Ryan Blaney held off a pack of playoff hopeful drivers to win Saturday’s (Aug. 23) NASCAR Cup Series regular-season finale at Daytona International Speedway, claiming his second career win at the track.
After a last-lap swarm to the checkered flag Daniel Suarez, Justin Haley, Cole Custer and Erik Jones — all drivers who needed to win at Daytona in order to make the playoffs — finished behind Blaney in the top five.
“What a wild last couple of laps,” Blaney told NBC Sports. “I was with Cole (Custer). I kind of asked him on the restart, if you go to the top I’m going with you. We kind of just waited and waited and then the opportunity came, and he made a good move to get to the top, and we were able to really get good shoves. A couple good guys behind us and then it kind of cleared the way for us.”
Chris Buescher, Kyle Larson, Ty Gibbs, Josh Berry and Chase Elliott rounded out the top 10.
The feared ‘Big One’ occurred on lap 27 when Bubba Wallace and Joey Logano made contact in the tri-oval and collected multiple cars.
The wreck caused a scare for Alex Bowman, as he took heavy damage from the melee and was unable to finish, putting his playoff status in jeopardy. The crash resulted in a red flag.
After the race resumed, Larson won stage one in a battle with pole-sitter and future race winner Blaney.
Bowman being taken out by the wreck allowed Tyler Reddick to lock his spot in the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs on points, even with a new winner. Reddick had been caught up in an incident of his own earlier in stage one when he spun and hit the inside wall after contact from the No. 34 of Todd Gilliland.
“Really proud of my [No.] 48 team for the year up to this point we’ve had.” Bowman told NBC Sports. “The last 10 or 11 weeks have been pretty special and we haven’t won, so we’re in a tough spot for the rest of the night, but regardless of the outcome, I feel like it’s out of our control and kind of is what it is at this point. So we’ll wait and see how the race ends up and kind of go from there.
Stage two was full of underdogs running up front as Cody Ware led 21 laps in the stage. Ty Dillon also battled for the lead in the stage, but in the end, it was Ross Chastain who took the stage win.
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The NASCAR Cup Series will head to Darlington Raceway on Sunday, Aug. 31 for the first race of the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs. Coverage begins at 6:00 p.m. ET on USA Network.
Logan Kendall joined the Frontstretch team in 2025 as the Tuesday News Writer and fills in other roles as needed. He resides in the Finger Lakes region of New York and spends his free time writing as a hobby creatively and is a self published author.
Logan can be found on X @LoganKendall48