The new O’Reilly Auto Parts era didn’t begin with calm authority — it began with a pileup before the start line, escalated into a red-flag mess, and somehow ended with Austin Hill standing tall over the wreckage.
With Kyle Busch on the pole and Austin Dillon lighting up Friday practice, Richard Childress Racing has arrived at Daytona looking less hopeful and more dangerous.
Chandler Smith wasn’t leading off Turn 4 in overtime, but a perfectly timed shove turned a four-wide brawl into a .044-second Daytona triumph.
Chase Elliott says the Daytona 500 is part skill, part survival and part lottery ticket—proof that even champions need luck when 41 cars barrel into Turn 1.
One Duel detonated, the other behaved, and somehow the Daytona 500 field emerged intact.
Daytona delivered drama before a single lap was raced—and Kyle Busch walked away with the best seat in the house.
Hendrick Motorsports looked at Kyle Larson’s numbers, blinked once, and signed the paperwork through 2031.
This wasn’t racing so much as survival training. Ryan Preece won a wet, wild Clash that only Bowman Gray could produce.
The Chase is back, the oval is back, and Charlotte is once again ready to separate contenders from pretenders the old-fashioned way.
Eight to twelve inches of snow, buried highways, and a city still recovering made waiting the only sensible move for the Clash.