DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — With cars wrecking and flipping behind him in overtime, Nick Sanchez claimed the first NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series victory of his young career in Friday night’s Fresh From Florida 250 at Daytona International Speedway.
The race ended under caution on the second lap of the overtime after Rajah Caruth, running fourth, moved up the track and turned the No. 91 Chevrolet of Jack Wood in front of the field.
Sanchez and runner-up Corey Heim were clear of the chaos, and Caruth escaped with minimal damage and finished third. But behind them, the Chevy of Daniel Dye launched the Toyota of Taylor Gray, which flipped in mid-air and landed upright on its tires in a gaggle of mangled cars.
All told 12 trucks were involved in the wreck, which caused the record 12th caution of the evening.
Coincidentally, Sanchez rallied from a 12-truck crash on Lap 6 to score the victory for his No. 2 Rev Racing Chevrolet team in his sophomore season.
“It’s huge,” Sanchez said. “We spent all of last year trying to get a win. I knew coming into this year I knew that I had to, right? What better race than to do it than Daytona? Honestly, out of every race, if I was going to do it, this would have been the last one (I expected), but happy to do it. It’s awesome.
“I just knew I had to lead at the white flag, because they were probably going to wreck. I’m glad they wrecked — if everyone is OK. I’m just happy.
“It’s huge. Obviously, we have a new technical partner in Spire (Motorsports) — our first race with them. What a better way to start a partnership. (Sponsor) Gainbridge has stuck with me. They were winless last year. They all deserve it, and they’re going to celebrate with me.”
Caruth was thankful for his third-place finish, but he rued the wreck that ended the race.
“I’m trying to play it back differently in the last laps, but thank you to everybody at Spire Motorsports, HendrickCars.com, the Hendrick Automotive Group, and Mr. H (Rick Hendrick) for what they’ve done for me along with everybody at Spire and Chevy,” Caruth said.
“Man, I felt like I got a bad push there, and you’re already getting tight off of the corner, and everybody is going for all they have on the last lap. I feel terrible to see trucks like that torn up. I hope Taylor (Gray) is all right. But a good night to start the year.”
Fifty-one of the 101 laps were run under caution, and it didn’t take long for the action to start. The first major incident KO’d a handful of drivers.
On the backstretch on Lap 6 of a scheduled 100 circuits, a shove from Christian Eckes’ Chevrolet turned the Ford of three-time series champion Matt Crafton into the Ford of Layne Riggs, igniting a 13-truck accident that eliminated Ty Dillon, Thad Moffitt and Jake Garcia.
With his team unable to make repairs on his No. 38 Ford F-150, Riggs took his truck to the garage under caution on Lap 17.
“Chaos, a lot of craziness — everybody was just kind of all over the place,” Dillon said after a mandatory trip to the infield care center. “I’ve never seen anything look like that from behind the wheel four laps into a race.
“With my experience, I knew something like that was going to happen. That’s why I got myself to the bottom to hopefully have a spot to bail. And sure enough, it happened. I thought I got through … I hit the grass and it knocked the tires out of my hand, and I was trying to catch it with the throttle …
“Just hate to be taken out so early and not have a chance.”
The Lap 6 incident was a harbinger of the chaos to come.
Defending series champion Ben Rhodes saw a good night turn bad when Tyler Ankrum door-slammed his Ford on Lap 68. Rhodes pitted with a flat tire a lap later, but after leaving the pits, he spun and crashed as the lead pack tried to dodge the No. 99 Ford in the center of the track.
Rhodes exited the race, and soon after, Johnny Sauter was an innocent victim of a four-truck wreck off Turn 4 — after leading 24 laps, second only to Sanchez’s 26.
Bret Holmes finished fourth, followed by Spencer Boyd. Stefan Parsons, Crafton, Timmy Hill, Bryan Dauzat and Eckes completed the top 10.
NOTE: Post-race inspection in the Truck Series garage was completed with no issues, confirming Sanchez as the winner.
Denny Hamlin topped the leaderboard in Friday evening’s NASCAR Cup Series practice session at Daytona International Speedway with a 197.477 mph lap in the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.
Erik Jones’ No. 43 Legacy Motor Club Toyota was second fastest at 197.468 mph. Christopher Bell (197.429 mph), Ty Gibbs (197.394 mph) and John Hunter Nemechek (197.377 mph) rounded out the top five.
The rest of the top 10 included Tyler Reddick (197.364 mph), Jimmie Johnson (197.282 mph), Bubba Wallace (197.126 mph), Michael McDowell (194.569 mph) and Austin Cindric (194.523 mph).
Daytona 500 pole winner Joey Logano ended practice in 14th at 194.070 mph in the No. 22 Team Penske Ford.
Final practice for the “Great American Race” was canceled for Saturday morning due to inclement weather. The 66th running of the Daytona 500 will run Monday at 4 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN Radio and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
See where your favorite driver will pit for the 66th running of the Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway on Monday (4 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Introducing “36 for 36,” a season-long friendly competition that mixes the excitement of the NASCAR Cup Series season with a dose of strategy.
With 36 races and 36 full-time Charter cars, our players select one car per race, but there’s a simple twist: Once a pick is made, the player can’t choose that car again for the rest of the 36-race season. Yes, that means every car will be selected exactly once … a survivor pool, by another name.
This contest demands strategic foresight as pickers earn points based on the performance of their chosen cars each week. The most points earned over the Cup Series season wins, requiring players to carefully plan their picks, considering factors like track types and driver performance. Opting for underdogs at unpredictable drafting-heavy tracks like Daytona and saving top performers for crucial playoff races could be key strategies.
Follow along weekly as our panel of pickers — Dustin Albino from Jayski, along with Steve Luvender and Cameron Richardson from NASCAR.com — embarks on a season-long journey to prove their picking prowess.
We’ll also feature a fourth “community” 36 for 36 pick each week, as decided by a weekly group vote of fans on the r/NASCAR subreddit. Can the collective vote topple our trio of full-timers? (Hivemind, assemble!)
Race 1 of 36: Daytona
Ah, Daytona! There’s nothing like that new-season smell. Our pickers have a fresh slate of 36 cars for the first race of the season — who will they choose first? Remember, each picker will select each car exactly once throughout the year. So, these selections aren’t necessarily picks to win the “Great American Race” — rather, they’re cars our pickers have chosen with the year-long scope of the game in mind.
Jayski’s Dustin Albino: No. 15, Riley Herbst
Dustin: “Daytona is an equalizer, and Herbst has an excellent track record on superspeedways in four Cup Series starts. In his series debut in last year’s Daytona 500, he overcame an early spin entering pit road and finished 10th. He backed up that performance in August with a fast car, even making a late move to try to win the first stage. Ryan Blaney also gave Herbst credit for pushing the No. 12 car to the win at Talladega last fall. Herbst is a solid underdog choice this weekend.”
NASCAR.com’s Steve Luvender: No. 10, Noah Gragson
Steve: “There’s something to be said about the excitement of a new team and the biggest race of the year that I think plays into the persona of Noah Gragson. Gragson has won at Daytona in the Xfinity Series, and it’s the site of his best Cup finish (fifth in the 2022 summer race), so he understands his way around the draft. Nobody knows how Stewart-Haas Racing will fare on the bulk of the schedule this year — they went winless last year, after all — so, to me, it’s not worth keeping a question mark on the board. Ready to start off this season with a perfect 10.”
