DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Denny Hamlin thought he was in the right spot on the last lap of Sunday’s Daytona 500. Cole Custer saw an opportunity. William Byron collected the checkered flag.
Byron went from seventh to first on the backstretch when he slipped by crashing cars to win the Daytona 500 for the second year in a row.
Contact between Custer and Hamlin triggered the incident that changed the race’s outcome.
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“At the end of the day, you’re just pushing and shoving and side drafting as hard as you can to win the Daytona 500,” Custer said after finishing 21st.
“ … I wish I had waited a couple more corners (to go for the lead), but I had such a big run from (Chase Briscoe) I decided to take it on the backstretch. I just need to look at the replay closer to see if I side drafted too hard or if I got hit in the left rear a little or whatever it was. Something was too much.”
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Hamlin said he timed a run to make a pass Austin Cindric for the lead off Turn 2, putting Hamlin in position, at least for a moment, to win his fourth Daytona 500.
“I had him in a vulnerable spot where he wasn’t going to be able to block,” Hamlin said of Cindric. “I went high thinking, ‘OK, the run is coming from the high side, let me get up there and control this.’”
Custer followed Hamlin and then darted to the top lane after a push from Briscoe.
“(Custer) was coming with such a big run,” said Hamlin, who placed 24th. “ … It was going to be good for one of us but ended up not good for either.”
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Hamlin said he offered some advice to Custer after the race.
“I just said to him, from the experience I’ve had in these races, you’ve got to get off (Turn) 4, then you can turn left, do whatever you got to do, make contact,” Hamlin said. “It’s just I thought a little bit too early, but not everyone’s going to do it like I would do it. It’s not to say that I knew the right way.”
Custer, in the debut for Haas Factory Team, said he would walk away from the race with “positives and negatives.
“You got a shot at the Daytona 500, so you’re definitely bittersweet about that,” he said. “That’s the biggest race of your life and you had a shot at it and didn’t win. At the end of the day, new team, new people and how much they had to work on this car and still having a shot at the win, so I think theres’s some positives to it, too.”
William Byron wins second consecutive Daytona 500
He dodges a last-lap crash to become the youngest driver with multiple wins in The Great American Race.
Byron said Monday after watching replays of the last lap he had a better idea of how he made it through.
“When I got a chance to watch it, it made a lot more sense in my head of kind of what happened and then seeing the in-car camera,” he said. “ … I made the move to go to the third lane and just expecting to get a run off of (Turn) 4 and to see the crash and kind of be right up against the wall and get through it was a good timing for sure.”
After clearing the accident, Byron kept at speed to beat Tyler Reddick for the win. NASCAR did not throw the caution until after Byron crossed the finish line. With the accident on the backstretch and emergency equipment nearby, NASCAR allowed the race to finish under green, knowing the cars would slow after crossing the finish line.
“Honestly, I think if I had checked up (before the finish), I think Reddick would have gotten to me and probably passed me,” Byron said.
