WHAT A RACE.
The 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season is underway after the Daytona 500 was postponed to today due to rain. But once the cars finally got on the track, there was plenty of action in the Great American Race.
The first two stages were relatively uneventful after a caution just 5 laps into the race when John Hunter Nemechek turned into Harrison Burton and caused a hard crash.
From there, we had two incredible moves from Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney to win the first two stages. But aside from that, everybody was on their best behavior – until 10 laps to go.
With 30 cars bunched up into a pack, Ross Chastain was throwing blocks and holding off a hard-charging Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski when William Byron got into Keselowski and stacked up…well, pretty much the entire field.
Chastain and Alex Bowman were two of only about 7 drivers to make it through the wreck without serious damage, leading to a lengthy cleanup and a restart with only a handful of cars left in the race.
Once the race finally went back to green with Chastain and Byron up front, the race ran double file for the first couple of laps. But coming to one lap to go, Ross Chastain made a bold move to try to get by Byron and ended up getting turned around by Austin Cindric as the field took the white flag.
The yellow flag flew, freezing the field at the moment of caution with William Byron in the lead to take the win in the sport’s biggest race, his first win in the Daytona 500.
Byron’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate Alex Bowman finished second, with Christopher Bell, Corey LaJoie and Bubba Wallace rounding out the top 5.