NASCAR.com’s Cameron Richardson: No. 21, Harrison Burton
Cameron: “Wood Brothers Racing is still chasing win No. 100, and there would be no better venue to reach the milestone than Daytona. Burton may not be the first name that comes to mind to be at the front of the field, but he’s led laps in both of his starts in the Daytona 500. The third-year driver will enter 2024 with a chip on his shoulder and I genuinely believe he could make enough noise to score a strong finish.”
r/NASCAR Community: No. 15, Riley Herbst
The NASCAR subreddit went with Riley Herbst as the first community-chosen 36 for 36 pick of the season, receiving a majority of votes in the weekly voting thread on Reddit. Herbst’s No. 15 outranked Justin Haley (No. 51) and Austin Dillon (No. 3) as popular choices, but the latter two will be used in later weeks — the people have spoken.
u/Blue8844: “I’m going with this… Riley has showed he can drive on the plate tracks, and will be about 1/6 tracks I’d even consider picking the 15 on.”
u/Mr-T14: “This is the right thinking. Honestly, any one of the 40 drivers has a relatively equal shot at being in a wreck OR running in the top 10. It’s not smart to burn a regular from a top team like Dennis when he’s much better used at Richmond for example”
u/LeapsFrog: “As the only r/NASCAR Fantasy Champion I endorse this pick.”
Check back next week to see how our pickers fared at Daytona as we begin the season-long 36 for 36 journey.
And, if you’ve got a competitive itch beyond meticulously managing your Fantasy Live lineup each week, feel free to save or print your own 36 for 36 sheet and see if you can beat our pickers and the Reddit community!
The skies opened up, and the cars shut off. Dale Earnhardt Jr. climbed out of his No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet and ascended the stairs to the top of his pit box, where the roof protected him from the rain.
His car in the 2014 Daytona 500 was not great to that point; it certainly wasn’t a race-winning car. As the rain continued, Earnhardt and crew chief Steve Letarte discussed the race, the car and what they thought they needed to do to win.
The rain let up briefly enough for them to scatter and wait out what became a 6-hour, 22-minute delay. Letarte retreated to his motorhome, where he tried to keep his mind sharp by playing Scrabble with his wife. Earnhardt hustled to his own motorhome, where he behaved like it was a normal Sunday and not one in which he might win the biggest race in the country for the second time. He put on sweatpants, ate junk food, played Crazy 8s and talked to his girlfriend (now wife), Amy.
He had long loved staying up until all hours of the night, so it didn’t bother him to wait. In that downtime, he decided that when the race restarted — late that night, early the next morning, whenever — he was “going to race as hard as I can — be a jerk.”
It was rare for him to race that way, especially with so much of the race left. “For whatever reason,” he says, “I was like, ‘Nope, I’m leading every (expletive) lap. If I can lead it, I’m going to lead it. I’m going to fight for every single inch.’ ”
When the race restarted, he sliced from the top of the track to the bottom and back again, pinched drivers into the wall, blocked passes before they happened and squeezed his car into holes he never otherwise would have tried to.
It worked.
When he roared under the checkered flag at 11:18 p.m. ET, 10 years ago, it was more than just NASCAR’s favorite son triumphing on the sport’s most hallowed ground. It was Earnhardt’s moment of long-sought redemption, his emergence from the wilderness, his reclamation of lost years in which he wondered if he’d ever win again.
He keyed his microphone and yelled, “We’re going to burn this (expletive) down!” And NASCAR Nation warmed itself by that fire.
It’s a cliché that happens to be true that winning the Daytona 500 changes your life, and so it was for Earnhardt in 2014. Amid the unbridled joy as Sunday night became Monday morning, Earnhardt used his phone to take a selfie with the Harley J. Earl Trophy, signed into his dormant and unused Twitter account, keyed in a message and hit send at 2:32 a.m. ET: Tonight seemed like as good a night as any to join Twitter. How is everyone doin? #2XDaytona500Champ
That simple message set his life on a course nobody saw coming, Earnhardt included. But it has turned out to be a crucial step in his journey from a shy, introverted driver who hid in his motorhome most weekends into an outspoken media personality whose podcast, social media presence and race commentary dominate the NASCAR media world.
To understand how profound of a change it was, you have to go back to his first Daytona 500 win, 20 years ago.
Chris Trotman | Getty Images
In 2004, Earnhardt entered the Daytona 500 as NASCAR’s unrivaled superstar. He was amid 15 straight seasons of being named the sport’s most popular driver. Racing the No. 8 Budweiser Chevy for the team that bore his late father’s name, he had won at least two races each of the previous four years and finished third in the points the previous season, a career high. He opened 2004 on the short list of championship contenders.
The Daytona 500 is always the biggest race of the year. In 2004, with a new title sponsor at the Cup level in Nextel and a new points format in The Chase, the attention was as high as it had ever been.
Like his father before him, he was always the driver to watch at the high-banked, 2.5-mile, restrictor-plate track. To that point in his career, he had won two qualifying races, the 2003 Bud Shootout and the 2001 Pepsi 400 but never the Daytona 500.
The 2004 Daytona 500 was something short of spectacular. After a 12-car wreck on Lap 71, the race ran green for the final 120 laps. Earnhardt and Tony Stewart were the class of the field, leading a combined 156 of 200 laps. They agreed early in the race to work like teammates — draft together, pit together, stay on the same sequence, and when it came to the end, they would battle for the win.
As the race wound down, Stewart held the lead as Earnhardt chased him. Earnhardt played with the throttle, letting way out of the gas and then hammering down to try to catch Stewart at the exit of the corner, practicing for what he hoped would be the race-winning move.
On Lap 181, he pulled side by side with Stewart — a more aggressive position than he had envisioned, essentially engaging the pass without having intended to. To complete the pass, he needed to side-draft Stewart. He had a five-inch window to make that move happen, otherwise Stewart would maintain his position as the leader. As Earnhardt inched into position, the two touched, and that contact created a perfect slingshot to catapult Earnhardt to the lead.
Earnhardt waited and waited for Stewart to attempt a similar move to pass him back, but he never did. With about five laps left, Earnhardt realized Stewart didn’t have the car to pass him. The race was his … as long as nothing broke, as long as there was no caution. Every engine noise sounded like a gremlin chewing on wires, every tire felt like it was going down, every roar seemed to be the last gasp of an engine blowing up, but that was all in his head.
The end came uneventfully except for the screaming — in his ears, out of his mouth, from the crowd, across living rooms throughout the country.
“It’s a great, great feeling that you can’t replicate anywhere else in the rest of your existence,” he says. “Getting married and having kids are first and second to everything else that I’ve ever done, sure. But I didn’t come running out of the room at the hospital screaming in the hallways and into the arms of people.”
That high gives context to the lows that followed — and makes his return to that mountaintop 10 years later even more remarkable.
NASCAR Research & Archives Center | Getty Images
Earnhardt won five more times in 2004, and he had a shot at the championship before he was docked points for swearing in a live TV interview after a win at Talladega and wrecked a few races later. He entered the final race of the season mathematically in the hunt for the championship. He ultimately finished fifth in the standings.
Though 2004 had a disappointing ending, Earnhardt appeared poised to be a yearly contender for championships.
That never happened.
He won only four more times in the next nine seasons. His life turned into a Jerry Springer episode, as one person close to him put it. He escaped a fire in a sports car crash, feuded with his stepmother and had a falling out with Uncle Tony Eury Sr., who had been his crew chief.
His confidence — always a crucial barometer for Earnhardt, in the car and out — cratered, and so did his performance. He stopped saying he was the best driver in the sport because he stopped believing he was the best driver in the sport.
Even a switch to the powerhouse Hendrick Motorsports before the 2008 season failed for years to produce results expected of the sport’s favorite son. In 2009, 2010 and 2011 combined, he managed just nine top fives and 25 top 10s with an average finish of 18.8.
