DAYTONA 500 CHAMPION
Michael McDowell celebrates his victory after a chaotic last lap and multi-car crash.
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — It took almost 10 hours for the 63rd running of the Daytona 500 to finish, and even when the race was over, you still didn’t know who won.
But once NASCAR reviewed what went down in a turbulent last lap, it was determined that Michael McDowell not only got his first Daytona 500 victory, but also his first win on NASCAR’s top circuit in his 358th start.
How he won was one of those last-lap Daytona mysteries when cars start spinning and crashing. Joey Logano had led the last 25 laps but he knew there would be a last push by the cars all in a line looking for a winning push. But it was Ford teammate Brad Keselowski who made a move down low and got into Logano, allowing McDowell, running in third, to get through as the caution came out ending the race.
Chase Elliott finished second followed by Austin Dillon, Kevin Harvick and Denny Hamlin.
It appeared it was Hamlin’s race to lose, as the twotime defending champion led 98 of the 200 laps.
The drama of the final laps was set up by the final pit stop. The Fords all came in on Lap 170, the Chevys on 171 and Toyotas, which included Hamlin, on Lap 173. The Toyotas came out of the stop not in unison and had trouble forming a pack that could push Hamlin back to the front. He never could regain the momentum he needed to win.
Hamlin’s quest for a third straight Daytona 500 win got off to a good start after the marathon rain delay when he won the opening 65-mile stage. Hamlin won 11 stages last year. He went to the lead on the 32nd lap and stayed there until the first stage ended.
On the 14th lap, Christopher Bell caught Aric Almirola with a bump draft setting off a 16-car pileup that took Ryan Newman and pole sitter Alex Bowman, among others, out of the race. It was one lap later when the track went into a lightning stop followed by an alternating rain that brought things to a halt.
The track uses 19 Air Titans, 10 jet dryers, two vacuums and two sweepers to dry the 21⁄2-mile track. But when rain resumes, all the previous work is lost. Once NASCAR was ready to resume racing, the cars were sent back out on the track for 15 laps under caution to dry the track even more.
Once the race went green, the first stage was relatively calm from a caution standpoint. On the 38th lap, Quinn Houff ran over a piece of bumper cover that came off William Byron’s car. It caused Houff ’s tire to go flat and his car to hit the wall, taking him out of the race. Chase Briscoe also got caught up in the accident but was able to return.
At the start of the second stage, there were only 28 of the starting 40 still running. And, once again, Hamlin was there when it mattered at the end. In the final laps of the stage, he was even working with, and racing against, Bubba Wallace. It’s not unusual for drivers with the same manufacturer, in this case Toyota, to work with each other with pushes. But, in this case, Wallace works for the team that is owned by Hamlin and Michael Jordan.
Hamlin took the lead five times for 29 laps in the stage, including grabbing it from Wallace on the last lap.
The only caution in the second stage was on the 111th lap when Bell had a cut tire and spun, collecting Kyle Larson, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Jamie McMurray. All were able to return to the race.
But in the end, it was typical unexpected ending to the Daytona 500.