William Byron Wins Back-To-Back Daytona 500’s (2-16-25)
By: Becca Cottingham Quimby
All Photo Credit: USA Today
We head to Daytona Beach Florida for the sixty-seventh running of the 500. Where NASCAR kicks off a new season of racing. They bring out everything for this race for entertainment. From the pace car driver to the person who tells drivers to start their engines. The Thunderbirds doing the flyover. Drivers and crews already know rain is an issue that will be heading towards the track. The race was moved up already to try to avoid as much as possible. The race went green and they managed to get about ten laps in before pulling down pit road and parked for a red flag. We got back to racing after several red flags due to rain. Multiple cars decided at the last moment to go down pit road to top off with fuel. This caused them to have to go to the end of the longest line. They tried multiple times to go three wide. This caused multiple stalled lines. AJ Allmendinger went to the pits due to something wrong and then to the garage. He ended up being done for the night. Joey Logano has done a great job of holding everyone off. With three laps to go Denny Hamlin got hit from behind due to the line stacking up. Then Josh Berry and Zane Smith were involved with Zane having at least a broken toe link. This will bring us to the end of stage one with Joey Logano winning.
We started stage two and Joey Logano leading at the front had an issue. This caused the cars to bunch up and lead to a multiple-car accident on the restart. They had to work on Joey’s car multiple times to get it fixed. He was heading to be lapped when a caution came out for debris on the track. They then found debris that had been on the grill of his car and made its way under the hood. The caution also allowed everyone to fuel up within perfect time to make it to the end of the stage. Austin Cindric looked like he was going to win stage two. Ryan Blaney was able to give Austin Cindric a large shove. Ryan Blaney then backed up to Chase Elliot to challenge Austin. Ryan Blaney just will beat out Austin Cindric for the stage two win.
We get the third and final stage underway. We had several drivers who did not pit. We have three wide races with all lanes going strong overall. We do get another caution for debris with just about forty laps to go. Then with fifteen laps to go, we get what most would consider the big one. It started with Ricky Stenhouse Jr and Joey Logano and went back to twenty-fifth place. Everyone gets back racing and we see Christopher Bell hit the wall and that collects Ryan Preece and he was air-born for the second time at Daytona. He did get his window net down signaling he was okay. The accident involved at least ten cars and sent the race into another Red flag and overtime. Right after overtime started you could tell that the final three laps were not going to go smoothly. The white flag flew and just shy of the finish they started wrecking. William Byron and Tyler Reddick were able to miss the crash. NASCAR held the yellow and allowed the drivers to race back to the finish line, and that allowed William Byron to win the race.
