In the 60th running of the Daytona 500, Austin Dillon chased race leader Aric Almirola to the white flag on Sunday at Daytona International Speedway and then nudged Almirola’s #10 Ford out of the way on the final lap, charging past to claim victory in the season-opening race. Dillon, who started 14th in the 40-car field, led only the final lap in his Richard Childress-owned Chevrolet, as he recorded his second Cup Series victory.
Ford entered the weekend having won seven straight races on restrictor-plate tracks at Daytona and Talladega Superspeedway. And for much of the day on Sunday, Ryan Blaney seemed intent on extending that streak to eight. He led a race-high 118 laps and seemingly had the #12 Team Penske entry pointed squarely toward Victory Lane before William Byron cut a tire and brought out the day’s next-to-last caution. Coming out of the subsequent restart, Blaney withstood strong challenges for the lead from former 500 winners Kurt Busch and Denny Hamlin before Busch’s Stewart-Haas Ford got loose and spun less than two laps from the finish, triggering a 12-car wreck that would send the race seven laps past its scheduled distance and shuffle Blaney off the pace. Hamlin had the lead at the start of overtime but was overtaken by Almirola, who carried his advantage down the backstretch on the final lap before contact from Dillon sent him sliding into the wall and down the final running order to an 11th-place finish.
Runner-up Darrell Wallace Junior was 0.26 of a second behind Dillon at the checkered flag with Hamlin, Joey Logano and Chris Buescher completing the top five.
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– story by John Singler
www.mrn.com
Concord, North Carolina
1. Ryan Blaney @ 58 points
2. Joey Logano (-8)
3. Austin Dillon (-11)
4. Darrell Wallace, Jr. (-11)
5. Paul Menard (-12)
6. Michael McDowell (-19)
7. Denny Hamlin (-21)
8. Ryan Newman (-24)
9. Chris Buescher (-25)
10. Aric Almirola (-25)
For the complete driver standings, please visit the official page on nascar.com.