“You just can’t get out of your own way. It affected his confidence,” says Mike Davis, who has worked with Earnhardt since 2004 and is now president and executive producer of Earnhardt’s Dirty Mo Media. “Those years were no small thing. A lot of people don’t come back from that.”
But Junior did. He had solid seasons in 2012 and 2013, with one win, 20 top fives and 42 top 10s, and he entered the 2014 Daytona 500 with expectations higher than any year since 2005. Would this be the year he finally emerged as a star again?
In the first race, he answered with a resounding yes.
Brad Keselowski said it was the hardest-raced Daytona 500 in history. Apparently, everyone else decided to “be a jerk,” just like Earnhardt had. Earnhardt’s battle with Greg Biffle illustrates that point. They traded the lead 34 times on Laps 153 through 159 and eight times on Lap 169 alone.
Earnhardt describes restrictor-plate racing as like using a set of tools that aren’t always the same. Sometimes the tools work slightly differently, or you get a new tool entirely. You don’t know how the tools will work, or even that some of them exist, until the race starts, and you only discover them at 200 miles per hour with cars in front, behind and beside you.
“Dale Jr. did better than everyone in my opinion — he used every single moment every lap to continue to fill his toolbox with what he needed to win the race,” Letarte says.
That’s what happened as he raced against Biffle. As they fought for the lead, Biffle had more cars behind him, which should have given him the advantage. But Earnhardt discovered if he squeezed Biffle very close to the wall, Biffle’s car would slow ever so slightly. That tool had never worked exactly that way before, but it did that night.
He used it to win the race.
Patrick Smith | Getty Images
The words in that fateful tweet — “Tonight seemed like as good a night as any to join Twitter” —make it seem like a spur-of-the-moment decision. It wasn’t.For years, Earnhardt’s marketing people, friends, even Twitter (now rebranded as “X”) officials pushed him to join the platform. But he resisted. He doubted anyone cared what he had to say, and he had misgivings about the nature of conversations on social media.
He wanted to join; he didn’t want to join. He thought he would; he thought he wouldn’t. Some friends told him he should do so; other friends told him hell no don’t do that. He visited the White House with fellow drivers, and they talked about Twitter there. Like an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, Kevin Harvick told him he should join, and Denny Hamlin advised him not to.
In late 2013 or early 2014, in something between a bet and a promise, Earnhardt told Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson (by that point already a Twitter ace) that if he (Earnhardt) won the Daytona 500, he would join Twitter.
The tweet exploded in the NASCAR and broader sports social media world. By that morning, he already had more than 300,000 followers, and he soon became an avid user of the app. He delighted in learning the lingo, the do’s and don’ts, and he spent countless hours experimenting.
Joining the platform was like restrictor-plate racing in that the tools he used were largely the same as he used in his personal life but a little different. He didn’t become opinionated and witty when he joined Twitter. He was already those things. He didn’t learn to tell stories there; he already knew how. The tools he lacked were the confidence to share his opinions, wit and stories outside of a small circle of friends, and the belief that anybody cared what he had to say.
Twitter gave him both of those tools, and the more he played with the app, the more he liked it, not least because it got him out of his own head. After a bad race, he felt “ashamed to show my face anywhere.” Twitter showed him the rest of the world had moved on, so should he.
Some Sunday nights after races he would arrive home in North Carolina unable to sleep because he was still caked with adrenaline. He’d grab a beer, go downstairs to his computer and jump on Twitter. Soon he’d be answering questions of whoever asked them, an unannounced AMA session that ran deep into the night.
Occasionally, he woke up the next day and wondered what dumpster fire he might have started. But it was always innocuous. He enjoyed wishing strangers happy birthday, reminiscing about old photos and connecting with musicians whose work he loves. It was like sitting on his couch talking to his buddies about any and all topics, up to and including banana-and-mayonnaise sandwiches.
Looking back, he calls that time “practice” for his roles hosting the Dale Jr. Download podcast and analyzing races on NBC. As he got more comfortable on Twitter, that led to him being more comfortable on the podcast. He’s a ubiquitous presence now, but when it launched, he wasn’t. He wasn’t even a regular in-studio guest, never mind the host and star as he is today.
He would instead record audio clips and send them to Davis. As with everything in his life, confidence bred confidence. “I just kept dipping my toe deeper and deeper into the water,” Earnhardt says. “And so then I walked into Mike’s office and said, ‘Hey, I’m ready to host.’ He’s like, ‘Really?’ He never thought I was ever going to do that.”
Meg Oliphant | Getty Images
“Twitter changed Dale Jr.’s life,” is true, but it’s also too reductive. None of this happened in a vacuum, rather it was part of a transformation of Earnhardt from a shy introvert into a still shy but less so, still introverted but less so and now confident and vibrant media personality.
Earnhardt met his wife, Amy, in 2008. They married in 2016 and now have two children. She coaxed him out of his self-created shell. She taught him about sacrifice and commitment and how to be unselfish, inside the car and out.
In 2011, he started working with crew chief Letarte, who, by refusing to let Earnhardt spend all race weekend locked in his motorhome playing video games, demanded accountability from him in a way nobody else had. Letarte insisted Earnhardt show up at the hauler an hour before practice and stay after practice until he didn’t need Earnhardt anymore. The conversations those meetings generated led to a deep friendship and fast cars.
“The more he was out and about the more comfortable he became with it, but it was still in an environment you can control,” Letarte says. “And I look at Twitter as the next step.”
All of that together made Earnhardt more comfortable with the idea of becoming a media personality, even if it wasn’t intentional and is obvious only with hindsight. From Twitter to the podcast to broadcasting was a natural progression, albeit an astonishing one to those who know him: Earnhardt, who spent many years uncomfortable even going out to eat in public, is now willing to put himself out there in front of the world all the time.
Said Davis: “I would have bet every dollar I had that he wasn’t going to go into broadcasting. I would have lost everything. The fact that he’s not only doing it but is extremely good at it is mind-blowing.”
Sean Gardner | Getty Images
Earnhardt’s first taste of broadcasting came when he missed races in 2016 due to a concussion and NBC invited him to the broadcast booth at Talladega. Wearing dark-framed glasses, sneakers, jeans and a blue and gray plaid shirt — Amy stopped him from wearing his preferred hoodie — he sat on a stool between NBC analysts Letarte and Jeff Burton, against whom he raced hundreds of times.
They lapsed into a conversation like old friends. His eyes darted from the track to the TV screen in front of him. He smiled often and at one point raised his hand when he wanted to interject a point.
While Earnhardt was still in the booth, NBC announced he would return there for the following week’s race at Martinsville. Producer Matt Marvin told him what a great job he had done. Marvin paused for just a second and said, “Next time, if you’re not as good, we’ll kick you out early.”
When Earnhardt retired after the 2017 season, his arrival in NBC’s booth full-time for the 2018 season seemed like a foregone conclusion, even if four short years before, the idea would have been laughable.
For his first few years as a broadcaster, anxiety followed him to every race, sat with him and whispered critiques. He felt like he was taking a test he wasn’t prepared for, and that the racing community would give him a failing grade. He obsessively read reviews of his performance on social media. He eventually realized that was doing more harm than good and stopped.
“Learning the art of being a sports broadcaster involves talking, but it also involves listening,” says Jeff Behnke, NBC’s vice president of NASCAR production. “It takes years to refine not only your ability to speak on air but also to listen to what others are saying. Dale works to improve both of those aspects of broadcasting, along with his storytelling, every time he puts the headset on.”
Perhaps his best work of storytelling was just two words long.
