DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Two months ago, Michael Jordan and NASCAR CEO Jim France were adversaries in a federal courtroom.
On Sunday, they shook hands in victory lane at the Daytona 500.
In a head-spinning sequence that felt like an “only in NASCAR!” turn of events, Jordan’s 23XI Racing went from a plaintiff in a major antitrust lawsuit to winning the “Great American Race” for the first time.
California native Tyler Reddick, one of NASCAR’s best pure talents, won his first Daytona 500 after being shut out from victory lane last year.
All just months after 23XI’s very existence was in doubt.
Go figure.
“This feels like winning a championship,” Jordan told Fox after joyously embracing Reddick.
Reddick was the survivor of last-lap chaos that saw multiple crashes, but NASCAR allowed the race to stay green and did not throw the caution until the race was over (with a final, vicious crash at that).
Even the second- and third-place finishers crashed and were forced to make mandatory trips to the infield medical center. No drivers were injured, but the majority of the field ended up with damaged or destroyed cars.
Here are some of the key takeaways from the race.
Allgaier changes the complexion
When Justin Allgaier drifted up the track and made contact with Denny Hamlin late in Stage 2, it triggered a 17-car crash and took out a number of drivers who looked like bona fide contenders.
The group included Austin Cindric, who was among the three cars with the best pre-race odds to win, and also destroyed the cars of Todd Gilliland, who had been running inside the top five when the wreck happened, and Hendrick Motorsports driver Alex Bowman.
That’s not to mention other cars that were able to continue but with damage – which ended up hurting their chances for actually winning the race.
Allgaier isn’t a regular in these cars (he races in the second-tier O’Reilly Auto Parts Series), so he is not used to drafting with them as much as the full-time Cup drivers. That said, he still had a top-10 finish in the Daytona 500 last year with JR Motorsports.
– Jeff Gluck
Kyle Busch fails to win again
Kyle Busch entered Sunday riding an 0-for-20 winless streak in the Daytona 500, a record filled with near misses and heartbreak. After the Richard Childress Racing driver sped to the pole in qualifying, it gave the appearance that Busch was well positioned to finally win the lone crown jewel race he’s yet to win.
Not quite. Instead, a day filled with such promise for Busch ended similarly to how his previous 20 Daytona 500s went: With another driver celebrating in victory lane.
Busch was credited with a 15th-place finish, and quickly climbed from his car and left pit road before speaking with reporters.
Where Busch’s day turned sour was the Lap 123 “Big One” when Allgaier crashed on the frontstretch. Among the many cars damaged was Busch’s, and while RCR was able to make repairs that allowed Busch to continue, his Chevrolet was not the same nor could he regain the valuable track position he lost. From that point forward, he was mired midpack and a virtual nonfactor.
– Jordan Bianchi
Fuel-saving racing is “here to stay”
Alan Gustafson and Hendrick Motorsports were among the first to figure out how a fuel-savings strategy could help superspeedway success with the spec Next Gen car, and now Chase Elliott believes the type of racing we saw again on Sunday is “here to stay.”
“It was a lot more fun when there were about three of us who knew it was going on in like 2022,” Elliott said. “It’s changed now that everyone is trying to do that versus only a handful of cars taking advantage of it. But I don’t know how you fix that.”
Gustafson said he realized in the first year of the Next Gen car that since all cars are “in actuality all pretty much the same,” the teams had to find an advantage through unconventional means – at least what was unconventional “at the time,” Gustafson said.
These days, fuel-conservation racing IS conventional. The entire field races that way for of the Daytona 500, and Gustafson doesn’t think it’s possible to “unlearn” what was discovered.
Even if the rules were opened up to allow a wider disparity of speed among cars, it’s unlikely teams would just disregard something they’ve already learned is a strategical advantage.
“You rewind time and watch Bobby Allison over here (at Daytona) with a square car and you look at what we have now (with more aerodynamic cars) – we’re not going back there,” Gustafson said.
Similarly to fuel-savings racing, he said: “No matter how nostalgic you want to be about it, it’s not going back.”
– Gluck