Back 2 Back 4 William Byron

While the race has come and gone, let's look back at a race recap I wrote for an assignment after the 2025 Daytona 500.

The Eagle (Scout) has landed in victory lane again at Daytona. William Byron, driver of the number 24 Hendrick Motorsports Axalta Chevrolet, was able to keep his car clear of calamity and be the 5th driver to go back to back in Daytona 500 victories.

Sunday’s race wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. Before the race even started, it was moved an hour earlier to avoid Florida’s wet weather. Mother Nature, however, doesn’t care about when you start a race, and it rained anyways. After running nine laps, the race was stopped under the red flag for three hours. It would resume again for nine more laps, and then stop again for another 20 minutes due to rain.

After mother nature had her fun, we got to see fantastic 3-wide racing almost all race long. We also go to see some new faces up front, like Corey Lajoie, leading laps. Roger Penske’s Fords swept stages one and two with Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney respectively. Penske’s Fords would remain the top pick to win for most of the race. That would change for Joey Logano, driver of the 22 Pennzoil Ford, on lap 186. Coming off of turn two, the 22 got a great shove from the 42 on the outside lane. The 47 of Ricky Stenhouse Jr saw the run a bit late and almost spun his Sunny D Camaro off of Logano’s nose. Both cars were able to keep it together until they hit the start of the back straightaway. There, Logano saw a hole, and forgot the old saying “cut once measure twice”. He squeezed his Mustang into the hole, and sent the 47 around. Ricky would get into the back of Ryan Blaney, the 8 of Kyle Busch, and would stack up just about the rest of the field.

“Looks like the fastest car (the 22) got into a hurry to get into a wreck,” Busch said of the incident. “We still got 20 laps to go and he’s trying to go through the middle and make a hole that isn't there… You gotta know how wide your race car is to be able to find a hole that it will fit in, and he obviously doesn’t know that,”

Ten laps later, we’d get a scarier incident. Christopher Bell, driver of the 20, would get a shove from the bumper of the 41 of Cole Custer, and would lose control of his DeWalt Camry. As Bell was sliding back, he would hit the 60 of Ryan Preece, sending him up into the air. If you haven’t seen the wreck, picture a race car taking off like an airplane. The car would hover midair for a bit, before the roof flap opened, sending the car head over heels onto the turn three banking. Ryan Preece walked away from the incident without any serious injury.

“When the car took off like that and it got real quiet, all I could think about was my daughter. So, I’m lucky to walk away. We’re getting really close to somebody not being able to,” Preece said as he exited the infield care center.

After that wreck, the race went into NASCAR overtime. Denny Hamlin (11) and Austin Cindric (2), both previous Daytona 500 winners, would find themselves restarting the race on the front row. At the tail end of the top ten, you’d find William Byron, with no Chevy around him to help.

Through turns one and two, Cindric and Custer were able to push themselves a small bit ahead of the pack. Alex Bowman (48) and Chase Briscoe (19) would quickly fill up the hole the Fords left them. Behind that mess of cars, Austin Dillion (3) had just gotten a good shove off of the bumper of Ty Gibbs (54) and swerved around Byron. Austin tried to squeeze himself into the hole between the 19 and 24, but just wasn't able to. The 24 took advantage and side drafted the 3.

The field had made it to the white flag lap, one to go. If the caution were to come out at any point in time, it would end the race. The yellow was almost displayed when the 35 of Riley Herbst got loose off of the bumper of Corey Lajoie (01) and went for a long slide through the infield grass, à la Lightning Mcqueen. But the officials kept their hands off of the caution button, and Herbst made one of the most incredible saves of the race. Out of one and two, Denny Hamlin, who had tucked behind Cindric, made his move around the Ford, killing the 2’s run. The 41 of Custer decided he was also going to duplicate what Denny did and swerved to the outside. Custer, however, went back down the track and collected the 11, 19, 2, 01, and almost everyone left running the race. Everyone, that is, except William Byron, and Tyler Reddick.

The barely scratched 24 and the slightly damaged 45 raced back to the line, with Byron being able to hold off the oncoming Reddick. Of note, 7 time champion Jimmie Johnson would come out of nowhere and finish in 3rd. This would be the highest finish of the legend since his retirement in 2020.

At the start/finish line, FOX would interview the now back to back winner, “It’s obviously really special it’s (an) amazing race…just, really proud of our team,”