For William Byron, the goal was clear. It was to put his No. 24 Chevrolet in victory lane at the 2024 Daytona 500 and start his 40th anniversary season with Hendrick Motorsports.
Mission accomplished, even if Byron had to complete a tough final lap under a caution around Daytona International Speedway, where he awaited the winner’s announcement.
“Did we win? Did we win?” Byron kept asking over the radio.
The emotions he heard from crew chief Rudy Fugle over the radio convinced Byron that he had won the biggest race of his career.
“Well, no one told me. And Rudy was crying on the radio, and I thought, ‘Dude, I hope he’s crying for a good reason,'” Byron said. said. “I think he was just a ball of emotion there, and I thought, ‘Did we really win or didn’t we win?’
Byron won the rain-delayed Great American Race on Monday, ending Hendrick Motorsports’ nine-race Daytona 500 losing streak. He passed under the white flag marking the final lap, but at that moment a crash occurred behind him. When the caution flag was thrown and he circled Daytona one last time, he wasn’t quite sure if he was the official winner.
The last driver for Hendrick to win the Daytona 500 was Dale Earnhardt Jr. in 2014. The 26-year-old from Charlotte, North Carolina, becomes the sixth driver to win the 500 for Rick Hendrick, the winningest team owner in NASCAR history. It’s practically 40 years since his first Cup win and he’s on his way to victory lane.
“When I first got here, I didn’t think there was any point in being here,” Hendrick said in victory lane. “We felt we were way out of our league. It’s been 40 years. You couldn’t have written a script any better. To win this on the 40th day, it’s amazing. That’s really wonderful.”
Hendrick Motorsports’ ninth Daytona 500 victory tied it with Petty Enterprises for the most wins in NASCAR history.
“William Byron was already a superstar, and that means he’s reached another level of superstardom,” said Hendrick Vice Chairman Jeff Gordon. He himself has won the Daytona 500 three times in the No. 24 Chevrolet.
“Even though I wasn’t driving the car, I felt like I was making every lap with him,” he said. “We’re going to celebrate. This is a big win.”
Byron is a self-taught racer who never finished higher than 21st place in the Daytona 500 but honed his skills using computer equipment. Last season, Byron won a career-high six games to advance to the championship, but lost the title to Ryan Blaney, the older brother of Byron’s longtime girlfriend.
“I can’t believe it, even though I’m a kid who raced on a computer and won the Daytona 500,” Byron said. “I wish my dad was here. He’s sick, but this is for him. We’ve been through a lot, but we sat in the grandstand and watched the race together. ”
The fourth and final caution of the race started when Hendrick driver Alex Bowman rear-ended Byron, causing Byron to sideswipe Brad Keselowski, resulting in a 23-car collision that lasted more than 15 minutes. It caused a red flag that followed.
With four laps remaining before the final restart, Byron in the No. 24 Chevrolet took second place. He and Trackhouse Racing’s Ross Chastain pushed back and forth for the lead, but just as they crossed under the white flag marking the final lap of the race, a crash occurred behind Byron, forcing him to take the lead. was Byron.
Byron was followed by teammate Bowman as Chevrolet and Hendrick won in a 1-2 sweep. Christopher Bell finished third in the Toyota of Joe Gibbs Racing, followed by Corey Lajoie’s Chevrolet of Spire Motorsports and AJ Allmendinger of Kaulig Racing.
Bubba Wallace in a 23XI Racing Toyota was sixth, followed by John Hunter Nemechek in another non-Legacy Motor Club Toyota. Chase Briscoe in a Stewart-Haas Racing Ford finished eighth, followed by legacy driver Erik Jones and SHR teammate Noah Gragson.
Due to continued rain at Daytona throughout the weekend, the race was held one day later than scheduled. Monday was scheduled to open with a postponed second-tier Xfinity Series race followed by the 500 race, but with rain still falling Monday morning, NASCAR changed the order of events and the Xfinity race was used as the closer.
Monday’s pre-race concert did not take place as scheduled performer Pitbull said he would be back next year to complete his appearance. Although his schedule prevented him from being in Daytona on Monday, Grand Marshal Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson stayed an extra day and participated in one of the most popular pre-race activities. He said it was the place where he was.
Johnson crowded the starting grid in the Fan Zone and received the loudest applause at the pre-race driver meeting, but he showed up 30 minutes earlier than scheduled in a black tank top.
NASCAR’s flexibility in its schedule this month to avoid inclement weather was virtually unprecedented in the series’ first 75 hours. Earlier in the month, NASCAR postponed the Crash exhibition at the Coliseum by a full day because of the possibility of rain. At Daytona, an early decision was made to reschedule the ARCA Series race from Saturday night to Friday night and move both the Xfinity and Cup Series races.
The decision to postpone the Cup race by one day was made early Sunday morning, leaving fans unable to sit in rain-soaked bleachers to see if the race would start.
Just hours later, teams announced they had taken advantage of Sunday’s rainy postponement to hire some of the nation’s top antitrust and sports lawyers to advise them on their dispute with NASCAR over a new revenue-sharing model. This was revealed to the Associated Press.
The decision to hire Jeffrey Kessler, partner and co-executive chairman of Winston & Strawn LLP, was made after a meeting in Daytona that included majority owners of each charter team. Each team invited a NASCAR representative, but none attended.
Kessler’s appointment was announced to The Associated Press by five members of the team’s ownership negotiation committee. This comes amid a breakdown in negotiations between the teams and NASCAR, which led the 36 charter teams to decline an extension of exclusive negotiations with the sanctioning body on their existing contracts last month.
