DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Defending Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin dominated the second half of the opening stage Sunday night as the 63rd edition of The Great American Race resumed at Daytona Int’l Speedway.
Hamlin took the lead on lap 32 from Cole Custer and controlled the lead pack for the remainder of the 65-lap segment, pacing 34 laps en route to the first NASCAR Cup Series stage win of the year.
He took the green-checkered flag in front by .094 seconds.
“Our FedEx Camry is sitting pretty good. I’ve liked it all week,” said Hamlin. “We played some strategy with the fuel there to get some track position and then were able to hold it well out front.
“I like this a lot better than sitting back and waiting, but we’ll wait and see how the rest of it plays out.”
Hamlin earned 10 championship points for the stage victory as he seeks his fourth Daytona 500 win.
Non-chartered driver Ryan Preece shuffled Kyle Busch out on the final lap of the stage, with help from fellow Chevrolet driver Austin Dillon, crossing the line second for nine valuable points.
Dillon and Kyle Larson, also driving a Chevrolet, crossed the line third and fourth, respectively. Rookie Austin Cindric filled out the top five, ahead of Christopher Bell, Bubba Wallace and Joey Logano.
Ross Chastain and Cole Custer completed the point-scoring positions inside the top 10.
Twenty-two cars were on the lead lap at the first stage break of the 500-mile event.
Following a caution for a 16-car pileup on lap 14, a lightning delay that turned into a rain delay stalled the proceedings for five hours, 40 minutes and 28 seconds before racing officially got back underway.
The field paced under yellow until a lap-30 restart, and following that resumption, only one more caution slowed the first stage – on lap 38 after Quin Houff cut a tire in turn one and collected Chase Briscoe’s Ford in the aftermath.