William Byron, Alex Bowman finish 1-2 as Hendrick kicks off 40th season in NASCAR with ninth Daytona 500 win.
Monday night presented almost the perfect way for Rick Hendrick to kick off his season-long 40th anniversary celebration as a NASCAR team owner.
“Almost,” but in this case “almost” is close enough.
One of his team cars—the No. 24 Chevrolet Camaro of William Byron—won the rain-rescheduled 66th annual Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway. It was the 302nd official victory for Hendrick Motorsports since its breakthrough victory with Geoffrey Bodine in the spring of 1984 at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway.
Another of Hendrick’s team cars—the No. 48 Chevrolet Camaro of Alex Bowman—finished second. It seemed a clear-cut call at the time, but officials wisely reviewed a video of the last lap caution to make sure they had it right.
They did, and there was no public debate.
Byron led only the last four laps in giving HMS its ninth Daytona 500 victory, its first since Dale Earnhardt Jr. in 2014. The victory tied Petty Enterprises for the most-ever in the sport’s most important event. PE won its nine with three drivers: Richard Petty (7) and Lee Petty and Pete Hamilton (1 each). Hendrick’s nine have come from six drivers: Jeff Gordon (3), Jimmie Johnson (2), and Earnhardt Jr., Byron, Bodine, and Darrell Waltrip (1 each).
“I’m telling you, you couldn’t write the script any better, Hendrick said during the post-race festivities. “When I thought about coming down here the first time in 1984, I didn’t think I should be here. I felt so out of place. (Then) we win this one on the 40th-year to the day (of our first 500), and to tie a record. And with 24 and 48 finishing like they did. That’s just awesome.’”
Hendrick’s other two drivers certainly weren’t terrible, but weren’t always in the right place at the right times. Chase Elliott finished a pedestrian 14th, but led 13 laps and beat teammate Kyle Larson at the end of Stage 1. Larson was all over the scoring pylon throughout the late afternoon/early evening race, going up and down and leading seven laps in finishing 11th.
He was poised for perhaps a top-5 finish before the 23-car backstretch accident at lap 197 dramatically changed the running order. It appeared Bowman bumped Byron amidst traffic, and Byron plowed into Brad Keselowski. That started the chain-reaction “big one” that severely damaged or eliminated (among others) Keselowski, pole-winner Joey Logano, reigning Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney, three-time 500 winner Denny Hamlin, former series champion Martin Truex Jr., Tyler Reddick, Christopher Bell, and defending race champion Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
