 41
In a back-and-forth affair, there were a total of 41 lead changes in the Daytona 500 with Joey Logano leading the most laps in the race (45).
DRIVER OF THE DAY: Joey Logano
The two-time champ was one of the best on the track today, leading a race-best 45 laps and consistently hanging in the front until he was in the wrong place at the wrong time with that lap 192 wreck.
UP NEXT: The NASCAR Cup Series will head a couple of hours west to Atlanta Motor Speedway for the Ambetter Health 400 this coming Sunday.