Daytona 500 is rarely truthful, however Byron’s victory is not any fluke

DAYTONA BEACH, Florida — They do not name it the Truthful American Race.

They don’t name it the Satisfying American Race, the Predictable American Race or the Tidy American Race. It is the Nice American Race. As in, nice at protecting us guessing.

NASCAR’s greatest single occasion, which was held for the 66th time on a rain-postponed Monday night on the self-declared World Heart of Racing, could be described by a listing of lead traits that shifts and shuffles extra chaotically than this 12 months’s Daytona 500 pinball machine of a leaderboard that produced 41 lead adjustments between 20 completely different drivers, 5 over the race’s closing 20 laps.

However truthful? No. By no means truthful. That is the character of a 2.5-mile superspeedway with tight quarters in skyscraper turns, an asphalt beast that has by no means made a lot sense to any eyes, be they engineers, spectators or the poor souls who’ve determined to drive round that monster at 200 mph.

“It is speedway racing. It is plenty of enjoyable till it sucks,” declared Joey Logano, who led a race-best 45 laps however ended his evening thirty third, wrecked whereas working third and battling for the lead once more with lower than ten laps remaining. “It is often the fellows who begin the wreck that survive. That is the irritating half.”

The automotive whose nostril discovered the automotive that hit Logano? It was within the accordion collision solely as a result of one other automotive had hit it when the automobiles forward of them began scrambling and compelled everybody behind them to abruptly decelerate, and was pushed William Byron. Byron’s Chevy was popped from behind by teammate Alex Bowman, inflicting Byron to hit second place Brad Keselowski, who was became Logano, who then teamed as much as take out 20 different automobiles behind them. That group included 9 of the 20 drivers who had led the race in some unspecified time in the future throughout the day.

When the checkered flag was lastly proven practically half-hour later, who was the winner? It was Byron.

See? Not truthful.

“You are making an attempt to make the precise selections, the precise calls, to get your self into place to win the race,” mentioned Jeff Gordon, who received this race twice driving the identical No. 24 Chevy that he now helps oversee as chairman of Hendrick Motorsports. “However in the sort of racing, when the end is coming, there is not a lot you’ll be able to management however to place your foot into the gasoline and hope that no matter occurs — as a result of one thing goes to occur — that you just be out in entrance of it.”

One thing undoubtedly occurred. And it did once more when Byron was main and barely made it throughout the start-finish line to start the 199th and closing circuit earlier than one other multicar crash unfurled behind him.

“Sure, you understand that is coming. So, if you’re lucky to be within the lead — and by the best way, that additionally makes you the goal — you look within the rearview mirror and hope you’ll be able to outrun it,” Byron mentioned in Victory Lane, his firesuit freshly saturated in champagne. “We did. And I can not consider it.”

Neither might lots of the tens of 1000’s of followers who confirmed up for a sunny, cool Monday afternoon inexperienced flag after Daytona had additionally been saturated in two days of near-record February Central Florida rainfall. That they had watched fan favorites reminiscent of Byron’s different Hendrick Motorsports teammates, former Cup champs Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson, run up entrance. That they had cheered and booed as they watched veterans reminiscent of Denny Hamlin, Martin Truex Jr., Kyle Busch and Keselowski — all future NASCAR Corridor of Famers — additionally spend time on the level, solely to return up quick. Hamlin did not earn a historic fourth Daytona 500 win. The opposite three prolonged their Daytona 500 profession droughts to a mixed 0-for-54.

Nevertheless, nobody, not these within the grandstands Monday evening nor these watching from dwelling, ought to make the lazy mistake of viewing Byron’s victory as a fluke.

“I am all the time the ‘different man’ proper?” Byron half-joked, pointing in his very personal constructing to Elliott and Larson, to not point out Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr., even Terry Labonte, Tim Richmond, Geoff Bodine and the opposite legends who’ve received at Hendrick Motorsports. His win Monday was the workforce’s record-tying ninth Nice American Race triumph and got here on the fortieth anniversary of its very first Cup race, when Bodine completed eight within the 1984 Daytona 500. “That has been laborious on me. I’ve in all probability let it hassle me an excessive amount of, but it surely has additionally been an enormous motivator for me. I got here into this 12 months with a chip on my shoulder due to it. I’m a quiet man. My background in racing is not typical. I began out in gaming, a child who was only a NASCAR fan, and I bought a comparatively late bounce on driving. I do not come from an extended line of racers. However OK, underestimate me. See how that works out.”

Make no mistake, this race produces flukes. Or, put extra kindly, unexpected victories. One 12 months in the past, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and little JTG Daugherty Racing earned the primary win for the driving force in seven years and for the workforce in practically a decade, and did it within the sport’s most prestigious race. In 2022, Austin Cindric, a de facto rookie, earned his first — and thus far, solely — Cup Sequence win. In 2021, Michael McDowell snapped a profession 0-for-357 winless streak by outlasting a demolition derby of a 500 and pulling right into a pandemic-emptied Victory Lane.

However Byron led the Cup Sequence with six wins one 12 months in the past and made the reduce for the season finale Championship 4. The 12 months earlier than he received two races. In seven years of driving at NASCAR’s high stage, he has made the Playoffs six occasions, lacking solely his rookie marketing campaign, and has now posted at the least one win in every of the previous 5 years. His eleventh profession win not solely all however ensures him a spot on this 12 months’s fall playoff area, it additionally strikes him previous Donnie Allison on NASCAR’s all-time victories record. Allison was inducted into the NASCAR Corridor of Fame final month.

Byron is 26 years previous.

“What we learn about this race is that we do not know what will occur. For a very long time, we’ve got hauled zero trophies dwelling, however as a substitute we’ve got hauled dwelling plenty of wrecked race automobiles,” an emotional Rick Hendrick defined, fast to remind that, sure, this was his ninth Daytona 500 win, however his first in a decade. “There are all the time plenty of surprises on this race and at this place. Principally unhealthy ones. However nobody ought to be shocked that William Byron is a Daytona 500 champion.”

Hendrick reached over and grabbed the arm of Gordon.

“He reminds of you this man again within the day,” he mentioned. “He has a lot expertise and he is simply getting began. It does not appear truthful, does it?”