DAYTONA – Ricky Stenhouse won the Daytona 500 in double overtime and under caution on Sunday in the longest running of “The Great American Race.” The two overtimes pushed the 65th running of the event to a record 212 laps – a dozen laps beyond the scheduled distance and a whopping 530 miles.
Stenhouse’s win for JTG Daugherty Racing was the third of his career. JTG is the first single-car team to win the Daytona 500 since Wood Brothers Racing did it with Trevor Bayne in 2011.
Stenhouse and reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion Joey Logano were battling for the lead on Lap 212 when contact from Aric Almirola’s Ford started Travis Pastrana’s Toyota spinning in Turn 2. Pastrana’s Camry clipped the Chevrolet of Kyle Larson and set it rocketing into the outside wall.
Tires screamed, sparks flew and smoke billowed as the cars of defending race winner Austin Cindric, Brad Keselowski, Kyle Busch, AJ Allmendinger, Denny Hamlin, Bubba Wallace, and Ryan Blaney were all collected in the chaotic wreck.
But when NASCAR hit the button to illuminate the caution lights, Stenhouse’s No. 47 JTG Daugherty Chevrolet edged ahead of Logano’s Ford, thanks to a timely shove from the third-place finishing Toyota of Christopher Bell, who, like Stenhouse, arrived at the pinnacle of pavement racing from a dirt-track background.
NASCAR declared Stenhouse the winner of the 65th running of the event, a perfect christening of the renewed relationship between the driver and crew chief Mike Kelley, with whom Stenhouse won his two NASCAR Xfinity Series championships more than a decade earlier.
It was a remarkable victory and a perfect highlight for the 75th anniversary of NASCAR racing. Stenhouse is the first driver from a single-car team to win the Great American Race since Trevor Bayne shocked the racing world with Wood Brothers Racing in 2011.
There were eight caution periods for a total of 38 laps. Only 17 of the 40 drivers in the Daytona 500 finished on the lead lap. There were 21 different leaders in the race, tying it with the 2010 Daytona 500 for second-most all-time in The Great American Race. There were 52 lead changes, the fourth-most in Daytona 500 history, behind 2011 (74 lead changes), 1974 (60), and 1983 (58).
SHR Race Finish:
- Kevin Harvick (Started 13th, Finished 12th / Running, completed 212 of 212 laps)
- Aric Almirola (Started 4th, Finished 21st / Accident, completed 211 of 212 laps)
- Chase Briscoe (Started 30th, Finished 35th / Accident, completed 182 of 212 laps)
- Ryan Preece (Started 20th, Finished 36th / Accident, completed 181 of 212 laps)
SHR Points:
- Kevin Harvick (8th with 37 points, 15 out of first)
- Aric Almirola (13th with 29 points, 23 out of first)
- Ryan Preece (27th with 11 points, 41 out of first)
- Chase Briscoe (34th with two points, 50 out of first)
This was Harvick’s 22nd start in The Great American Race. His first Daytona 500 came 21 years ago on Feb. 17, 2002.
Harvick finished fourth in Stage 1 to earn seven bonus points. He led one lap to increase his laps-led total at Daytona to 284.
“We had a good car, but then we got caught in the back and got torn up,” said Kevin Harvick, driver of the No. 4 Busch Light #Busch401K Ford Mustang
Harvick has now led 11,487 laps since joining SHR in 2014. He has led 15,902 laps in his entire NASCAR Cup Series career.
Aric Almirola won his Duel qualifying race on Thursday to start fourth in the Daytona 500.
Almirola finished eighth in Stage 1 to earn three bonus points. He led eight times for 16 laps to increase his laps-led total at Daytona to 45.
“Yeah, obviously we wanted a better result. That wasn’t how I wrote it up, but the Smithfield team gave me a fast car all weekend and we had a car capable of winning,” said Aric Almirola, driver of the No. 10 Smithfield Ford Mustang. “That’s all you can ask for and hope a little luck is on your side. Daytona is such a rollercoaster of a race and you just have to be there at the end, and we were there at the end. We were strong all day, running up front until we had to check up with the guys starting to wreck in front of us, but they didn’t and we were all strung out until the caution came out. Then you’re just at the mercy of the ‘big one’ in front of you when you get back that far. I really felt like today was going to be the day. We came out strong as a race team this entire week. Qualified great, we won our Duel, and we really didn’t make any mistakes all day and ran a clean race. The pit crew was on it, and Drew (Blickensderfer, crew chief) and Joel (Edmonds, spotter) were on it, so this 10 team is showing a lot of growth and we’re going to be a strong team all year.”
Chase Briscoe led twice for five laps – his first laps led at Daytona.
“We were coming off that pit sequence and everybody was at such different speeds and you could definitely tell the intensity was ratcheting up,” said Chase Briscoe, driver of the No. 14 Mahindra Tractors Ford Mustang. “Everybody was just making really aggressive blocks trying to position themselves for the end. I don’t know, we just all checked up into one and it was a bad wreck for Stewart-Haas because all four of us were stuck in that. I just hate it. It felt like we were in position. We talked about what our plan was going into it and felt like we were executing that, but we just needed a little luck at the end to go with it. We’ll move on to California and see if we can improve. Obviously, we need to improve.”
Ryan Preece finished second in Stage 1 to earn nine bonus points. He led once for four laps to increase his laps-led total at Daytona to five.
“Everybody was on green-flag cycles,” said Ryan Preece, driver of the No. 41 HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang. “People trying to block the rows are trying to cycle in and I just want to focus on the fact that we had such a fast HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang. This opportunity is exactly what I wanted, so it’s unfortunate because I felt like we were going to put ourselves in a position to give ourselves an opportunity to be in contention to win this race, but it just wasn’t meant to be. Hopefully, we keep unloading fast Ford Mustangs like we did this weekend and we’ll have some fun.”
Next Up:
The next event on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the Pala Casino 400 on Sunday, Feb. 26 at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California. The race begins at 3:30 p.m. EST with live coverage provided by FOX and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
