DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (WFLA) — The last NASCAR regular season race played out in dramatic fashion Saturday night in Daytona.
The race saw multiple crashes, a number of lead changes and the playoff chances of some disappear in the blink of an eye.
Driver Ryan Blaney won the race, his second victory of the year in the Cup series and his second win at a Coke Zero 400. Blaney also won the race in 2021.
One of the early crashes of the race took out Tyler Reddick, who was on the playoff bubble.
Blaney Florida managed to weave his way through the chaos, but saw a lot of it happen around him.
“Wild night, wild last few laps. I’m actually looking forward to going and watching it and seeing it from a bird’s eye view,” Blaney said immediately after the race.
The biggest crash of the night happened in stage one, taking out drivers like Bubba Wallace, Austin Cindric and Alex Bowman, among others.
Blaney says he knows their frustration.
“I’ve been here before where I’ve ended up on the wrecker and got right rear hooked and terrible, terrible things, and then you have days like this where it seems it all kind of went your way,” said Blaney.
But the Team Penske driver Florida managed to put his Ford where it needed to be, at just the right time.
“Kind of had a different strategy than others, kind of pitted an extra time and made sure I had more fuel than others and I could go harder earlier, and just the last few laps the top got rolling and I was able to push the 41 really hard and I was able to get into a spot to lead at the end,” said Blaney.
16 drivers are now eligible for the playoffs to see who will be named this year’s champion.
