In the end it was Ryan Blaney.
Blaney came from 13th with two laps to go Saturday night, slicing through a pack of drivers flailing about like drowning men to win the regular season finale at Daytona International Speedway.
In a race built for chaos—a last-chance saloon for anyone without a win—Blaney slammed the door shut, crushed dreams, and left the rest of the field staring at the scoring pylon wondering what the hell just happened.
With five laps left, three of the top four drivers and four of the top six were winless on the season. Blaney wasn’t even in the frame. Erik Jones had just lost the lead and scraped the backstretch wall, leaving Ryan Preece and Justin Haley to sort things out. Then Cole Custer joined the party on the outside with Blaney stuck behind him.
On the final lap, as Custer, Preece, and Haley fought each other into exhaustion, Blaney hooked up with Daniel Suarez on the high side, got the shove of a lifetime, and won by a microscopic .031 of a second over Suarez.
“What a wild last couple laps, honestly,” Blaney said. “I was with Cole, I kind of asked him on the restart, if you go to the top I’m going with you. We kind of just waited and waited and then the opportunity came and he made a good move to get to the top, and we were able to really get good shows.
“A couple good guys behind us and then it kind of cleared the way for us when the 7 and 41 got racing and I was able to clear on the top and just barely hold out for the win.”
Haley, Custer, and Jones filled out the top five.
“It hurts, especially with the year the 7 car has had,” Haley admitted. “We obviously had a rough season. You’re counting them down and just trying to play everything out. But yeah, super proud of everyone at Spire Motorsports, the Gainbridge Chevy was very fast, and the Hendrick engine shop did a great job.“
The opening stage had more drama than a Florida retirement community HOA meeting after someone painted their house neon green.
Pole sitter Blaney led early, and the first caution came on lap 12 when Casey Mears—making a rare return—blew a tire and clobbered the wall.
By lap 17, Tyler Reddick’s Playoff hopes were in tatters. Todd Gilliland was shuffled into him coming out of Turn 4, sending Reddick into the inside wall almost at the entrance to pit road. Repairs cost him a lap, and suddenly his postseason hopes hinged on pure chaos.
Bubba Wallace stormed from 22nd to the front by lap 25, but three laps later Daytona showed its teeth. Suarez led, but behind him Kyle Larson caught Wallace just wrong. Wallace pinballed into Joey Logano, bounced back up into Austin Cindric, and when the smoke cleared 11 cars were wrecked—including Alex Bowman, who limped off to the garage.
The red flag flew for just over eight minutes before Larson somehow regrouped to win the stage.
The start of Stage 2 saw Cody Ware of all people leading, thanks to pit strategy. He held serve until lap 56 when Ty Dillon grabbed the lead. From there it was a carnival of unexpected names—Ware, Dillon, Logano, Custer, and even Shane van Gisbergen.
That parade ended when Carson Hocevar’s engine expired with 12 to go in the stage. William Byron—who had started in the back after failing inspection and serving a stop-and-go penalty—led a Hendrick trio to the front. But fresher tires proved decisive, and Joey Logano charged through.
Ross Chastain, a member of the fresher tires club, ultimately snatched the stage win in a last-lap move, with Byron salvaging fourth.
Bell led the field to green in the last stage, but Denny Hamlin’s battered Toyota finally gave up, scraping the wall to bring out a caution on lap 108. That reset the fuel game.
Austin Dillon tried the long shot strategy, Logano took over as the fuel-saving master, and behind them a pack of desperate drivers three-wide refused to play nice.
With 13 to go, Logano tried swapping lanes in front of Jones, got loose, and skated across the infield grass. That opened the door for Jones, Haley, and the rest of the win-or-bust brigade.
But it was Blaney who stole it all.
Perhaps no one cheered harder for Blaney’s last-lap magic than Alex Bowman. He crashed out in the lap 28 melee and was poised to lose his Playoff spot if a new winner emerged. Blaney’s victory meant Bowman slipped into the postseason on points—an outcome he had no business expecting when he climbed from his wrecked Chevy hours earlier.
At Daytona, there are heartbreaks by the dozen. But on this night, the heartbreak belonged to everyone else. Blaney took the trophy. Bowman took a deep breath. And the rest? They’re left to wonder how in the world it all slipped away.
And now come the Playoffs, which will start with the Round of 16 next Sunday at Darlington Raceway.
RACE RESULTS
Greg was a writer for DriveTribe supporting Amazon's The Grand Tour and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, and a Masters degree in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek and a regular contributor to Forbes.
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