Joey Logano and Chase Elliott will be starting the Daytona 500 on the second row thanks to wins in the Daytona Duels on Thursday night. It was Logano’s fourth Duel win and Elliott’s third.
Logano’s Duel 1 win came in overtime after some messy pushing in the pack ended up with Bubba Wallace in a spin that collected several cars to bring out a late yellow flag. Overtime would finish under yellow when another multi-car crash that started with Corey LaJoie getting bumped up the track.
LaJoie was the lead open car at the start of in wreck and in position to qualify for the Daytona 500, but fell behind Casey Mears before the yellow flag waved. Mears had caused an earlier accident when he made a bad approach to pit road that led to him going a lap down, but he got the Lucky Dog wave around for the caution before overtime and kept his foot in it as the final wreck played out.
“I think the whole field has learned that pushing each other is pretty sketchy,” Logano said in his post-race press conference. “I was thinking about it driving over here. Daytona 500 could be a total wreck-fest ’cause if you think about Duels, it’s a heat race, and everyone is like, Don’t tear up your car, get what you can out of it, but don’t crash. We wrecked a lot of stuff. That’s everyone not racing for the Daytona 500, so… Say a prayer. It’s going to be crazy.”
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Duel 2 ran without any cautions, but was defined by one key moment as Chase Briscoe, who started from pole position and was up front for most of the race, missed his pit entry and had a long stop that knocked him out of contention as Carson Hocevar helped push Elliott to the win.
Anthony Alfredo was the open driver that advanced out of Duel 2 to the Daytona 500 and was overcome with emotion and teary eyed during his pit road interview.
“To do this for the third time, It’s really cool, because the first race I ever saw I was sitting right there,” Alfredo said while pointing to the grandstands. “My career’s had a lot of ups and downs and you never know when you get another shot to race on any Sunday, especially the Daytona 500, the Great American Race.”
Kyle Busch will start the Daytona 500 from pole after winning single-car qualifying on Wednesday night. Coverage of the race starts Sunday, Feb. 15 at 2:30 p.m. ET on Fox with the green flag scheduled to wave at 3:13 p.m. ET.
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Here’s the full starting lineup for the Daytona 500, based on the Duel results:
1 – Kyle Busch
2 – Chase Briscoe
3 – Joey Logano
4 – Chase Elliott
5 – Ryan Blaney
6 – Carson Hocevar
7 – Austin Dillon
8 – Kyle Larson
9 – Brad Keselowski
10 – Michael McDowell
11 – John Hunter Nemechek
12 – Christopher Bell
13 – Shane van Gisbergen
14 – Josh Berry
15 – Daniel Suarez
16 – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
17 – Casey Mears
18 – Todd Gilliland
19 – Ryan Preece
20 – Ty Gibbs
21 – Alex Bowman
22 – Denny Hamlin
23 – Cole Custer
24 – Erik Jones
25 – Noah Gragson
26 – Tyler Reddick
27 – Bubba Wallace
28 – Riley Herbst
29 – Corey Heim
30 – Zane Smith
31 – Jimmie Johnson
32 – Connor Zilisch
33 – Cody Ware
34 – Ty Dillon
35 – A.J. Allmendinger
36 – Austin Cindric
37 – Ross Chastain
38 – Anthony Alfredo
39 – William Byron
40 – Justin Allgaier
41 – Chris Buescher
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