andrewgallinger.com

By: Andrew Gallinger

The 2025 running of the Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway saw William Byron win his second consecutive 500 in the crown-jewel race, also giving Hendrick Motorsports & Owner Rick Hendrick, the most wins all-time in NASCAR’s season-opening event with 10 wins in the Daytona 500 as an organization, according to industry records. The 2025 edition had it all, carnage, bold moves, international stars in the field, President Donald Trump pacing the field ahead of the Great American Race, & to the disappointment of NASCAR & all their stakeholders & fans, rain over DIS delayed the on-track action for the second straight season.

The pre-race ceremonies & pageantry with the President all went smooth with the start of the race being moved up to try & beat the certainty of weather. As the green-flag flew & dark clouds loomed, two-wide racing covered the field of 41 cars in the bottom & middle lanes of the 2.5-mile speedway. 6 laps in, a third lane joined the action. That was the case until Lap 10 when rain joined the race. By lap 11, the field was parked on-pit road waiting out the rain. The wait was just over 3 hours, then as the field left pit road under caution for 9 laps, NASCAR’s track-drying equipment dried pit road. To the chagrin of everyone at DIS Sunday evening, rain clipped the speedway once again, bringing cars back to a halt at Lap 21. As drivers once again exited their cars, this delay was only 22 minutes long. As the field got back underway behind the pace car, the inclement weather was over.

The field went back to green under the lights at just over 4 hours after the initial green flag. All that pent-up energy throughout the field was released on Lap 24 of 200. Penske Racing teammates Joey Logano in the 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford Mustang & Austin Cindric went bumper-to-bumper to resume racing. As lines shuffled between two and three-wide all around the speedway, Byron was right there hunting Logano, who was victorious in the 2015 Daytona 500. Momentum, blocking & bump drafting would shuffle drivers throughout the field, and those three characteristics continued. By lap 53 with 13 to-go in Stage 1, the field re-organized two-by-two. With 8 laps remaining in the opening stanza in the Sunshine State, the top 7 got single file, and Byron’s Axalta Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet dropped back between the 10th-14th positions in a effort to save fuel to limit time on pit road when Stage One ends at Lap 65. On Lap 63, 3-time Daytona 500 Champion Denny Hamlin spun catching the apron out of Turn 2. Zane Smith & Josh Berry of Front Row Motorsports & Wood Brothers Racing, respectively, were also caught up in the accident, in which the field in the bottom lane began stacking up & Smith got into Hamlin. The bump to Hamlin got Smith loose, then into the driver’s-side door area of Cindric’s Ford. Smith tried to catch the car, but shot to the top of the exit of Turn 2, catching the left front of Berry’s Ford squeezing him into the wall.

With the caution out, Logano would pick-up the Stage One win. Racing fans are familiar with the phrase, “cautions breed cautions” & then sentiment caught up to Logano, who was leading the top lane on the Lap 71 restart. Logano’s car couldn’t get going on the restart due to an unknown mechanical issue. The “accordion-effect pile-up entering Turn 1 caught up 10 cars with varying degrees of damage, including Trackhouse Racing teammates Ross Chastain & Four-Time Indianapolis 500 winner, Helio Castroneves, who came over to NASCAR for a one-off race. Justin Allgaier was also collected in his Jr. Motorsports Chevrolet. The Daytona 500 served as the Inaugural Cup Series race for the team owned by Hall-of-Famer, Dale Earnhardt Jr., after years of Jr. Motorsports success in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, including a series championship for the organization & Allgaier in 2024. 7-time Cup Champion Jimmie Johnson & 2017 Cup Champion Martin Truex Jr., both drivers running on a limited schedule in 2025 also sustained damage at Lap 71.

