By Matt Marr
Joey Logano and Michael McDowell made up the front row to start The Great American Race, the Daytona 500.
There was an early caution on lap 5. Harrison Burton, Carson Hocevar, Ryan Preece, Jimmie Johnson were all involved in the multi-car wreck.
As they came back to green at lap 12, Ryan Blaney was the leader.
It stayed green for the remainder of the stage, resulting in green flag pit stops. After they cycled through, Kyle Busch took the lead - however Chase Elliott passed him on lap 65 and got the Stage One win.
Josh Berry and Kyle Larson led the start of Stage Two to green.
Blaney made a move underneath teammate Austin Cindric to pass for the lead to win Stage Two on lap 130.
With 9 laps to go, the big one struck. Alex Bowman gave William Byron a bump, who then got into Brad Keselowski and calamity ensued, taking out roughly half the field.
Byron and Ross Chastain led the restart with 4 laps to go in the Daytona 500.
Byron led the field to the white flag as Cindric got into Chastain bringing out the caution at the start/finish line, ultimately declaring William Byron the 2024 Daytona 500 Champion.
Daytona 500 Top 5:
1. William Byron
2. Alex Bowman
3. Christopher Bell
4. Corey Lajoie
5. Bubba Wallace
Notables:
7. John Hunter Nemechek
13. Zane Smith
16. Daniel Hemric
20. David Ragan