At Earnhardt’s first Cup race as a full-time broadcaster, Kyle Larson and Kyle Busch engaged in one of NASCAR’s all-time great finishes at Chicagoland Speedway. As Larson attempted a “slide job” in front of Busch on the last lap, Earnhardt yelled that expression — twice.
He said he felt like he was sitting on his couch talking to his buddies — a “tool” he has used countless times — only this time, he was being watched by millions — the same tool, only much, much louder.
“Slide job!” immediately entered the NASCAR lexicon. By the time Earnhardt got to the airport after the race, his phone was full of texts parroting that phrase back to him. At Daytona the following weekend, fans shouted it to him everywhere.
And, of course, Earnhardt’s call blew up on Twitter.
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — When Jimmie Johnson first arrived at Daytona International Speedway in the late 1990s, there was only one way in and out when cars were running on the track. The young driver who would become a seven-time NASCAR champion and a Hall of Famer drove into the infield the way most everyone else did — through the double-tubed tunnel underneath the speedway’s fourth turn.
Johnson heard cars making laps. Practice before single-car qualifying, he suspected. When he re-emerged into the daylight, his eyes locked on another iconic image.
“When I popped out on the other side, I looked up because I could hear a car coming through (turns) three and four. And there was the black No. 3, and I’ll never forget,” Johnson said, recalling the sight of Dale Earnhardt at speed at the peak of his “Man in Black” swagger. “It was just a bright, sunny day. Wasn’t really anybody there yet, so I had a clear line of sight across the grass and seagulls flying, and that black No. 3 coming around. Back in that era, they ran a certain type of exhaust, and the car had a very distinct sound, and that car went screaming by — the Intimidator went screaming by — and I was like, ‘This is cool. I’m in Daytona.’
“And I still think of that. Also I still love just going through the Turn 4 tunnel whenever it’s open. It’s just nostalgic in that way.”
For many, the Turn 4 tunnel that has served as an enduring entryway for millions since the original track opened for business in 1959 has meant arrival at one of the most sacred places in sports. Like seeing the ivy-covered outfield walls of Wrigley Field on baseball’s opening day or the not-yet-frozen tundra of Lambeau for pro football’s kickoff, reaching your destination at Daytona means rising from the tunnel into the sunlight and seeing the swaying palm trees and the steep ribbon of high-speed asphalt that rings the acres of sandy soil.
The ritual is an annual tradition for many, but each trip through stirs the anticipation for the dawn of a new season and an arrival at one of auto racing’s meccas.
“I mean, I’m in Year 19, and I still get those butterflies that I did, right from the very beginning,” said three-time Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin. “The nervousness doesn’t set in … I don’t get nervous like I used to, but it’s just more excitement now that we’re about to go, this is about to happen. It’s amazing. You go through the tunnel; the tunnel’s been the same now for many, many years. You feel it when you go down that, when you come out the other side.”
***
Daytona’s Turn 4 tunnel was a space-age amenity at the time of its construction. NASCAR founder Bill France envisioned a gleaming race track the same length as the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to its north, but with sweeping, high-banked turns designed to rival the speeds of the Italian Grand Prix’s oval section at Monza. That vision came with a nearly $3 million price tag — $32M in today’s money – to transform 448 acres of city-owned land from wilderness into a speed palace in just under two years.
To welcome the thousands of fans drawn to the new spectacle, France planned for six entrances to accommodate upward of 30,000 cars. The lone tunnel was both novelty and luxury. Infield access at the bullrings that were commonplace on the NASCAR schedule at the time was typically through a primitive crossover gate or an opening in the retaining walls during a break in the action.
NASCAR Research & Archives Center | Getty Images
The Turn 4 tunnel allowed access to the inner section of the Daytona track at all times — crucial to crowd control amid a rigorous schedule of practice and speed trials before the speedway’s 1959 debut. Or, as the Orlando Sentinel delicately worded it in its July 27, 1958 editions: “The tunnels will not only help the parking problem but they will provide a means of getting the meat wagons out in a hurry in case of a crash.”
By late April the previous year, France announced that the work for the tunnels had been contracted out. The dual steel tubes were ordered by mid-May, and dredging and installation lasted through the summer. By late November and with crews racing to finish the speedway in time for the first Daytona 500, the tunnels were in place — 14 feet in diameter, with a three-foot roadbed base leaving an 11-foot clearance at the top of each tube (that clearance is listed as a tidy 7-foot-6 today). The angled path measured 228 feet from in to out.
The first travelers to make their way through reacted with unbridled awe. Lee Petty was already one of the sport’s earliest stars by then, winning 37 Cup Series races all up and down the East Coast, but mostly at dusty fairgrounds-style ovals a half-mile or shorter in length. Mighty Darlington was his only basis for comparison, but even NASCAR’s first superspeedway was still nearly half of Daytona’s size.
So when Petty drove through the tunnel for the first time with his family, he had his No. 42 Oldsmobile race car in tow and his 21-year-old son – the man who would be king – as a backseat driver. When he cleared the exit, Petty’s eyes grew wider and he slammed on the brakes.
“I had my wife next to me, and Richie in the back seat, and I wanted to say something, but I was just speechless,” Lee Petty told the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times in 1988. “I had never seen anything so big in my entire life. I looked at those high-banked corners, and that giant grandstand, and I thought, ‘no way.’ ”
Days later, Lee Petty was crowned as the Daytona 500’s first champion. “Richie” Petty later cemented his legend here as King Richard by winning the “Great American Race” a record seven times over.
“We came here,” Richard Petty says now, “it was just a whole different world.”
***
Jamie Squire | Getty Images
One day before he won the pole position for Monday’s Daytona 500, Joey Logano officially landed at the track through the fourth-turn tunnel. The trip provided some personal validation, but it also gave his family the best derring-do exhilaration a full-sized SUV can provide — with a literal landing.
“I still get excited about it, which is good. When I did that last night, I said, ‘OK, I’m still excited to go racing.’ That means I’m not ready to hang it up, so that part’s good,” Logano said during Wednesday’s Media Day, just hours before putting his No. 22 Team Penske Ford on the point in qualifying. “My kids, I didn’t think about this, but my kids love that tunnel so you know, because you can jump out of it pretty good. You can definitely catch air, so if you were wondering if a Ford Expedition can catch air, yes it can, out of the tunnel, and they love it.
“You should give it a shot sometime. It’s full commit, though. You’ve got to really want it.”
Even less-acrobatic trips still require some finesse. The tunnel — with yellow guard rails projecting the narrow pedestrian walkway — is a snug fit for anything much larger than a midsize sedan. Ask Hamlin, who has three Harley J. Earl trophies to his credit but has had the misfortune of putting more than one rental on the damaged-vehicle policy clock.
“It’s multiple times,” Hamlin says. “Don’t text and drive through the tunnel. It’s tighter than a normal road. … We’ve had some Darlington stripes on a few rental cars.”
A massive renovation in 2004 broke up the Turn 4 tunnel’s Daytona monopoly. A large underground pathway was built at the entrance to Turn 1, large enough to allow RVs, campers and race haulers safe passage inside.
The modern tunnel’s birth still didn’t render the original obsolete. Fans still arrive by the tramload, and drivers still shimmy their way through, like threading a three-wide needle at 190 mph on the banked asphalt above it.
It’s all part of the annual pilgrimage, with the Turn 4 tunnel calling all race fans like a beacon in the night.
“I don’t care what you go through. I don’t care what happens at Daytona that gives you maybe a second thought. There’s nothing like going through that tunnel,” said NASCAR Vice Chairman Mike Helton. “And there’s other places for me, but there’s nothing like Daytona. … It’s magic.”
