Blaney Salvages Bowman’s Playoff Berth
By Deb Williams
A 12-car crash just 27 laps into the160-lap Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway sidelined Alex Bowman, forcing him to watch and nervously wait to see if he would advance into the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs.
In the end, it was Ryan Blaney, a Ford driver, who salvaged the Chevrolet driver’s playoff berth by inches, edging Daniel Suarez by 0.031-second for his 15th career victory and his second this season. After the race, Bowman said he owed Blaney 7 million beers for winning the race.
“Oh, I’ll take 5 million,” Blaney joked. “I’ll save him some money.”
Blaney came from 13th to first in the final two laps by drafting with fellow Ford driver Cole Custer. They entered the final lap with Custer leading, Blaney second and Justin Haley third. Rounding out the top five were Kyle Larson and Daniel Suarez, respectively. Blaney shot to the middle of the pack as they exited turn four and held off Suarez, Haley and Custer, who were three wide behind him.
“What a wild last couple laps!” Blaney said. “I was with Cole. I kind of asked him on the restart (with eight laps remaining), 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. We were able to really get good shoves.
“A couple good guys behind us and then it kind of cleared the way for us when the 7 (Haley) and 41 (Custer) got racing and I was able to clear on the top and just barely hold out for the win.”
However, it was Bowman who breathed a sigh of relief as Blaney received the checkered flag. Entering the regular season finale, Bowman and Tyler Reddick occupied the two playoff positions available via points. Reddick led Bowman by 29 points entering the event, but a new winner would mean only one of them would enter the post-season on points.
First, things looked bleak for Reddick as he was involved in an accident with Todd Gilliland on lap 18. The two collided as they exited turn four and Reddick’s Toyota hit the SAFER barrier with its nose. Reddick then backed it down pit road to his stall where his crew began repairs. He said his car was “pretty destroyed.”
“It was a really awful mistake to make so early in the race,” Reddick said. “As a driver, you never want to make a mistake like that, that early.”
Nine laps later, Bowman’s Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet’s front end was destroyed in a 12-car crash on the 2.5-mile track’s frontstretch. That wreck was triggered by Bubba Wallace’s 23XI Racing Toyota coming across the front end of Joey Logano’s Team Penske Ford and colliding with Kyle Busch’s Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet. Bowman said the only way he could have missed the accident was to have been in front of it.
“From where we were, there just really wasn’t any way to get around it,” Bowman said. “All of the hits just sort of compounded too much to be able to fix it.”
Reddick said Saturday night’s race encapsulated what the year has been for the 23XI Racing team.
“We just haven’t executed and capitalized,” Reddick said. “It seems like all year long we’ve been having to bail each other out of mistakes and bad choices. We’re going to have to clean it up, and we’re going to have to be forced to do that in the middle of the playoffs.”
When the playoffs kick off Labor Day weekend at Darlington, South Carolina, Blaney, who finished second in the regular season standings, is seeded fourth by virtue of his victory, while Reddick, who finished 21st, and Bowman, who placed 36th in the 40-car field, are seeded 14th and 16th, respectfully.
Blaney and teammate Logano were the race’s top lap leaders. Both men led 27 laps each. There were 44 lead changes among 19 different drivers. The race was slowed by eight caution flags for 39 laps. Following the 12-car crash, the race was stopped for 8 minutes 30 seconds while the track was cleared. None of the drivers were injured.
Blaney was the first person to win a Daytona race from the pole since 2015. It was team owner Roger Penske’s sixth Daytona victory.
Disappointment for RFK Racing
For a brief time in the Coke Zero Sugar 400, it appeared RFK Racing might get one of its three drivers into the playoffs. However, just as has happened so many times this year, they came up short.
Team co-owner Brad Keselowski ran in the top 10 at times but had to settle for an 18th-place finish. Ryan Preece led once for three laps but got shuffled out of the lead and the draft with less than five laps remaining. He finished 14th.
“Man, I felt like we were gonna win that race,” Preece said. “You want to talk about having the best scenario play out for how we wanted it to, I was just leaving the 7 (Justin Haley) there. The 17 (Chris Buescher) was doing a great job just letting him stay there and there’s nothing you can do.
“The problem is, you know, the 9 (Chase Elliott) and the 5 (Kyle Larson) were worried about their teammate that would have been bumped out, so it was a tough situation. I thought we were gonna win that one because we did everything right today and it just didn’t work out.”
Buescher appeared poised to win, often running second to leader Joey Logano. However, when Logano spun out of the lead with 10 laps remaining, Buescher was left without a Ford drafting partner. He finished seventh.
“We got up there and was side-by-side there with the 22 (Logano),” Buescher said. “We only got there for about two laps, and I thought that was gonna be a really good spot and let us be able to duke it out.”
Buescher said when the yellow flag waved for Logano’s spin he lost track position and got boxed in.
Trackhouse Confirms Zilisch to Cup
A day after Connor Zilisch won his seventh NASCAR Xfinity Series race with Parker Kligerman driving in relief, Trackhouse Racing owner Justin Marks confirmed the 19-year-old phenom would move into the Cup Series fulltime next year.
When Daniel Suarez said in June that he wouldn’t return to Trackhouse in 2026, everyone knew Zilisch would replace him as a teammate to Ross Chastain and Shane van Gisbergen. Announcing it was merely a formality.
