DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – The seas parted for William Byron on the final lap at Daytona International Speedway as he went back-to-back in the Daytona 500.

Austin Cindric led the field into Turns 1 and 2 on the final lap with Denny Hamlin right behind him. As the two drivers battled for the lead, Cole Custer entered the picture, and all three drivers ran out of room and crashed. Byron eked by in the Hendrick Motorsports No. 24 AXALTA Chevrolet, and then the caution flew, ending the 67^th running of the prestigious race.

“Yeah, obviously some good fortune, but just trusted my instincts on the last lap there,” Byron said. “I felt like they were getting squirrelly on the bottom and I was honestly going to go third lane regardless because I was probably sixth coming down the back.

“Just obviously fortunate that it worked out in our favor. But just really proud of this team. Worked super hard all week and had an amazing car.”

Byron earned his first Daytona 500 victory last year, and now he had gone back-to-back. The 27-year-old gives credit to his team for the continued success at the “World Center of Racing”.

“Yeah, it’s obviously really special,” Byron said. “It’s an amazing race, and obviously a lot of crazy racing out there tonight and just a lot of pushing and shoving.

But just really proud of our team. I can’t stress that enough. I’m just super thankful for this group and everything that they do in the off-season to get prepared. We plan on trying to win a lot of races this year, so we’re not going to stop here. We’re going to continue to push forward and try to get to Phoenix.”

Despite seven attempts at winning the Daytona 500, Sunday’s effort marked only the second time Tyler Reddick has finished the “Great American Race”. He crossed the line in second as he also got through the last-lap crash. The 23XI Racing driver restarted mid-pack on the NASCAR Overtime restart, but he quickly made his way forward and missed all the spinning cars along the backstretch.

Reddick said, “I knew that me and the 24 (Byron) had a good run and they were throwing big blocks, and when they started spinning on the inside and I had a run on the 24, I thought, man, if I can just make it through on the 11 (Hamlin) and not scrub my speed, I would have had at least an opportunity to do something.

“All in all, I never really finished a race here unless it was 40 laps down, so I’ll take second. We wanted to get a good start to the year, and we scored a lot of points today. So I’m really happy with everyone’s effort on this 45 Nasty Beast Toyota Camry.”

Seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion, Jimmie Johnson started the race in 40^th  in his Legacy Motor Club No. 84 Carvana Toyota, but he finished third on Sunday night after just barely squeezing by on the last lap crash.

“This feels incredible,” Johnson said. “I have emotions that I didn’t expect to have. I’ve never been in this position as an owner, and it’s really opened up a different set of emotions. And the pride that I have in this result and the pride that I have in this company, now that we’re trying to achieve and the journey we’re on, I am so satisfied, so happy right now.”

Pole-sitter Chase Briscoe finished fourth, and John Hunter Nemechek earned Legacy Motor Club’s second top-five finish of the night as he finished fifth. Rounding out the top-10 was Alex Bowman, Ryan Blaney, Austin Cindric, Justin Allgaier in JR Motorsports’ first-ever Daytona 500 start and Chris Buescher.

Joey Logano won Stage 1 and Cindric won Stage 2 and led a race high of 59 laps. In fact, Team Penske led 125 laps on Sunday.

There were eight cautions for 47 laps.

On Lap 64, Denny Hamlin had to dive onto the apron at full speed in Turn 2, and he while he saved his car, Zane Smith lost control, and with nowhere to go, Josh Berry plowed into the side of him.

On the restart, Logano experienced a mechanical issue, due to debris reaching the engine bay, and as a result, he didn’t take off as quickly as he needed to. As a result, the field stacked up behind him. Ross Chastain got turned, and collected NTT INDYCAR SERIES superstar, Helio Castroneves and Martin Truex Jr. John Hunter Nemechek, Riley Herbst, Kyle Busch and other were involved as well.

“I tried stopping it and Martin Truex Jr. came really hard and hit me, but I don’t think that was the issue,” Castroneves said. “I think the issue was that I guess someone on the bottom hit me from the side and it broke the axle. Disappointed, of course. I was learning so much. It’s incredible when you have more laps in it and how you understand the air flow and what the guys are doing, like saving fuel. There were some sketchy moments, but what a shame. I wish I was still out there because there’s still more to understand and more to learn. I was starting to get a little more comfortable with the whole process, but it is what it is.”

Joey Logano and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. were battling for position when they made contact, igniting a huge chain reaction to bring out the caution on Lap 187. The two drivers were quickly making their way through the field on the closing laps, and Logano had a run, but was blocked by Stenhouse. Both drivers continued and ran out of space. Blaney, Busch, Noah Gragson, Chase Elliott and others were collected in the crash.

“From my perspective, I felt like to win the race I had to get to the second row in my line there,” Logano said. “I was in third and needed to get to second. I saw the opportunity to drop down and get underneath the 47 (Stenhouse) and have the 4 (Gragson), another Ford, behind me. Then the 47 threw a late block there. I checked up for it and it looked like he was going to go back up and grab the top lane so I went back in to try and close the gap again but he kept coming down. I am checking up but at that point the checkup has already happened behind me and everybody is all over each other. I can’t get out of it and then we made contact. It is unfortunate.

A scary accident occurred on Lap 197, when Christopher Bell got turned down the backstretch, and with nowhere to go, Ryan Preece slammed into him. Preece’s car then did a wheelie and then went airborne then flipped into Turn 3. Preece did climbed from the car under his own power, but it was a wild ride.

“We had a really good car,” Preece said. “Honestly, I don’t even know what happened in front of me. I haven’t seen the replay. I was in line, pushing, and when you get down to the end of these races, we are all just really aggressive because you have to be aggressive. It is just the position we are in. We had a really fast BuildSubmarines.com Ford Mustang, and it is just frustrating when you can’t do anything with it.”

The NASCAR Cup Series will visit Atlanta Motor Speedway on Sunday, Feb. 23 for the Ambetter Health 400 that will broadcast live on FOX at 3 p.m.

Photo Credit: Mitchell White/TheFourthTurn.com