The New Smyrna Speedway results rolling in on the week of Feb. 9-16 mean more than your typical list of Florida short-track winners. The World Series of Asphalt Stock Car Racing is the NASCAR Home Track’s crown jewel, a nine-night extravaganza of racing featuring multiple divisions.
Each night of the World Series of Asphalt at New Smyrna produces a handful of feature winners. And the features over the week include tentpoles like the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour season-opener, the ASA STARS National Tour Clyde Hart Memorial 200, the John Blewett III Memorial, the Richie Evans Memorial/Hart to Heart 100 and the Orange Blossom 100.
Dozens of drivers in each division are looking to emerge victorious on each night of the World Series, but the most coveted prizes of the week are the titles awarded to the week-long winners of each division.
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Ryan Blaney climbed from his damaged, flaming No. 12 Ford physically fine but mentally at his wits’ end.
The defending NASCAR Cup Series champion was one of a number of victims involved in an 11-car crash at Lap 48 in the second race of Thursday night’s Bluegreen Vacations Duels at Daytona International Speedway. As a result, Blaney, Kyle Busch and select others will be forced to use backup cars in Monday’s 66th annual Daytona 500 (4 p.m. ET, FOX, FOX Deportes, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Blaney was running fifth, single-file, exiting Turn 4 when he pulled to the outside of William Byron for fourth place. Byron blocked and Blaney dove low. Blaney had a run and Byron lost momentum. Byron’s loss of speed led the drafting duo of Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski to Byron’s rear bumper in the center of the track’s tri-oval from Busch, who was simultaneously being shoved by Keselowski. The contact to Byron’s bumper sent him sideways, clipping Blaney in the right rear and sending him head-on into the retaining SAFER barrier.
Thursday marked the third consecutive race at Daytona that resulted in Blaney being hooked in the right rear. With another significant wreck, his frustrations boiled over.
“It comes from awful pushes by people,” Blaney said after being evaluated and released from the infield care center. “I mean, three times here in a row awful pushes have led me to getting right-reared. And it’s just guys not being smart, not knowing when to get off somebody. Like, you cannot push in the corner that hard in the tri-oval. I don’t know when guys are gonna get it.
“I’m sick of paying the expense of it and getting right-reared from someone’s dumb push. So it’s just frustrating because we do everything right, and then you have guys who are just careless and just shove guys until they just don’t know when to let them go and it causes wrecks, and I just seem to be the byproduct of getting hooked in the right rear, which is never fun.”
The annoyance — or plain anger — is fueled by past impacts he’s taken at the 2.5-mile superspeedway, not the least of which was a front-end crash from the lead during the 2023 regular-season finale, going nose-first into the Turn 4 wall.
“Pissed. I’m pissed. I’m sick of getting right-reared here by someone else’s awful push …,” he said. “We have a backup car for the 500. Did everything right tonight, and now we have to work our ass off the next two days trying to get a 500 car ready, so I’m pissed and I have every right to be pissed.”
Busch, a two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion, felt nearly helpless as he and Keselowski caught Byron with nowhere else to dart.
“The big run that the 12 got kind of got the 24 (Byron) shucked out of line,” Busch said. “He lost momentum. I’m seeing that lifting, rolling out of the gas, trying not to hit the 24 and I’m getting a little bit of bump from behind from the 6 (Keselowski) also, not really seeing through me what’s going on, and just hit the 24 in the tri-oval where you’re not supposed to and spun them out and caused the wreck. So just an accordion-type deal, but it happens that way.”
Busch clarified he isn’t laying the blame on Keselowski, the 2012 Cup champion who wasn’t aware how quickly he and Busch were catching Byron.
“It’s just the nature of what all this stuff is,” Busch said.
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Neither of Jimmie Johnson’s Daytona 500 wins came by virtue of a last-lap pass. Thursday night, facing a desperation scenario just to reach the “Great American Race” field, he converted one.
Johnson recovered from a late-race crash and placed his non-chartered No. 84 Legacy Motor Club Toyota into the 40-car field for Monday’s Daytona 500 (4 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), finishing 12th in the first Bluegreen Vacations Duel qualifying race and foiling J.J. Yeley’s heavy-underdog bid for one of the final starting berths. Yeley wound up 16th in his No. 44 NY Racing Team Chevrolet, bringing a sour end to an 11th-hour partnership that materialized just days earlier.
“That was way more pressure than I ever wanted,” Johnson told his No. 84 team over radio communications on the cool-down lap. “Good job, guys. Thank you.”
Johnson was behind Yeley at the white-flag lap at Daytona International Speedway, rallying only in the final stretch after his frantic pleas for help in the aerodynamic draft were finally answered with a late push from Martin Truex Jr.’s No. 19 Toyota. Yeley’s car drifted up the track through the final set of corners, making an evasive move when Ross Chastain’s No. 1 Chevrolet slowed dramatically after a stack-up near the front.
That’s when Johnson pounced, with Truex settling in behind him to cement the results and allay his worst fears.
“I’m like, I’m not going to make it, not going to make the Daytona 500. I’m going to have to call all our partners. I’m going to have to stand in the suite during the 500 and shake hands, not drive a car,” said Johnson, now a part-timer behind the wheel and a full-timer as a minority owner of Legacy M.C. “This is running through my mind as I’m catching him. I have to figure out a way. An almost-wreck happens, leave it on the floor, hope for the best. Just went the other direction than J.J.’s car, and it worked out.”
The final spot in the Daytona 500 field went to Kaz Grala, who warded off BJ McLeod in Thursday’s second 150-mile qualifier for the final berth reserved for Open, non-chartered cars. Fellow Open drivers Anthony Alfredo and David Ragan both locked in their starting spots by virtue of their posted speeds in Wednesday night’s pole qualifying session.
The position was an unfamiliar one for the seven-time Cup Series champion and NASCAR Hall of Famer, who needed to gut out a Hail Mary performance to make the first — and most important — of nine races he plans to run this year. Johnson appeared to have clear sailing early on, reaching as high as third place in the first half and keeping his distance ahead of Yeley in the running order.
After a pit-stop exchange, Johnson was mired back in the field when a jam-up involving Daniel Hemric, Austin Dillon and defending 500 winner Ricky Stenhouse Jr. snared his No. 84 ride. Johnson kept rolling without significant contact, but after a pit stop, was now back behind Yeley and out of the transfer position.
His voice grew more and more frenzied as the laps ticked down, and Johnson and his team begged for teammate Erik Jones to drop back to offer a much-needed push. He rode side-by-side with Yeley, who made his best blocking efforts to keep his 500 hopes intact.
Only after his final-lap rally was Johnson able to exhale. After he dismounted from his car, he walked over to Yeley’s car parked behind his on pit road and shook his hand.
“I was blocking the best I could,” said Yeley, who indicated he was contacted Monday by NY Racing management for the No. 44 ride. “He kind of got me a little sideways down front straightaway. I mean, I’m racing for my life. Obviously, he’s just racing for another Daytona 500. So to me, it was David versus Goliath. But like I said, at the end, he just had more friends coming to the checkered and it was enough for us.”
Johnson said he woke up Thursday with a low-stress morning. Strategies had been ironed out, a Toyota game plan was in place, and optimism was high. He had never failed to qualify in any of his 689 Cup Series start attempts, but his mind rewound back to his lone career DNQ — a 2000 miss, at Daytona no less, to start off his first full Xfinity Series season. It was a flashback he hoped would not be a premonition.
“I’ve never been through anything like this,” Johnson said. ” … To fight like we did in those closing laps, I mean, I’ve only done that for a race win here. Never had that level of anxiety and fight for a Duel or anything else except for a proper win.”