“A number of years ago, when we started kind of thinking about the three-year, five-year and the long-term vision of this company, it became apparent as we got established in this series that we needed to start making investments in our future and start cultivating our future,” Marks said. “Connor really stood out. I watched him race the Trackhouse Motorplex, watched him as he went to Late Models and then Trans Am, and then got an opportunity to be his teammate in the Trans Am race at VIR just to sort of see how he operates. He won that race by about 45 seconds over the field. It was really kind of that moment that we felt like making an investment in Connor.”
Marks said Zilisch’s Red Bull and WeatherTech sponsorships would continue with the teenager next season; however, his car number would be announced later.
NASCAR Cup Series Coke Zero Sugar 400
Daytona International Speedway
Daytona Beach, Florida
1. (1) Ryan Blaney, Ford, 160.
2. (12) Daniel Suarez, Chevrolet, 160.
3. (37) Justin Haley, Chevrolet, 160.
4. (29) Cole Custer, Ford, 160.
5. (26) Erik Jones, Toyota, 160.
6. (3) Kyle Larson, Chevrolet, 160.
7. (24) Chris Buescher, Ford, 160.
8. (18) Ty Gibbs, Toyota, 160.
9. (11) Josh Berry, Ford, 160.
10. (30) Chase Elliott, Chevrolet, 160.
11. (28) Todd Gilliland, Ford, 160.
12. (20) Michael McDowell, Chevrolet, 160.
13. (15) Christopher Bell, Toyota, 160.
14. (31) Ryan Preece, Ford, 160.
15. (19) Ross Chastain, Chevrolet, 160.
16. (17) Shane Van Gisbergen #, Chevrolet, 160.
17. (34) John Hunter Nemechek, Toyota, 160.
18. (10) Brad Keselowski, Ford, 160.
19. (8) William Byron, Chevrolet, 160.
20. (35) Cody Ware, Ford, 160.
21. (27) Tyler Reddick, Toyota, 160.
22. (23) Ty Dillon, Chevrolet, 160.
23. (9) Chase Briscoe, Toyota, 160.
24. (7) Austin Dillon, Chevrolet, 160.
25. (6) Denny Hamlin, Toyota, 160.
26. (21) AJ Allmendinger, Chevrolet, 159.
27. (4) Joey Logano, Ford, 159.
28. (40) Joey Gase(i), Chevrolet, 157.
29. (39) Casey Mears, Ford, 156.
30. (36) Austin Hill(i), Chevrolet, 155.
31. (13) Zane Smith, Ford, 154.
32. (38) BJ McLeod(i), Chevrolet, Accident, 137.
33. (14) Kyle Busch, Chevrolet, 95.
34. (16) Carson Hocevar, Chevrolet, Engine, 81.
35. (25) Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Chevrolet, Accident, 28.
36. (2) Alex Bowman, Chevrolet, Accident, 27.
37. (22) Bubba Wallace, Toyota, Accident, 27.
38. (32) Noah Gragson, Ford, Accident, 27.
39. (5) Austin Cindric, Ford, Accident, 27.
40. (33) Riley Herbst #, Toyota, Accident, 27.
Average Speed of Race Winner: 130.909 mph.
Time of Race: 3 Hrs, 3 Mins, 20 Secs. Margin of Victory: .031 Seconds.
Caution Flags: 8 for 39 laps.
Lead Changes: 44 among 19 drivers.
Lap Leaders: R. Blaney 1-23;*. Wallace 24;D. Suarez 25-30;R. Blaney 31-32;M. McDowell 33;R. Blaney 34;K. Larson 35-37;R. Chastain 38;C. Ware 39-55;T. Dillon 56-64;R. Chastain 65-66;S. Gisbergen # 67-69;M. McDowell 70;S. Gisbergen # 71-72;M. McDowell 73;C. Ware 74-75;J. Logano 76;C. Ware 77-78;C. Briscoe 79;C. Custer 80-84;W. Byron 85-89;J. Logano 90;C. Briscoe 91-93;J. Logano 94;R. Chastain 95-98;C. Custer 99;C. Bell 100-101;J. Nemechek 102;C. Bell 103-104;J. Nemechek 105-110;S. Gisbergen # 111;C. Ware 112-113;A. Dillon 114-117;J. Logano 118-134;C. Briscoe 135-136;J. Logano 137-141;E. Jones 142-145;J. Logano 146-147;E. Jones 148-152;J. Haley 153;E. Jones 154;R. Preece 155-157;J. Haley 158;C. Custer 159;R. Blaney 160.
Leaders Summary (Driver, Times Lead, Laps Led): Ryan Blaney 4 times for 27 laps; Joey Logano 6 times for 27 laps; Cody Ware 4 times for 23 laps; Erik Jones 3 times for 10 laps; Ty Dillon 1 time for 9 laps; Ross Chastain 3 times for 7 laps; Cole Custer 3 times for 7 laps; John Hunter Nemechek 2 times for 7 laps; Shane Van Gisbergen # 3 times for 6 laps; Daniel Suarez 1 time for 6 laps; Chase Briscoe 3 times for 6 laps; William Byron 1 time for 5 laps; Austin Dillon 1 time for 4 laps; Christopher Bell 2 times for 4 laps; Ryan Preece 1 time for 3 laps; Kyle Larson 1 time for 3 laps; Michael McDowell 3 times for 3 laps; Justin Haley 2 times for 2 laps; * Bubba Wallace 1 time for 1 lap.
Stage #1 Top Ten: 5,1,12,71,7,22,34,60,19,20
Stage #2 Top Ten: 1,20,22,42,24,19,12,60,54,5
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