A favorite among fans is Daytona Beach.In order to put the 31-year-old in position for another attempt at a season championship, Ryan Blaney won the Coke Zero Sugar 400, ending the season by a car length for the next three finishers.
Blaney moved from 13th place to Victory Lane for the second time during the summer race at Daytona International Speedway thanks to a late surge that allowed him to pass a dozen competitors in the last two laps.
Shortly after winning his 15th Cup Series, Blaney remarked, “We kind of took what was given us.” We enjoy taking the lead. In the end, we managed to arrive.
At the legendary track, Blaney has suffered his fair share of heartbreaks, but none greater than finishing second in the 2020 Daytona 500 to Denny Hamlinamid Ryan Newman’s devastating collision near the finish line.
In a rare and thrilling four-wide finish on a warm and pleasant Saturday night on the Surf Coast, Blaney and his No. 12 Ford left a number of drivers at the alter, edging Daniel Suarez, Justin Haley, and Cole Custer by less than a car length.
Suarez stated, “We just needed one more spot.”
In the legendary STP No. 43 at Daytona International Speedway, where Richard Petty won ten times in a vehicle that looked exactly the same, Erik Jones finished fifth after the 2018 Coke Zero Sugar 400 winner was in a good position to claim the checkered flag.
Jones and the three finishers ahead of him could have guaranteed the last position in the 16-car playoffs with a victory, but Tyler Reddick and Alex Bowman, who was eliminated early in the race by a 12-car collision, will take the two spots instead.
As the 2023 Cup Series champion heads into the season’s last 10 races, Blaney’s triumph is his sixth consecutive top-10 finish. He was also Daytona’s first pole-sitter to win since 2015.
According to him, the team is performing admirably when it comes to hitting their paces.
In an effort to keep Hendrick Motorsports colleague Alex Bowman in the playoffs and avoid a new 2025 winner, 2021 Cup Series champion Kyle Larson finished sixth. At Daytona International Speedway, 32-time Cup Series champion Larson has never placed in the top five.
“With all the cars around us that needed a win to get locked in, that was pretty crazy there at the end,” he added.
It was not long before the sport’s most unpredictable track drama and the playoff race coalesced, drawing the biggest attendance for the summer race in seven years, according to track president Frank Kelleher.
When Bowman was involved in a fight on Lap 28 that left his No. 48 Toyota in ruins, Reddick secured one of the two playoff positions that were up for grabs. A first-time 2025 winner would eliminate the competitor with the fewest points at the end of the race, but Reddick started Saturday night in 15th place in the standings, 29 points ahead of Bowman.
Bowman, who finished 36th overall, got the last position, although he experienced a lot of anxiety while watching the race on television and making late charges on multiple winless drives.
Shortly after the wreck, he observed, “We’re in a tough spot.” Regretfully, we are observing from the sidelines.
as he crashed on Lap 19, Reddick looked to be in danger as Todd Gilliland clipped the left front bumper of his No. 45 Toyota, sending him into an infield wall. However, his pit staff used a lot of duct tape to fix the damage, which allowed him to finish in 21st place.
He claimed that it was largely damaged.
Despite going winless in 2024, Reddick, the 2024 regular-season champion, has a chance to redeem himself in the playoffs with the 23XI Racing squad, which is co-owned by NBA icon Michael Jordan and three-time Daytona 500 champion Denny Hamlin.
Reddick stated, “We’ll definitely need to be on top of it every round.” We haven’t done it, but we are capable.
Along racing 63-time Cup Series champion Kyle Busch, the Big One that halted Bowman’s attempt also included former 500 winners Austin Cindric (2022) and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (2023). With a trip to Victory Lane, 40-year-old Busch, a two-time champion, continued his troubles at Daytona and missed the playoffs for the second consecutive year. He has made 83 appearances.
After winning at Talladega on April 27, Cindric was assured of a spot in the playoffs. Stenhouse, on the other hand, needed more superspeedway magic to salvage a season that saw only three top-10 finishes in 26 starts, after winning the 2017 summer race at Daytona and the 2024 Talladega.
Cindric remarked, “Just kind of caught in the middle.” It was perhaps a bit early, but you could sense the intensity building there. It’s unfortunate.
The crucial collision started when Larson shoved 23XI Racing’s Bubba Wallace from behind, nudging Joey Logano to start the sequence of events. Wallace’s vehicle veered off course, went into the infield, and then returned to the track, where his No. 23 Toyota collided with Cindric’s No. 2 Ford head-on.
Wallace, who started the race in the lead, stated that everything was moving really quickly there. I detest it. I’ll accept responsibility for it. Something was going to happen because everything was going too well too soon.
As the current Cup Series winner, Logano can vouch to that. When he attempted to block Jones with 13 laps remaining, he lost control of his No. 22 Ford and it spun out.
With six laps remaining, Jones quickly took the lead, but he was bumped out of the draft and fell out of contention, only to come back to join the last group.
He said, “I’m sorry it ended the way it did.” We put ourselves in a favorable position, and everything was proceeding according to plan, until we simply lost our temper. Unfortunately, we don’t get much out of tonight’s fifth.
You may contact Edgar Thompson at [email protected].