Grala made his own Cinderella run in the second 150-miler. He entered the weekend as the third entry from the Front Row Motorsports stables but was the only driver who did not post a lap in Wednesday’s qualifying session, his No. 36 Ford unable to gain speed. A loose bolt had caused the shifter rod to disconnect from the transmission, and he over-revved the engine as he struggled to put the car in gear as it limped around the apron. With fixes made, Grala’s pace was just enough to keep McLeod at bay in the closing laps and seal his third Daytona 500 appearance.
“Yeah, just really proud of the Front Row Motorsports guys because the last 24 hours were pretty stressful, a lot of hard work to get the car repaired and ready for today,” said Grala, who started last and finished 12th in the 21-car field. “I felt like it had good speed in it. The driver needed to pick up on some things. Did a little learning tonight. I feel like I know a lot more going into Sunday than I did going into this one.”
McLeod’s Live Fast Motorsports outfit was also on unfamiliar ground, back at Daytona this year as a part-time team competing without a charter and the guaranteed starting spot that comes with it. His No. 78 Chevrolet was snared when multicar bedlam erupted in the 49th of 60 laps, but he continued with minimal damage, finishing just two positions behind Grala at the checkered flag.
McLeod’s streak of consecutive Daytona 500 starts ended at five straight, but he remained upbeat about his team’s showing. He said Live Fast will return to the track next weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway as the team continues to focus on superspeedway-style tracks in its partial Cup Series schedule this year.
“I feel like, yeah, we missed this race but we learned so much moving toward the future for the Cup team, being an Open team and trying to come out of our little-bitty shop with no help whatsoever,” McLeod said. “My guys literally set this car up with just them. I mean, there’s no manufacturer help, there’s no nothing. We’re here on our own, and to come that close for real, it felt good. Honestly, I don’t feel at a loss, I feel happy. We got here and we raced hard and just had a fun night, right? I’m so thankful for the opportunities I’ve had, but very few of them have I been able to drive 100% to my ability and this one, I drove everything I had, wasn’t enough, but I did it and that’s what feels good.”
We’re bringing you live updates leading up to Monday’s NASCAR Cup Series season opener at Daytona International Speedway — the Daytona 500 (4:00 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Bookmark this page and check back often as we chronicle the action from the 2.5-mile track down south.
The 2.5-mile Daytona International Speedway hosts the 200-lap season-opener on Monday afternoon, delayed a day due to wet weather on Sunday. It’s NASCAR’s biggest race, and it kicks off the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season.
Team Penske’s Joey Logano (No. 22 Ford) and Front Row Motorsports’ Michael McDowell (No. 34 Ford) will lead the field to green in Monday’s “Great American Race” after turning in the top two speeds in Wednesday night’s qualifying session. The remainder of the field was determined Thursday night via the pair of 60-lap Bluegreen Vacations Duels.
How big is this race? Ricky Stenhouse Jr. is the defending Daytona 500 winner — and last year’s victory earned him a playoff spot for the first time since 2017, in just the first race of the season.
All times listed are Eastern.
Monday, February 19
10:40 p.m., checkered flag: Thanks for following along with our live blog! Congratulations to William Byron, 2024 Daytona 500 champion. | Unofficial results
8:52 p.m., checkered flag: Before tonight, William Byron had an average finish of 30.3 in the Daytona 500; he’d never finished better than 21st in six starts. Today was a little different.
8:08 p.m., checkered flag: Alex Bowman may have ended his streak of front-row starts at the Daytona 500 at six, but he posted a career-best second-place finish in the 500 behind his teammate.
8:07 p.m., checkered flag: William Byron led the field when the caution flew for the Ross Chastain and Austin Cindric crash that ended the race.
OFFICIAL: @WilliamByron was the leader at the time of caution.
8:01 p.m., Lap 199: Caution No. 5 as Austin Cindric and Ross Chastain go for a spin with the white flag ready to fly. Their Daytona 500 hopes have come to an end a lap short while battling for the win.
8:00 p.m., Lap 198: It’s William Byron up front with the white flag coming soon!
7:39 p.m., Lap 192: Among those involved (*inhales deeply*): Kyle Larson, Brad Keselowski, Noah Gragson, Denny Hamlin, Ryan Blaney, Chase Briscoe, Chris Buescher, Martin Truex Jr., Joey Logano, Todd Gilliland, Ryan Preece, Erik Jones, Tyler Reddick, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Ty Gibbs, Anthony Alfredo and Daniel Suárez.
7:34 p.m., Lap 192: The red flag is out for cleanup.
7:30 p.m., Lap 192: Caution No. 4 and it’s the Big One. Like, really big. William Byron made contact with Brad Keselowski in second place and collected a bunch of cars. Whew.
7:28 p.m., Lap 189: Ross Chastain is back in the lead, battling hard with Joey Logano. This three-wide behind them can’t last forever, can it?
7:27 p.m., Lap 187: Daniel Suárez has become the 19th different leader today. Thirteen laps remain.
7:24 p.m., Lap 184: After pit stops, it’s Ross Chastain up front, leading defending winner Ricky Stenhouse Jr. — two highly aggressive drivers, facing off against two equally aggressive racers, Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski, on the outside. Buckle up!
7:22 p.m., Lap 182: The Toyotas stopped first, then the Fords, and now the bulk of the Chevrolets.
7:20 p.m., Lap 178: Ah, here come the pit stops. No mistakes here, drivers and crews. This one’s for all the money.
7:09 p.m., Lap 165: Joey Logano, David Ragan, Brad Keselowski and Chase Briscoe have led a charge of Fords back to the point. Remember, pit stops are coming up soon.
7:07 p.m., Lap 163: Kyle Busch has made contact with the wall after a lane change. We’ll see if it impacts the No. 8 in the closing laps.
7:05 p.m., Lap 160: Consider the fuel window open — for regulation distance, at least. One more pit stop tonight, if all goes as planned.
6:59 p.m., Lap 153: Ah, yes, there he is. Three-time Daytona 500 champion Denny Hamlin has picked his way to the lead. It was only a matter of time. He’s the 17th different leader today.
6:57 p.m., Lap 150: We’ve reached the three-quarters mark of the scheduled distance. It’s been an awfully green race so far, but things are quite intense throughout the pack right now. Kyle Busch leads the bottom lane, while Corey LaJoie’s got a line of cars behind him on the outside.
6:50 p.m., Lap 140: Three-wide through the field! AJ Allmendinger has now found himself out front for the first time today, leading Corey LaJoie.
6:46 p.m., Lap 136: The green flag is out again! It’s time for the final stage of the Daytona 500. Austin Cindric and Bubba Wallace lead the field.
6:42 p.m., Lap 134: Uh oh. Kyle Busch has made an extra pit stop after the left-front tire wasn’t properly attached. The wheel stayed on the No. 8 car, but had it fallen off, it would have been a much bigger issue.
6:33 p.m., Lap 130: On the final lap of Stage 2, Ryan Blaney makes a move on his Team Penske teammate to take the lead … and the stage win.
Brittney Wilbur | NASCAR
6:27 p.m., Lap 123: 2022 Daytona 500 champion Austin Cindric now leads, becoming the 14th different leader today. Stage 2 ends in eight laps.
6:24 p.m., Lap 117: The rest of the field has pitted to complete the pit cycle with 14 laps remaining in Stage 2. Hendrick Motorsports teammates Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott now lead.
6:18 p.m., Lap 111: Half the field has peeled off the track for pit stops. Josh Berry went for a spin into his pit stall, and that’ll cost him a lot of time. Luckily for the rookie, the stage ends soon and he’ll get a chance to catch up to his competitors.
6:17 p.m., Lap 109: Kyle Busch is the new leader with pit stops looming. The leading Fords — Todd Gilliland, Joey Logano and Justin Haley — dropped to the bottom lane to prepare for an easier pit entry.
