This past Sunday, Tyler Reddick won the Daytona 500, avoiding the last-lap chaos. The win marked Reddick’s ninth in the NASCAR Cup Series. The only lap that Reddick led was the final lap.
In my opinion, this was a great race that had a good mix of strategy and aggression. However, there are some things I wish panned out differently.
The good:
The Fords went the last 58 laps of Stage 1 without pitting, which was an absolute masterclass by the crew chiefs. Michael McDowell topped that by going the final 66 laps of the race without pitting, setting a record for the longest green flag run by a driver in next-gen history at 165 miles, according to NASCAR Insights. These strategies are something that we’ve never seen before, which could change the game for future superspeedway races.
The race set a new all-time Daytona 500 record for leaders, as 25 different drivers led at least one lap. More than half the field leading shows how much of a competitive balance there is when it comes to races like this. Building off that point, five different drivers (Carson Hocevar, Erik Jones, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Chase Elliott and Tyler Reddick) had the lead on the final lap. The suspense buildup made for a great ending, and fans usually love when races are decided in the waning seconds.
The bad:
During the final long-run of the race, the entire pack was playing conservative. Everyone was trying to save fuel for about a 40-lap stretch. Usually, the race starts to ramp up in the final 50 laps, but this time, teams were playing it conservative.
While there were the fewest number of cautions in a Daytona 500 since 2005, 37 of 41 cars were involved in some sort of accident. There weren’t a lot of wrecks, but when they happened, they involved a lot of cars. The number of wrecks that happened early likely contributed to the late-race fuel saving and drivers not being aggressive.
What the fans say:
Jeff Gluck, a motorsports writer for The Athletic, conducts a yes-or-no poll on X after every race, asking fans if they thought that week’s race was a good race. 73.9% of people said yes, according to a post Gluck made Tuesday. Of the Daytona 500’s since 2022, this one got the third-highest percentage of votes.
I think this race could have easily been number one in Gluck’s Daytona 500 polls, and it probably would have been if it weren’t for the immense amount of laps the drivers spent saving fuel. Like everyone else, I love races that come down to the end, and this one checked off that box.