After the rain caused months worth of anticipation to last another day, William Byron won the Daytona 500 on Monday night for Hendrick Motorsports and Chevrolet. Byron won by mere inches over his teammate Alex Bowman.
The race ended under caution after a multi-car pile up prompted the officials to throw a late yellow flag, ultimately ending the race since the leaders had already taken the white flag.
Shortly after the green flag on lap six Brad Keselowski made contact with rookie John Hunter Nemechek, sending him into the side of Harrison Burton’s car.
Burton proceeded to spin through the infield grass, and slide back up the racetrack into oncoming traffic, only to be hit again. Other drivers collected included Austin Dillon, Kaz Grala, Carson Hocevar, Jimmie Johnson, and Ryan Preece.
After the carnage on lap six there were no more incidents until The Big One struck on lap 193. It started at the front of the field when Alex Bowman bumped William Byron into Brad Keselowski, who shot back up the track into several other drivers. The 23 car wreck led to the red flag being shown for over 15 minutes.
The red flag was lifted and a two-lap overtime restart followed, which opened the door for Byron to win after race leader Ross Chastain crashed just before the start/finish line with two to go. The crash brought out a caution just after Byron took the white flag, causing the race to end under caution a lap early.
After the race, Byron was still soaking in all of the emotions, and he dedicated the win to his father.
“I can’t believe it. I wish my dad was here. He’s sick, but this is for him, man. We’ve been through so much, and we sat up in the grandstands together and watched the race [when he was younger]. This is so freaking cool.”
To add to the already massive significance of winning The Great American Race, forty years ago to Monday was Hendrick Motorsports 40th anniversary of their first ever cup series race.
When asked about winning his ninth Daytona 500 on his team’s 40th anniversary team owner Rick Hendrick said, “When we thought about coming down here the first time, we didn’t think we should be here, felt so out of place. We win this on our 40th to the day…and tied a record now, so that’s awesome.” Byron’s triumph marked win number 302 for Hendrick Motorsports all-time.
William Byron currently leads the points after his win, followed by Daytona 500 runner-up Alex Bowman, Christopher Bell, Chase Elliott, and Bubba Wallace to round out the top five.
There were no post-race penalties announced by NASCAR.
Byron and Hendrick Motorsports will look to build off of their success at Daytona next week, when the cup series heads to Atlanta Motor Speedway next Sunday for a triple-header weekend. You can catch the race at 3:00 p.m. EST on FOX.
