Survival of the luckiest: Byron escapes and takeaways from Daytona

The Daytona 500, in its current form, has become less and less about who has the best car or can manage the draft and more like a sloppy bar fight.

At the start everyone’s buddies, cutting each other breaks, buying drinks and saving fuel. Then comes closing time, not one person wants to give an inch of space and the real winners go home without a scratch.

This year, it was Hendrick Motorsports’ William Byron who eked out a win over 23XI’s Tyler Reddick to claim his second straight Daytona 500. Becoming the first driver to repeat since Denny Hamlin in 2020.

Following Reddick was seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson, finally putting together a decent finish in the Next Gen car and Jr. Motorsports had a sneaky stellar day with a top-10 in their first Cup Series action.

The race was mired in controversy before the green flag waved due to the overabundance of coverage that was given to President Donald Trump’s visit to the race track. That combined with the measly 11 green flag laps that could be fit in before a lengthy rain delay, hurt a lot of the momentum NASCAR was carrying into this race.

After a more than three hour rain delay, the crown jewel of the NASCAR season was finally underway and it fell in line with most of the expectations of fans. A lot of fuel saving and then small cautions until the stage or race was about to end.

The Penske cars jumped out to a quick start, with previous 500 winner Joey Logano dominating the front of the pack and winning stage one. A piece of debris got caught in his grille during this time which nearly took him out of the race, but quick action by the #22’s pit crew and a timely caution kept Logano in it.

If it wasn’t Logano, you could bet on seeing the other two Penske Fords out front instead. Teammates Austin Cindric and Ryan Blaney controlled the field in stage two, with the victory of that stage ultimately going to Blaney down the backstretch.

All told, Penske led 125 of the 202 laps at Daytona. Their dominance didn’t leave much room for any one else as it looked like it would be a Penske sweep of things once Blaney and Cindric got hooked up again at the start of stage three.

While those two led the bottom lane for most of the stage, aggressive moves from Corey Lajoie and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. got the top two lanes back in the fight with 15 laps to go.

It was then we got the signature Daytona “Big One.” Stenhouse threw a way too late block on a faster Logano and stacked up the middle lane till there was nowhere to go, taking down race-winning cars like Blaney, Kyle Busch and Brad Kesoloski in the process.

Another incident at lap 196 set up Byron’s overtime victory, however. This time it was Christopher Bell getting loose off Cole Custer’s nose into the outside wall in turn two.

The wreck collected and flipped Ryan Preece in one of the scariest crashes I’ve seen since the last time Preece wrecked at Daytona. After being released from the infield care center, Preece had some harsh words for NASCAR concerning his second flip in three years at Daytona.

“I don’t want to be the example, when it finally does get somebody, I don’t want it to be me,” Preece said to reporters. “I have a two-year-old daughter, a lot of us have families, something needs to be done.”

From there it was onto overtime, when Hamlin, Cindric and Custer ignited the bar brawl that allowed Byron to sneak by for his second Daytona 500 win in just as many years.

There was a lot of fuel saving in this race, a majority of the race saw the field running partial throttle. The race even kicked off with the pole sitter Chase Briscoe running at 60% on lap one.

This made for a less than enthralling watch as the cars didn’t unleash their full potential until 170 laps into the event. NASCAR has to get the fuel saving conundrum figured out because it makes Superspeedway racing a snooze fest until there’s 20 or so to go.

The 2025 Daytona 500 will go down as one of the Daytona 500s of all-time, not to say it was bad, it’s the 500, but I’m starting to feel like I’ve seen this one before. No surprise winner, no classic ending, more fuel saving than racing and it took all day.

NASCAR gets a chance at Superspeedway redemption next week at Atlanta Motor Speedway, with the green flag is set for Sunday, Feb. 23 at 12:00 p.m. PST.

Takeaways

Jack: Oh, where to begin with this one. As I said in my Truck Series recap, there isn’t a ton to be gleaned from Superspeedway racing, but it looks like Penske will continue their domination at the big tracks this season.

It was more heartbreak for my two drivers, Busch and Bubba Wallace, who both looked like they would have their chance at their first 500 victory. Busch had continued issues on pit road, with a penalty and fuel issue, that crew needs to work out the kinks if the #8 wants to get back to victory lane.

As for the Daytona 500, luck continues to dominate over skill, which is beginning to get old. Maybe it was the rain delay, an abundance of fuel saving, FOX’s coverage and my disdain for Hendrick Motorsports, but this one just did not hit the same.

Cam: Another superspeedway race and Daytona 500 in the books, and it just felt pretty average to me. I really enjoyed the three wide racing all night, and the top 10 near the end of the race was pretty intriguing.

As Jack has stated, superspeedways have become almost the battle royale’s of NASCAR, with cars just attempting to survive the end of the race rather than truly power their way up, despite the fact we did see that at some points in the race.

Up next for the Cup drivers is Atlanta, which has turned into a superspeedway in itself. Atlanta is exciting, just look at 2023, but I think I’m ready for the road course and intermediates to make a splash on the circuit.