DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — The emotional roller coaster of Daytona 500 glory was on full display Sunday night.
Carson Hocevar, Erik Jones, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Chase Elliott and Tyler Reddick all led on the final lap, if only for milliseconds for some. But only one of them — Tyler Reddick — drove his car home unscathed without the crushing heartbreak only Daytona can dish.
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Elliott led most of the 200th lap at Daytona International Speedway, inheriting the lead after Hocevar and Jones collided entering Turn 1 on the white-flag circuit. Still holding that lead off the final turn, Elliott looked like he may finally be heading toward that elusive Harley J. Earl Trophy.
For better or worse, Elliott knew not to get ahead of himself.
“I’m not the type of person that ever lets myself get there in the first place, so I knew it wasn’t over,” Elliott said.
Instead, Riley Herbst’s block of Brad Keselowski coming to the checkered flag tipped Herbst into Elliott’s right rear as Reddick stormed past Elliott’s left. Elliott, the 2020 Cup Series champion, went hard into the SAFER barrier and slid to a halt, ending his 2026 Daytona 500 in a shower of the wrong kind of fireworks. Reddick won ahead of Stenhouse, Logano, Elliott and Keselowski, all left in smoking heaps of stock cars.
“At that point, nobody’s lifting, and I totally get that,” Elliott said. “This obviously sucks to be that close there in the closing lap and have the lead off (Turn) 4 and come up short. But I think momentum had just shifted the other direction, and it was just all defense, and being on defense in the last lap is tough.”
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Stenhouse became a Daytona 500 champion in 2023, but if only for a moment, he saw the light that could have led to his second “Great American Race” victory in four years.
“When I think the 6 and 35 got together, the seas parted, and, man, I shot the center.” Stenhouse said. “And I thought I was gonna come across the line as a winner. I didn’t see the 45 up there, so pretty bummed we got a second-place finish and not a win out of it.”
While Reddick and his 23XI team celebrated in jubilation, there was a deflated feeling that permeated the perimeter of Daytona’s infield care center, a building filled with four of the top five finishers in the “Great American Race,” with Reddick the lone escapee.
Brad Keselowski, the 2012 Cup champion, is now 0-for-17 in his attempts to win the Daytona 500, this time with a fifth-place finish perhaps the most difficult task yet. Keselowski broke his right femur in December while on vacation but was cleared by NASCAR to return to competition on Feb. 9, just six days before Sunday’s 500-miler.
“A few weeks ago, I wasn’t sure I was gonna get to run this race,” Keselowski said.
His leg felt good despite the crash, he added. But in the end, all he could chalk the result up to was chance.
“I felt good about just being in position for sure,” Keselowski said. “You know, at the end, it’s a roll of the dice, and who’s gonna wreck who, and who’s gonna make good moves and bad moves. And the dice didn’t fully roll our way.”
There was, of course, some added frustration in the way those dice shook, with an ill-timed block by Herbst hindering Keselowski’s chances and triggering a multicar incident.
“Oh, the 35 just wrecked me out of nowhere for no reason,” Keselowski said. “That was one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen. He had no chance of blocking my run. I had a huge run. I don’t know if I could have gotten the 45 (Reddick) or 47 (Stenhouse), but I would have liked to find out because my run was fast. And the 35 just wrecked us and himself. Pretty stupid.”
Herbst was instructed by spotter Joe Campbell to move high to block Keselowski’s run, but the timing went wrong — either delivered too late or not accounting for Keselowski’s rush of speed. After Herbst grinded to a stop with an eighth-place finish, Campbell issued an apology.
“Sorry. I was just trying to make something happen,” Campbell said.
That’s the essence of the Daytona 500: trying to make something historic happen. The drive and desire to win this race supersedes those of perhaps any other event on the NASCAR schedule. Winners of the Daytona 500 are known eternally as champions, their names etched in the trophy’s tiles for years to come. This race is atop drivers’ bucket lists.
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“I watched a lot of NASCAR racing growing up,” Reddick said, “but I would never miss the Daytona 500 as a little kid growing up out in California, sitting with my family on Sunday watching this race. I just dreamed of one day just having an opportunity to run this race.”
He was able to walk away with the trophy. Others, like Elliott and Keselowski, are still wondering what their moments may one day feel like.
“Just hate to be that close, you know?” Elliott said. “It’s such a big deal down here, and it kind of sucks. But that’s part of this deal.”