6:10 p.m., Lap 101: We’re halfway home! Todd Gilliland leads Joey Logano on the outside line, while Toyotas Martin Truex Jr. and Tyler Reddick control the inside.
Brittney Wilbur | NASCAR
6:05 p.m., Lap 95: As we near the halfway point of Stage 2 (and the race!), this is a good time to remind you to evaluate your Fantasy Live lineup and make any adjustments necessary. Garage the cars that are out of contention: Jimmie Johnson, Michael McDowell, Austin Dillon, Kaz Grala, Harrison Burton and Carson Hocevar.
6:02 p.m., Lap 91: Joey Logano continue to leads the outside line, but the Todd Gilliland-led inside line can’t seem to match the outside’s speed.
5:48 p.m., Lap 72: Move Joey Logano to P1 after a push from Chase Briscoe, who quickly fades back. Justin Haley follows Logano to second.
5:46 p.m., Lap 71: Green flag to start Stage 2! Kyle Larson and Josh Berry lead the field back to speed.
5:44 p.m., Lap 69: You won’t see Kyle Busch at the front of the field at the restart — the No. 8 is serving an end-of-line penalty for a safety violation. He’ll top off on fuel.
5:40 p.m., Lap 67: Well, that was a fun stage. An interesting mix of strategies have put the Chevrolets on top so far. Cars are headed to pit road once again for tires and fuel.
Alejandro Alvarez | NASCAR Studios
5:37 p.m., Lap 66: Caution No. 2 for the end of Stage 1.
5:36 p.m., Lap 65: Chase Elliott made a move past Kyle Busch and held teammate Kyle Larson at bay to claim Stage 1. The Kyles are no match for the 2020 series champ, clearly.
5:34 p.m., Lap 63: Kyle Busch cycles to the top spot, leading a pack of seven Chevrolets who’ve executed pit stops to perfection. Two laps remain in Stage 1.
5:32 p.m., Lap 61: The Gragson-led pack has hit pit road, minus David Ragan and Ryan Preece, who inherit the lead. Will they try to stretch fuel for five laps and finish out the stage? Meanwhile, Kyle Busch leads a charging train of Chevrolets approaching the pair quickly.
5:28 p.m., Lap 56: The majority of the cars are now stopping for fuel with under 10 laps to go in Stage 1, mainly split by manufacturers. An octet of Fords remain on track, led by Noah Gragson.
5:26 p.m., Lap 52: Second-place starter Michael McDowell seems to have trouble on his Ford. He’s running laps several seconds off the pace and no longer runs on the lead lap.
5:22 p.m., Lap 48: Remember when I said on Lap 9 how topping off under caution could pay dividends later? The lack of a fuel stop under caution is hurting Ryan Blaney. Though he pitted with his Team Penske teammates under green, Austin Cindric and Joey Logano had topped off under caution. That means Cindric and Logano needed far less time on pit road to reach a full tank, while Blaney had to wait longer — now he’s detached from his teammates and a lap down.
5:20 p.m., Lap 45: Rookie Josh Berry briefly made his way to the point, giving way to Chase Elliott leading a single-file line.
5:16 p.m., Lap 40: Joey Logano, Austin Cindric, Ryan Blaney, Brad Keselowski, Christopher Bell and Daniel Hemric have ducked to pit road for fuel with 25 laps to go in Stage 1.
5:11 p.m., Lap 33: The pack appears to have returned to full song. Sorry, Allmendinger fans.
5:07 p.m., Lap 30: Interestingly, 35th-place AJ Allmendinger — who served a pass-through penalty on the restart — is running lap times nearly two seconds a lap faster than the pack … by himself. Clearly, most cars are in fuel-saving mode. Allmendinger is 17 seconds behind the field, and it’s conceivable he catches everybody else, at the expense of his fuel savings.
4:54 p.m., Lap 14: Austin Dillon has headed behind the wall.
4:52 p.m., Lap 12: Back to green! Christopher Bell leads the field alongside Ryan Blaney.
4:48 p.m., Lap 9: Much of the field pits to top off on fuel during the caution. It’s not quite enough to reach the end of the 65-lap Stage 1, but any bit of fuel taken now means time saved on pit road later — especially if a green-flag stop is needed.
4:44 p.m., Lap 7: Carson Hocevar, Harrison Burton and Kaz Grala are out of the race. Austin Dillon and Jimmie Johnson’s teams are attempting repairs on pit road, losing laps in the process.
4:39 p.m., Lap 6: Caution No. 1 for a multi-car crash. Brad Keselowski sent John Hunter Nemechek for a push, sending Nemechek’s No. 42 sliding into Harrison Burton. Carson Hocevar, Ryan Preece, Austin Dillon, Kaz Grala and Jimmie Johnson are among those collected in the aftermath.
Alejandro Alvarez | NASCAR Studios
4:35 p.m., Lap 1: Green flag! The Daytona 500 is underway.
4:34 p.m.: Front row starters Joey Logano and Michael McDowell are both chasing their second 500.
Brittney Wilbur | NASCAR
4:25 p.m.: Cars are rolling, making pace laps.
4:20 p.m.: When The Rock tells you to fire the engines, you fire up those engines.
4:07 p.m.: The 82nd Airborne Division All-American Chorus has just stunned with a beautiful performance of the national anthem. Getting those chills yet?
4:00 p.m.: Let’s do this! The Daytona 500 is about to begin. Follow along here on our live blog and our Race Center live leaderboard — and, of course, on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
3:31 p.m.: Almost time to get going! If you’re itching to get pumped up, tune in to our pre-race show, live right now.
11:30 a.m.: Another game to pass the time is our new season-long NASCAR survivor pool-style game, 36 for 36, where you select one of 36 full-time Cup Series cars exactly once for each of the 36 points-paying races this season. This year, the r/NASCAR subreddit is competing collectively against Jayski’s Dustin Albino, NASCAR.com’s Cameron Richardson and me. I chose Noah Gragson for Daytona, meaning I now cannot pick the No. 10 for the rest of the season.
We have a printable version of the board if you want to play along. (It’s easy. You should!) I’m not saying you should use the printer at your place of work to print out your copy, but I’m not going to stop you, either.
10:35 a.m.: Five drivers are scheduled to race 800 miles today between the Daytona 500 and the Xfinity Series season opener that follows. Anthony Alfredo, AJ Allmendinger, Riley Herbst, John Hunter Nemechek and Daniel Suárez are pulling double duty.
9:30 a.m.: Happy race day — for real this time! With your extra time today before the start of the Daytona 500 at 4:00 p.m. ET (FOX, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), make sure you’ve finalized your Fantasy Live picks. Start the season out on the right note, you know?
Sunday, February 18
4:50 p.m.: Now, when Austin Cindric says the car’s driving like a rocket ship, it’ll really mean something.
12:20 p.m.: Chris Buescher is back in Daytona. Driver No. 17 had been back home in North Carolina for much of the weekend to welcome his new baby boy into the world. Welcome back!
Made it back to @DAYTONA just in time for some TV with @NASCARONFOX. Hope everyone at home is enjoying the coverage. Rain is for farming, not superspeedway racing! pic.twitter.com/hqnb0PdOuE
I know timing was not ideal but coming back home to our beautiful little boy was so special. You have blessed us yet again with a happy, healthy baby. To everyone else, thank you for all the kind words and well wishes for our family.… pic.twitter.com/7odL3IkEhW
10:50 a.m.: The drivers will need to pass the time somehow, right? Rookie Zane Smith has decided to peruse the Daytona campgrounds and catch up with fans.
