Winner William

William Byron celebrates with his crew after winning his second straight Daytona 500. Photo: Mark Rebilas/Rebilas Photo.

Daytona 500:

William Byron took the checkered flag on Sunday evening winning the 67th Daytona 500. The win was his second consecutive win in the Great American Race and locks himself into the 2025 NASCAR playoffs. Byron survived several late wrecks including the final lap melee that allowed him to scoot by the crashing leaders and drive away to the finish line. Byron becomes just the fifth driver to win consecutive Daytona 500s.

While it's probably no shock that Byron won, giving Hendrick Motorsports their 10th Daytona 500 the most of any team, the Chevy's were not the cream of the crop on Sunday. That was the Fords of Team Penske. Cindric led the way leading 59 laps (the most of the day) followed by Logano with 43 and Blaney with 23. It looked certain that Penske Ford was going to run away with the win until the late cautions bunched up the field. After that we saw chaos ensue with several big wrecks. One triggered by Logano himself (with help from Stenhouse) and the other triggered by Cole Custer that left Ryan Preece flying through the air at Daytona again. That caution set up the final dash to the checkered flag in NASCAR overtime. And for 85 percent of the overtime, I would've bet Denny Hamlin was going to win his fourth Daytona 500. That was until the bump drafts got too rough on the backstretch causing a ruckus that essentially took out the top six and allowed William Byron to scoot on by and make a mad dash to the checkered flag over a hard charging Tyler Reddick.

Overall, I think we saw a solid Daytona 500 given the rules package and what the race has become since they started to reduce the horsepower over the last several years. Gone are the days of true skill, grit, and determination being the main factors of winning the Great American Race. And it appears NASCAR has no desire to return to those days. While I want NASCAR to return to those days, it's unlikely to happen. So, I will adjust my thoughts and opinions to what we have and try to stay optimistic about the racing in front of us. And for what we got, we got a good race on Sunday. Sure, there was a lot of fuel saving for 160 of 200 laps. That's what this package incentives and what we have come to see on drafting tracks. It does, visually, present what appears to be good racing. Two and three wide for most of the day. Drivers jockeying for the best strategy and the capitalizing late through the carnage for when the bump drafts, blocks, and moves get what is likely too aggressive. Sure, it's not the racing that was NASCAR for the better margins of its 77 years, especially on drafting tracks, but it's what we have and I'm trying my best to enjoy what we have on the track. For that, I say Sunday was a good race. My only gripe is fact that we continue to start the race at high time for mid-afternoon Florida rain showers. I vote we make the Daytona 500 a Sunday night race moving forward. Tradition be damned; we end racing most of that race at night anyway.

We now shift our focus to the Atlanta Motor Speedway with all three national touring series back on track this weekend. The Craftsman Truck Series kicks off the weekend on Saturday afternoon at 1:30 p.m. EST on FS1. The Xfinity Series follows the Truck folks on Saturday evening at 5 p.m. EST on The CW. The Cup Series caps off the weekend Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m. EST on FOX.

Atlanta Picks:

Truck = Kyle Busch

Xfinity = Austin Hill

Cup = Joey Logano