Once the field went back racing at Lap 77, Penske teammates Cindric & 2023 Cup Series Champion, Ryan Blaney led the field. Right behind them, another pair of teammates, also driving Ford Mustangs, but for Roush-Fenway-Keselowski Racing, Ryan Preece & Chris Buescher. After a lap, the field spread out to 3-wide again, 6 to 10 rows deep amongst the field. While all this battling was going on, Logano’s Penske Ford was 3 quarters-of-a-lap behind the field on Lap 82, still with the undiagnosed power/speed issue that stacked the field up, leading to the caution 11 laps earlier. The 4th caution of the race came out for debris on the track on Lap 84. Logano pitted a lap earlier to change the throttle body on his Ford Mustang, after debris got stuck on the front of his grille then blew into the car, causing the throttle body damage. From that caution, the field went back to green on Lap 87, as Logano faded to below 30th position as a result of the repair. By Lap 112, Logano had rebounded to 14th place, while Preece, who was in the top 4 on the latest Lap 77 restart, went the other direction of Logano, back to 32nd position, with the necessity of needing to save fuel to make it to the end of Stage Two at Lap 130. Chaotic pushes, blocks & other moves would then subside as the end of the second stage approached, with Blaney winning Stage 2 with an Outside pass on Cindric at the finish line.

The field saw the green flag for the last stage of the race on Lap 138. On that restart, the field was mixed-up, as a result of pit stops with Bubba Wallace, Kyle Bush & Kyle Larson now together in the Top 5. With 39 to-go, the three-wide jockeying was slowed once again with another debris caution. The next green flag came with 35 laps-to-go & 34 drivers still on the lead lap with a chance to win NASCAR’s biggest race. The prior caution allowed the entire field to be good on fuel to the end of the race. As the time left to get in a winning position began to fade, calamity & chaos ensued on the backstretch with 15 laps remaining. Logano was in the middle lane running 5th, with Ricky Stenhouse just to his outside, mid-way down the straightaway. Stenhouse came down, trying to block. The left rear corner of Stenhouse caught the right front of Logano, subsequently hooking Stenhouse to the left into the right rear of Blaney who went immediately spinning to the right. Bush spun to the left trying to avoid the crash, sliding & eventually striking the inside wall of DIS. 9 cars were involved in that incident. That incident was cleaned up & the field went back to green with 8 laps left. In a part-time effort, Corey Lajoie led the field to green as the laps wound down, receiving a push from John Hunter Nemechek in third. The inside lane couldn’t get the momentum with pushing & drafting, giving the outside an advantage. More back & forth racing continued as the checkered flag got closer. Then with 5 to-go, a bump to Christopher Bell’s back bumper from Cole Custer, who were the first two in the outside lane on the backstretch went wrong. Bell’s Toyota from Joe Gibbs Racing went right, quickly into the outside wall. Bell bounced off the wall. He ended up, nearly diagonally careening into the right front of Preece. Preece’s Ford went up in the air with a wheelie, the air catching the under body of Preece’s Ford, he flipped over, sliding on his roof up the banking of Turn 3, flipping back on his wheels, just before the back of his car collided with the outside wall. Preece would be ok, but his car was destroyed on the apron in the corner. This was the second time Preece flipped down Daytona’s backstretch. In the 400-mile summer race in 2023, Preece spun to the bottom. The difference, then DIS had grass on the bottom of the backstretch. As Preece’s car caught the grass, it dug in, sending him into multiple violent barrel-rolls that night. After everyone caught their breath following Preece’s scary crash, it was time for NASCAR Overtime, since the caution laps after the crash involving Preece & Bell put the race over its scheduled distance.

On the two-lap shootout, Hamlin led on the inside with Cindric in 2nd, Custer was third behind Hamlin. As the rest of the 27 cars on the lead lap bunched up two-by-two, the green flag waved once again. The outside lane got the jump on the restart. As the field jockeyed on the white flag lap, no one was lifting, Hamlin tried to hold his lead & Cindric made contact as more blocking commenced, turning Hamlin into the outside wall in front of the whole field. Byron came through all the other wrecking cars unscathed & leading through Turns 3 & 4. to the checkered flag & his second consecutive Daytona 500 win. Tyler Reddick, who drives for Hamlin’s-owned 23IX team with NBA Hall of Famer Michael Jordan came home with a second-place finish in the 2025 Daytona 500. Johnson also got through the wreck to give the 7-time series champion his first Top 5 finish for the team he now owns, Legacy Motor Club, as Hendrick Motorsports, who Johnson won all those titles & races with through his own 19 season full-time career goes back-to-back in the car that Hendrick Legend & now team executive won 3 Daytona 500’s in his career in the 24 car that Byron has now piloted to back-to-back wins in the Great American Race.

Next up for the NASCAR Cup Series, another Super Speedway, this time at Atlanta Motor Speedway. We’ll see you in Georgia next week.