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Ryan McGee
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — There’s one main purpose why the Daytona 500 continues to captivate the imaginations of hardcore NASCAR followers, but in addition once-a-year racing passers-by. One solitary aspect that retains Earth’s biggest inventory automotive racers coming again yr after yr, even when the top end result for all however one in every of them is that they find yourself damage, embarrassed, annoyed or all three .
It is a trick that any good {couples} counselor will inform you is the important thing to protecting any relationship thrilling, even after 67 years, and even when it is between human beings and a 2.5-mile superspeedway.
Thriller. Hold them guessing. Proper after they assume that they have you ever all found out, shock them.
“You did not see that coming, did you?!” exclaimed William Byron, standing in Victory Lane on a cool, humid night time on the World Middle of Racing for the second consecutive yr. “I am being trustworthy, at one level, neither did I.”
It is cool, Byron. We’re all in the identical Daytona boat with you. As a result of the whole lot we thought we knew about this sport’s greatest race, we didn’t. We by no means do. And his turning into solely the fifth driver to win the five hundred again to again is just a small a part of a listing as lengthy Sunday’s time beyond regulation race took to run.
Tyler Reddick, in a automotive co-owned by Michael Jordan and the person who was main late, Denny Hamlin, a team currently suing NASCAR for antitrust, ending second?
Jimmie Johnson, in his personal automotive, in solely one in every of his two races this yr, in a paint scheme designed by Shaquille O’Neal? Completed third?
And Justin Allgaier, driving the primary Cup Collection automotive ever fielded by now-team proprietor Dale Earnhardt, Jr., ending ninth?
“It is why we run the races, proper?” stated a giddy Jeff Gordon, the three-time Daytona 500 winner who made Byron’s No. 24 well-known and is now his boss as vice chairman of Hendrick Motorsports.
So, Gordon, you miss wheeling that automotive into Daytona Victory Lane as you probably did thrice earlier than?
“Completely.”
Do you miss the opposite 500-plus miles of full and whole unpredictable chaos?
“Completely not.”
You thought the race was supposed to begin at 2:30 p.m. ET? Flawed. The inexperienced flag was moved as much as 1:30. So, you thought that was when the inexperienced was really going to wave? Flawed once more. As a result of President Donald Trump buzzed overhead in Air Power One, actually stealing the thunder from the U.S. Air Power Thunderbirds, after which led the 41-car subject across the speedway with the presidential limo generally known as “The Beast.”
You thought Chris Evans was Captain America and Tom Cruise was Jack Reacher? Nope. It was grand marshal Anthony Mackie sporting a customized leather-based Captain American/Nice American Race jacket, and it was actor Alan Ritchson, who’s roughly twice the dimensions of your common race automotive driver — together with Cole Trickle — who may barely match his butt-kicking physique behind the wheel as honorary tempo automotive driver.
You obtain it after they stated that “skinny band of rain showers coming in from the west” was going to imply a short yellow flag and small timing hiccup midrace? Nah. It lasted greater than 4 hours. After which there was one other. It is the sixth time previously 14 years that the five hundred has been delayed by rain.
And that was simply the non-racing stuff. What occurred on the racetrack was much more mind-bending.
See: Automobiles you thought have been gone however weren’t, however then have been gone once more. Like Hamlin, a three-time Daytona 500 winner who was in an enormous early crash, pressured to whip his automotive off the excessive banks and onto the flat apron, with such pressure that it despatched sparks from his Toyota. But, in some way, he was again within the prime 5 with lower than ten laps remaining … solely to finish up wrecked once more because the race ended and he had simply been within the lead.
Additionally, Kyle Busch, nonetheless looking for his first Daytona 500 victory after twenty years of making an attempt, had an early pit penalty, which caught him behind the pack and acquired him caught up in a wreck. Then, he too had unbelievably clawed his approach into rivalry late.
Oh, and although there had been a number of “Massive One” crashes through the race’s first 190 laps, with ten circuits remaining, 29 of the race’s 41 starters have been nonetheless on the lead lap.
See: The race that spent its first six and half many years safely promising that it might by no means change into a gas technique occasion, not like so most of the smaller, sweeping, flat ovals that NASCAR visits all through the season. But, because of the still-new Gen 7 race automotive, even earlier than the race began — and restarted and restarted once more — crew chiefs have been imploring their drivers to pit for gas tank top-offs and have been all hammering on their miles-per-gallon calculators once more with lower than 40 laps remaining.
And SEE: You thought that the Ford Mustangs have been unstoppable, proper? In fact you probably did. They have been. The Ford drivers of have been referred to as to their necessary race morning assembly with Ford Racing brass, together with Edsel Ford II, great-grandson of Henry, with their annual message: “Work collectively. With two laps to go, no matter. However till then, work collectively.” That working-together labored collectively till it did not. Penske Racing Fords — Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney — received the race’s first two phases and led a mixed 65 laps, however each have been caught up in the identical crash with lower than 15 laps to go.
As a substitute, it was Toyota — with 11 vehicles within the subject, spent many of the night time beneath an invisibility cloak — who had packed the highest 10 when the race restarted with eight laps remaining. Three ganged up on the lone remaining Penske Ford, Austin Cindric.
Then got here the half that we all the time see coming within the Daytona 500, however with an unexpected twist. Throughout an enormous crash with 5 laps remaining (the half we all know) a 3,400-pound automotive popped a wheelie after which rolled its approach the other way up and into the wall (by no means seen that one earlier than). Ryan Preece, who’d led on the race’s midway level — in one other Ford — walked away from the crash.
And but, in spite of everything of that; all of these wrecks; all of these lap leaders; all of these Toyotas and Fords; there was Byron, whom we hadn’t actually heard from because the handful of laps run previous to the rain, and who pilots a Chevy.
“I used to be so beneath the radar all week, at any time when individuals talked about favorites, however actually, that simply appears to be how my profession has been,” Byron stated, grinning, as he was about to pop a champagne cork and spray his workforce. “Perhaps individuals will determine it out in the future.”
Maybe. However that is the Daytona 500, in spite of everything, the place we have now but to determine something. And likewise why we hold coming again.
