After ten years, the Hendrick Motorsports Daytona 500 win drought is no more. Hendricks had not won a 500 since 2014 when Dale Earnhardt Jr won. The race was pushed from Sunday to Monday afternoon due to NASCAR’s biggest rival: Mother Nature. This was the first time the Daytona 500 has been postponed a full day since 2012!
Thanks to an amazing qualifying run on Wednesday night, Joey Logano gave Team Penske their first-ever poll position in the 500 and started first on Monday afternoon. Micheal Mcdowell of Front Row Motorsports had the second-best qualifying time, so he started second on the front row with Logano. On Thursday night, the Duels took place, which sets who gets to start the race in third and fourth place. In the first duel, Tyler Reddick of 23XI Racing won and in the second duel, Christopher Bell of Joe Gibbs Racing won. Reddick took third to start and Bell took fourth. The rest of the field was determined based on how they finished in the respective duel they raced in!
The race began with a certain tension in the air, as drivers were feeling each other out and able to settle into their race cars as they began the 2024 season. The Daytona 500 is a three-stage race with Stage One lasting sixty-five laps, Stage Two also having sixty-five laps, and Stage Three finishing with seventy laps. On lap five of stage one, the first caution flew as Harrison Burton and Carson Hocevar got into each other spinning into the grass and back into traffic, taking out four other cars which were Austin Dillion, Kaz Grala, Ryan Preece, and NASCAR Hall of Famer Jimmie Johnson. This wreck eliminated Dillion and Grala from the race. There was not another caution the rest of the stage and when the stage ended on lap sixty-six, Chase Elliott was out front.
All drivers headed to pit road for new tires and to refuel their cars after Stage One and the two drivers who got off pit road first led the field to green to start Stage Two. Those two drivers were Kyle Larson from Hendrick Motorsports and Josh Berry from Stewart-Haas Racing. Larson and Berry took the green flag at lap seventy-one and would be smooth sailing from there. No caution flags flew during Stage Two which made the green flag pit stops the most exciting for most fans at the track. But when Stage Two was all set and done at lap 131, reigning NASCAR Champion Ryan Blaney from Team Penske was out front!
Stage Three started the same way Stage Two did, but with two new drivers out front. Those two drivers were Austin Cindric of Team Penske and Bubba Wallace of 23XI Racing. Though Stage Three featured many lead changes as drivers got aggressive trying to put themselves in the best position to win the race, the Infamous “Big One” occurred on lap 192. The “Big One” is what NASCAR fans call the annual huge wreck that takes out half of the field during the Daytona 500. William Byron hit Brad Keselowski who spun into Joey Logano which started an eighteen-car crash. The following drivers were caught up in the wreck: Kyle Larson, Brad Keselowski, Noah Gragson, Denny Hamlin, Chase Briscoe, Chris Buescher, Martin Truex Jr, Joey Logano, Daniel Hemric, Todd Gilliand, Ryan Preece, Erik Jones, Tyler Reddick, Ricky Stenhouse Jr, Ty Gibbs, Anthony Alfredo, and Daniel Suarez. With how many cars were affected by this crash, NASCAR flew the Red flag, stopping all cars for a total of fifteen minutes and twenty-seven seconds.
When the Red flag was lifted, some cars went to pit road to try to fix any of the damage that the big one caused. Some were fortunate enough to get back on track, while others weren’t, but the top priority was positioning as there were only eight laps left. When pit road stops were finished, Ross Chastain from Trackhouse Racing was in first place, followed by William Byron in second and Austin Cindric in third. It was go time for these three, the green flag was shown with only three laps left in the race. After moments of aggressive bumping and pushing, on lap 99 Ross Chastain would spin and collect Austin Cindric just as William Byron, the leader at the time took the white flag. NASCAR Officials reviewed the replay and determined that there would not be another lap and William Byron from Hendrick Motorsports was the winner of the 2024 Daytona 500.
The win from Byron was his eleventh Cup Series win and locked Byron into one of the sixteen spots in the NASCAR playoffs. The win ended a ten-year drought since Hendrick Motorsports had won a Daytona 500 and came on the exact day of the origin of Hendrick Motorsports. This was a great way to start the 40th anniversary of Hendrick Motorsports for Byron and his team! This win was the ninth 500 win for Hendrick’s and tied them with Petty Enterprises. Byron said after the race “I’m just a kid from racing on computers and winning the Daytona 500,” and “I can’t believe it. I wish my dad was here. He’s sick, but this is for him, man. We’ve been through so much, and we sat up in the grandstands together and watched the race. This is so freaking cool.”
The Cup Series heads to Atlanta Motor Speedway this weekend with a 1:30 p.m. CDT start time. With one spot in the NASCAR Playoffs filled, who will be the next driver to lock themselves into the playoffs?