Speedweeks at Daytona is always a bit chaotic, but this? This was straight out of Stranger Things—a wild, upside-down world where underdogs triumphed, favorites faltered, and one poor driver celebrated a victory that wasn’t his.
In Thursday’s Duel races, JR Motorsports made history, a fuel-starved Jimmie Johnson nearly turned strategy into a disaster movie, and Erik Jones drove himself to Victory Lane… only to find out he never actually won. Oh, and somewhere in the madness, Bubba Wallace and Austin Cindric actually took home trophies. But let’s be honest—this was less about the checkered flags and more about the absolute mayhem that unfolded over 120 laps of high-speed drama.
The only thing that truly mattered in the first Duel was history—written in bold, underlined, and signed by JR Motorsports. Justin Allgaier, in a one-off entry for the team owned by one of NASCAR’s most beloved figures, pulled off a late-race charge, slicing past JJ Yeley to finish ninth and lock in JR Motorsports’ first-ever start in the Daytona 500.
Oh, and for the record, Bubba Wallace won the Duel. But let’s be honest, that was just a footnote in this script.
In the closing laps up front, Ty Dillon and Wallace were busy swapping the lead, but no one cared. The real action—the kind that makes grown men bite their nails and team owners age in real time—was happening in the fight for the final open spot. As the laps wound down, Yeley and Allgaier traded positions, each refusing to let the other claim the glory. Five laps to go, and what had been a high-speed, two-line ballet suddenly transformed into a chaotic mosh pit behind the leaders. Allgaier, stuck behind Yeley, took matters into his own hands, swinging to the outside and creating a three-wide brawl with Truex and Yeley. On the final lap, he pulled off the move of his life, clearing them both and nailing down a top-10 finish.
Yeley? Well, once again, he’ll be watching the Great American Race from somewhere that isn’t a race car.
Meanwhile, Helio Castroneves was having an enjoyable evening—until he wasn’t. The four-time Indy 500 champion was just cruising along, getting a feel for stock car racing at 190 mph, when Chandler Smith, running in the top five, did something that can only be described as baffling. He suddenly came down in front of Justin Haley in Turn 2, triggering absolute carnage. Smith’s car smashed nose-first into the outside wall, collecting Ty Gibbs, Yeley, and, unfortunately, Castroneves himself. Helio tried to perform a miraculous escape, but no—he got swept up in the mess, his Duel ending in twisted metal. Smith and Castroneves were done for the night, and Helio will have to rely on NASCAR’s brand-new golden ticket—er, special exemption—to make the Daytona 500 field.
Allgaier, however, kept his nose clean and his dreams intact. With Smith out and Castroneves cashing in his special pass, the final open spot came down to two men. And Allgaier, against all odds, took it.
“The emotions right now are really just because of how much everybody here has wanted it—Dale and Kelley and L.W. and everybody at JR Motorsports,” Allgaier said. “This guy right here, his hands—his hands—we get to race on Sunday. His lip was quivering and his hands were shaking before the race. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that out of Dale Jr. He told me before the race, he said, ‘I’m nervous. I don’t want to make you nervous, but I’m really nervous.’”
Elsewhere in the race, Chase Elliott, Ryan Preece, and Ross Chastain—who all had to get some last-minute car repairs before the green flag—found themselves mixing it up in the top group and leading some laps in the process. It felt like something out of Stranger Things, with these three somehow defying mechanical misfortune and making a race out of it.
Debris, most likely from one of the wounded cars from earlier, brought out the third caution on lap 25. Chase Briscoe, secure with his pole, and perhaps not wanting to risk any chance of getting swept up in someone else’s mess, headed to the garage during the caution.
In the end, it was the 23XI duo of Wallace and Tyler Reddick who got the last laugh. Reddick muscled his teammate to the front, delivering Bubba to victory lane. William Byron, who had also led laps, settled for second, Dillon took third, Chastain fourth, and Reddick rounded out the top five.