Hey @DAYTONA@NASCAR fans, hate the rain won today but going to try to make the most out of it and meet some of you guys! Let me know your camp spot and I will try to come find you! Might be able to drag a few other drivers along too!
9:30 a.m.: It’s gonna be a ‘no’ from Mother Nature today. The Daytona 500 has been postponed until Monday at 4 p.m. ET (FOX, MRN, SiriusXM Radio), following the conclusion of the Xfinity Series season opener.
NEWS: The #DAYTONA500 has been postponed to Monday at 4 p.m. ET due to inclement weather.
10:35 a.m.: Good morning, speedy people! The final practice session scheduled for today has been canceled due to wet weather. The next time Cup cars take to the track will be tomorrow for the Daytona 500 itself.
Friday, February 16
6:30 p.m.: Cup Series cars take to the track again tomorrow for the last time before Sunday’s Daytona 500. Final practice takes place at 10:30 a.m. on FS1.
6:25 p.m.: That’ll do it for the first practice session. Denny Hamlin set the fastest single lap at 45.575 seconds, leading a train of eight Toyotas.
6:00 p.m.: David Ragan’s pulling double duty … in the same practice session. Driver No. 60 will make some laps in teammate Chris Buescher’s No. 17 while Buescher’s back home in North Carolina until Sunday to welcome another tiny Buescher into the world.
6:00 p.m.: Drafting groups have organized by manufacturers, and the line of eight Toyotas have set the fastest times so far, followed by Fords then Chevrolets.
5:35 p.m.: Who’s ready for a little practice? Follow along for the next 50 minutes on FS1 or ourleaderboard. It’ll be the first shakedown at speed for numerous backup cars after last night’s incidents in the Bluegreen Vacations Duels.
Thursday, February 15
10:30 p.m.: Next up for the Cup Series is the first of two practice sessions tomorrow at 5:30 p.m. ET, televised on FS1.
10:20 p.m.: With that, the lineup is set for the 66th Daytona 500 — short J.J. Yeley and BJ McLeod.
10:16 p.m.: It’ll be a grind for numerous teams preparing backup cars or completing repairs to their primary cars following the Duel 2 pileup.
10:05 p.m.: Despite lacking single-car qualifying speed, it appears the Toyotas sure race well in the pack, with Tyler Reddick and Christopher Bell sweeping the Bluegreen Vacations Duels both in a Camry.
9:52 p.m.: It came down to the final inches of racing, but Kaz Grala finished just a car length ahead of BJ McLeod. Grala will make his third Daytona 500, while McLeod will head back to the house.
We'll see you in The Great American Race, @KazGrala!
9:51 p.m.: Final lap for Denny Hamlin, who’s making his Toyota awfully wide, blocking multiple lanes.
9:50 p.m.: Despite the crash damage, BJ McLeod is still very much in contention, battling against fellow bubble driver Kaz Grala with two laps to go. Reminiscent of Duel 1, no?
9:49 p.m.: Denny Hamlin has made his way to the front after a series of aggressive moves past Michael McDowell and Christopher Bell. Hamlin knows his way around this place.
9:45 p.m.: Michael McDowell leads the field back to green with eight laps to go.
9:31 p.m.: The red flag is out for track cleanup following the 10-car crash. Thirteen laps remain in the second duel.
9:28 p.m.: BJ McLeod’s car has damage, which could spell good fortune for Kaz Grala, who was well behind the crash when it happened.
9:25 p.m.: Caution No. 1, and it’s a big one. With a push from Brad Keselowski, Kyle Busch bumped William Byron, sending Byron’s car into Ryan Blaney. Chase Briscoe, Bubba Wallace, Riley Herbst, Noah Gragson and Justin Haley were among those involved.
9:24 p.m.: It’s not looking good for Kaz Grala’s hopes of making the “Great American Race.” After mechanical woes in single-car qualifying, his struggles continue into the duels; he’s lost the draft after pit stops.
9:23 p.m.: That’s it for pit stops until Sunday. Michael McDowell and Denny Hamlin are up front.
9:20 p.m.: On Lap 41, the first batch of cars hits pit road — a mix of Chevrolets and Toyotas. The second batch — Fords, primarily — follow the next lap.
9:12 p.m.: BJ McLeod is the story of the second duel so far; he runs third at halfway. Pit stops will come soon.
9:06 p.m.: Bubba Wallace, with a push from Christopher Bell, has moved to the lead on Lap 25. And how about BJ McLeod? The underdog is hanging tough in sixth.
8:58 p.m.: Fourteen laps in, the lead has changed a few times. Riley Herbst and AJ Allmendinger run side by side up front. On the bubble watch, BJ McLeod runs 10th, while Kaz Grala is at the back of the pack.
8:47 p.m.: We’re green in the second duel! A pair of Daytona 500 champions — Michael McDowell and Austin Cindric — lead the field to the start of a 60-lap sprint. Follow along with our Live Leaderboard.
8:30 p.m.: Ready to do it again? Duel 2 will start shortly to set the outside of Sunday’s starting grid.
8:21 p.m.: Joey Logano’s pole-winning car finished Duel 1 in a single piece, so that familiar yellow Ford will pace the field Sunday.
No damage to the No. 22 @FordPerformance Dark Horse Mustang and we crossed the finish line P7 in Duel 1
8:20 p.m.: How about Carson Hocevar? The rookie crossed the finish line fourth among some Cup Series juggernauts.
8:14 p.m.: Jimmie Johnson has raced his way into the Daytona 500, taking advantage of a desperate move by J.J. Yeley that didn’t pan out in the No. 44’s favor. Yeley won’t advance to race Sunday.
8:14 p.m.: Tyler Reddick takes Duel 1 with a bold move on the last lap after starting 19th. Where did he come from?
8:13 p.m.: ⚪️ Final lap in Duel 1. Kyle Larson leads teammate Chase Elliott, while Yeley and Johnson continue to duke it out for the final transfer spot.
8:12 p.m.: Jimmie Johnson and J.J. Yeley are battling side by side at the back of the pack for a spot in the Daytona 500. Johnson’s car doesn’t seem quite as nimble as it did before the crash.
8:10 p.m.: Back to green-flag racing with six laps remaining in Duel 1. It’s Kyle Larson and Daniel Suárez up front.
8:00 pm.: Caution No. 1: A stack-up with 11 to go sends Daniel Hemric nose-first into the wall, also collecting Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Austin Dillon and Jimmie Johnson. This is a major risk to Johnson’s hopes of making the Daytona 500. Johnson’s car is still moving, but he’ll need to stay ahead of J.J. Yeley in the closing laps.
7:56 p.m.: Most of the remaining cars pit on Lap 43. Martin Truex Jr. had a slow stop, and Ross Chastain will need to serve a pass-through penalty for speeding.
7:52 p.m.: On Lap 40, a quartet of Toyotas peels off for their pit stop, leaving a pack of Chevrolets and Fords — plus Martin Truex Jr.’s Toyota — on track, still awaiting service.
7:37 p.m.: One-third of Duel 1 is in the books. Defending Daytona 500 champion Ricky Stenhouse Jr. is leading.
7:32 p.m.: Polesitter Joey Logano has dropped to the end of the draft pack. He’s guaranteed to lead the field to green Sunday … as long as he keeps the car in one piece tonight. In other words, this could be a strategic decision.
7:25 p.m.: Jimmie Johnson’s wasting no time slicing through the field in his Toyota debut. He’ll need to race his way in; meanwhile, his teammate Erik Jones has moved to the lead.
7:21 p.m.: It’s time to set the field for the Daytona 500! Joey Logano leads the first 60-lap to the green. Follow along with our Live Leaderboard.
