In the past eight races, the race has seen four last-lap passes for the lead after there had been only nine in the first 57 editions of the event. In the past dozen years, the Daytona 500 has averaged more than 32 lead changes per race. Again, that has become the way of this place. "We had a pit road speeding penalty early in the race today and even when I was in the lead late, we were running low on fuel, and I was constantly afraid that I was going to run out of gas. "We were 35th in qualifying on Wednesday and we finished 16th in our qualifying race on Thursday," Stenhouse recalled. That parity swept through the sport one year ago with 19 different winners, the most seen in 21 seasons.Īdded to the crapshoot of superspeedway racing, plus the constant reset button that the Daytona 500 has become in recent seasons, that level playing field turned into a showcase stage for Stenhouse and the No. They got it in the form of NASCAR's Next Gen car that debuted in 2022, only one part of a slew of rules changes implemented by the sanctioning body to help teams cut costs and perhaps narrow the gap between the far-flung financial ends of the garage. We needed the playing field to be leveled and we have gotten that." We're sponsored by retailers, grocers, suppliers. The couple moved their team up from the Xfinity Series to Cup ahead of the 2009 Daytona 500, joining forces with former NBA All-Star Brad Daugherty (he started the day at Daytona but missed the celebration after feeling under the weather and flying home). "We've always had to take a little less into these weekly fights with these big-dollar teams and that's okay, that's who we are, but there were nights when we asked, 'Can we keep these lights on?'" team co-owner Tad Geschickter explained Sunday night, standing alongside wife Jodi. The biggest single-race trophy that can be won in NASCAR. This is only their second trophy to take back to the race shop. 47 car hadn't been covered in confetti and champagne since August 10, 2014, a total of 3,116 days. For JTG Daugherty, the drought was even longer. This is only his third win in a decade of trying. That's how long it had been since he'd won a NASCAR Cup Series event, also at Daytona, the summertime 400-miler of July 1, 2017. Worth a personal wait for Stenhouse of 2,060 days. This racetrack tonight has finally given us the breaks we've been so close to getting for so long. "But I know it's real because I know how hard everyone right here has worked. confessed as he received a conga line of hugs from a seemingly endless number of revelers from one-car, scrappy JTG Daugherty Racing. "It feels like a dream, it really does," winner Ricky Stenhouse Jr. A few hours of calm followed by a few laps of chaos followed by a driver standing in Victory Lane who is proud to be there but deep down, if they're being honest, also sort of can't believe it. No, that spaghetti pile of closing laps statistics and sheet metal has become the Great Modus Operandi of the Great American Race. Not in stock car racing's biggest race run on its biggest roulette wheel. A once-in-a-lifetime Halley's Comet sort of sighting. It all reads like an unlikely confluence of racing events. A Daytona 500 winner who didn't take the lead until that OT and then pulled into Victory Lane for the first time in more than five and a half years. Only three in-race cautions over the race's first 198 laps and then three more over the final 13 laps, 10 run in overtime. Fifty-two lead changes among 21 drivers. Stenhouse's unlikely Daytona 500 win shows NASCAR's signature race is 'crazier than it's ever been'ĭAYTONA BEACH, Fla. You have reached a degraded version of because you're using an unsupported version of Internet Explorer.įor a complete experience, please upgrade or use a supported browser
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