“Thanks to Tyler,” Wallace said. “That was awesome to see two team cars work together that well and learn a lot for Sunday. Did a great job pushing me… I’ve wanted one of these Duel wins for so long. All my buddies got one. Tyler got one last year. I was pissed off. I got one now. I’m good.”
If the first Duel was a story of history, the second was a slow-burn thriller that saved all its chaos for the final act.
Denny Hamlin took charge early, looking like he had the field under control—until Erik Jones had other ideas. The driver of the No. 43 rose to the occasion, snatching the lead on lap 16, with his boss, seven-time champ Jimmie Johnson, playing the role of loyal bodyguard. For a brief moment, it was 2008 all over again, as Johnson expertly blocked the field to keep Jones out front.
But Daniel Suárez wasn’t here to admire nostalgia. On lap 29, he broke up the party, sliding past Johnson before muscling under Jones to steal the lead. While those two were locked in a battle for supremacy, Ryan Blaney led a Penske charge into the mix, forcing a third lane into existence on lap 33. Back to a two-lane dogfight, Blaney took command of the top groove, dueling with Suárez as the intensity cranked up another notch.
Then came the first twist: Johnson, suddenly out of fuel, had to dive onto pit road all by himself on lap 35. He was already locked into the 500 on speed, but this unexpected pit stop flipped the script on the open car battle. Anthony Alfredo, running sixth at the time, now held the final transfer spot over Corey LaJoie, who was lurking in 11th with 23 laps to go.
And then the real tension set in. Everyone needed to pit, and with no caution in sight, it became a high-speed game of strategy. Half the field blinked first, diving in on lap 43. The rest followed over the next few circuits. But just when it seemed like everyone had survived the cycle, disaster struck: Kyle Larson and Hamlin—both caught speeding on pit road. Their chances of winning? Gone.
The race had been surprisingly clean—until, of course, it wasn’t. With 12 laps to go, Chris Buescher led a single-file parade… until he tried blocking one too many cars. That sent an accordion effect snaking through the field, forcing Suárez to check up. Alex Bowman had nowhere to go, turned him around, and suddenly Bowman, Suárez, and Brad Keselowski were spinning through the infield. Caution.
With seven laps left, the green flag waved, and the Penske powerhouse took over. Austin Cindric grabbed the lead, pushed by teammate Joey Logano, but LaJoie—who now needed to make the 500—was shoving Buescher on the outside, setting up a frantic dash to the finish.
Then, on the final lap, all hell broke loose.
What had been a relatively orderly sprint instantly became a demolition derby with a checkered flag at the end. Logano was locked onto Cindric’s bumper, Buescher was side-by-side with Hamlin, and then—seemingly out of thin air—Erik Jones blasted onto the scene, appearing on the outside of Cindric as they approached the line. Behind them, chaos erupted. Shane van Gisbergen, Christopher Bell, Larson, Cody Ware, and, heartbreakingly, Anthony Alfredo all crashed as the checkered flag loomed.
And then NASCAR did what NASCAR does best: make everyone wait.
Cindric and Jones were separated by a mere four one-thousandths of a second when the caution flew, freezing the field. Jones thought he’d won. His team thought he’d won. The TV and radio broadcasters thought he’d won. He even pulled up to the start-finish line ready to celebrate.
Except… he hadn’t won.
After several minutes of scrutinizing camera angles and timing loops, NASCAR delivered the verdict: Cindric by a nose. Jones had driven all the way to Victory Lane only to find out it wasn’t his.
“I feel bad for Erik having to go all the way over there,” Cindric said. “They made a great move on the last lap there. Joey and I were sitting ducks with the middle lane fading there.”
And in the midst of the mayhem, Corey LaJoie had quietly done exactly what he needed to do. With a sixth-place finish, he secured the final open spot for Sunday’s Daytona 500.
“I’m pumped up, man,” LaJoie said. “I wasn’t that stressed going in, but I am super relieved right now.”
So ended a night straight out of an episode of Stranger Things.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you kick off Speedweeks.
Photos: NASCAR at Daytona International Speedway Thursday Feb. 13, 2025
Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" 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, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.
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