Austin Dillon Wins Wreck-Filled Daytona 500

Austin Dillon was back in Victory Lane at Daytona, 20 years to the day he was last there.

Earnhardt would have been delighted with the manner of victory, a close, contentious last-lap duel. We look forward to continuing on this unbelievable ride this season with Austin, the No. 3 team, and Richard Childress Racing’. They were standing and cheering.

The race also made history by having five overtimes. Austin Dillon’s post-race celebration was a fitting throwback. The next was Earnhardt. Austin Dillon. Earnhardt, of course, drove for Dillon’s grandfather, Richard Childress.

But he did, because that’s what Earnhardt would have wanted, to create moments like the one he savored in the twilight at Victory Lane.

While Dillon’s talent and connections were never in question, his auto number was. “I put every move I knew to try and stay in the lead and, unfortunately, I just wasn’t able to hold on”. I just hugged him and said, ‘Man, we got it. “Your eyes roll back in your head, and you just go”.

The second wreck of the day also collected Danica Patrick, who made her final NASCAR start on Sunday.

Bowman’s road to a top team (Hendrick Motorsports) and a coveted auto was bumpier than most of the other young NASCAR hotshots. Always something would happen, but this day he pulled it off. If it feels weird or uncomfortable, or is not something I’m proud of, then I just don’t have to do it.

Newman in his No. 31 Bass Pro Shops Chevrolet survived a late-race wreck to finish eighth in the Daytona 500, ryannewman.com reports.

In 1997, he flipped his auto with just 12 laps to go.

Although the race wasn’t marred by a large number of crashes, the ones that occurred at the end of each stage of the race were violent and took out some of the sport’s top competitors. Their cars both came out of Welcome, where RPM is now located, both running the same ECR-built Chevrolet engines. I did what I had to do there at the end.

This was Almirola’s debut race with Stewart-Haas Racing after spending the previous six seasons with Richard Petty Motorsports.

“We have to try our best to paint this picture for them and one of the greatest examples of this is when Daddy showed me the Ralph Earnhardt footage”, Earnhardt said. “It’s what it is when you’re at Daytona”, he said. Hamlin took the lead with two to go but as the field went through Turns 1 and 2, Blaney took the air off of the back of the No. 41 Ford and Busch spun into the pack collecting Stenhouse, Gaughan, DiBenedetto, Truex, Bowman and Allmendinger. Dillon slipped low as Almirola crashed, and drove through the third and fourth turns five auto lengths clear of the field.

The two-time Daytona 500 victor is the grand marshal for Sunday’s season-opening race, and once his duties are complete, Earnhardt plans to watch “The Great American Race” from atop the pit box of pole-sitter Alex Bowman. By the time it ended, 25 of the 40 cars were still running, many of them badly damaged.