DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — There were three major storylines from Thursday night’s Bluegreen Vacations Duel qualifying races for the 65th Daytona 500.
Those included the defending NASCAR Cup Series champion fine-tuning his skills in pursuit of a second Daytona 500 victory. A driver who was supposed to be retired this season proving he is just as fast as ever. And an NTT IndyCar Series driver with the worst car in the field who believed he had a “million-to-one” chance of making the race only to get his lucky break because of other’s misfortune.
Joey Logano of Team Penske drove to victory in the first Daytona 500 qualifying race when he edged a charging Christopher Bell by just 0.018-of-a-second in a side-by-side battle out of Turn 4 all the way to the checkered flag.
The 31-year-old starts third in Sunday’s 65th Daytona 500.
The 2015 Daytona 500 winner is hoping to pull into victory lane Sunday evening.
“When the 20 (Bell) got to my right rear, I just kind of let it happen because I knew the 12 (teammate Ryan Blaney) was right behind him,” Logano recalled afterward. “That was the difference maker, knowing that your teammate is right there to save you after the 20 pulled out there. It worked out really well. Proud of our race team, keeping the momentum rolling. Good job on pit road.
“We did everything right there. There were no surprises at the end of the race. I felt very comfortable in the situation we were in.”
Logano also learned from last year’s mistake in the Duels when he threw a block at the end, and it didn’t end up well as he crashed at the end.
“Well, yeah, duh,” Logano said. “Hey, that’s why I always say, making mistakes are OK as long as you learn from them. I made a massive mistake last year. I felt like an idiot. But being able to have another chance at it, that’s what life is about. If you don’t take risks and be willing to make mistakes, you don’t really learn.
“I learned a valuable lesson last year and was able to just be smart about the way I worked the draft there at the end. Felt confident. I knew what blocks I was going to be able to throw and which ones I wouldn’t, and you kind of seen that into Turn 3 where I just let the 20 have it. There was no sense of trying to make that block.
“I learned some valuable lessons and it worked out. Maybe last year wasn’t so bad after all.”
Will Logano attempt to use the block if it comes down to the same scenario at the end of the Daytona 500?
“I can’t tell you what I’m going to do,” the Penske driver said. “I have lots of secrets. I’m a secretive person over here. I don’t know what I’m going to do, if I’m being honest.”
The first Duel ran without a caution period. That pretty much guaranteed that the second race would have an incident.
There were two yellow flags, including one that helped determine the outcome on lap 42.
Kyle Busch of Richard Childress Racing had led 28 laps and was in front when Daniel Suarez of Trackhouse ran into the back of Busch’s Chevrolet. That sent the leader into the outside wall of the backstretch, triggering a multi-car crash that also included Travis Pastrana, Austin Hill, Riley Herbst and Justin Haley.
Pastrana finished last in the 21-car field but had assured himself a starting position in the Daytona 500 by his lap speed in single-lap qualifications on Wednesday night. Hill had to finish ahead of both Pastrana and Conor Daly to make the field. As Daly was struggling with the car that handled like a shopping cart with a bad wheel at the supermarket, that seemed likely before the big crash ended Hill’s chances.
In the end, Almirola — a driver who announced his retirement from NASCAR at the beginning of last season — drove his No. 10 Smithfield Ford to victory over the defending Daytona 500 winner Austin Cindric’s No. 2 Discount Tire Ford by 0.122-of-a-second.
“I take a lot of pride in winning the race tonight, but don’t want to get too excited too soon,” Almirola said. “It’s just one part of Speedweeks, and it gives us a great starting spot, gives us a great pit selection, but Sunday is the real prize.”
Not bad for a driver who was supposed to be retired this season.
“I talked about it a lot here when I made the announcement that I was coming back,” Almirola said. “I, in a sense, feel like it’s just this huge blessing that I got literally gifted more opportunity than what I thought I had. Like I made the announcement that I’m going to step away so I could focus more on them and be with them and not make Alex and Abby and my wife sacrifice so much of their life for me to keep doing what I was doing and keep chasing my dreams.”
Almirola began his retirement tour last year by soaking it all in and enjoying every stop on the way.
That is something he didn’t have a chance to do earlier in this career.
“Last year we went through the year and we’re like, man, we’re really just going to embrace it,” he explained. “We’re going to take it all in and travel as much as we can together as a family. They came to 28 races last year. We did so many touristy things in every city we went to. We went to five or six baseball games in different cities, and we went sightseeing. We went to Jamestown and Williamsburg when we were in Richmond. We’ve done a lot of different stuff together as a family.
“Last year was so fun because of that. So, when I started getting asked in the summertime from Smithfield and the race team if I would reconsider, and I talked with Janice and I talked with the kids, they’re like, yes, we want you to keep going. I was like, are you sure? They are like, yes, we do. This is fun. We want you to keep doing this.
“For me, as a husband and as a father, it made me feel like, okay, like I’m not sacrificing their lives and their hopes and dreams following me around. They’re willingly a part of this. We won’t grow apart if I keep doing this because I’m still chasing my dreams.”
Later in the season, Smithfield and Stewart Haas Racing asked Almirola if he would consider returning to the race car in 2023.
“When I got asked after I announced that I was done to reconsider, it was like, that’s amazing,” he recalled. “Like I have another opportunity that I never thought that I would have, so I want to make it count. I want to take every single race and every single weekend and make it count, both on the track and off the track with my family, with my crew guys, with my sponsors, with the people in the garage area. That’s kind of been my theme as I’ve looked forward to this season is just make every single weekend count.”
Finally, there was the unlikely tale of IndyCar driver Conor Daly. He was offered a ride for the Daytona 500 by The Money Team, the same operation he made his Cup Series debut at the Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway ROVAL last October.
The car developed an issue before Wednesday night’s qualifications and never attempted to take a lap. When Daly drove the Chevrolet off pit road to start the race, the back of the car hopped so bad that he didn’t think he could continue.
The team told him to do the best he could and once the green flag dropped, the Chevrolet was woefully off the pace, quickly losing touch with the rest of the field.
He went down one lap, but the car eventually got better.
Daly’s only hope was if Pastrana and Hill experienced an issue and did not finish the race.
His hopes were realized when both drivers were part of the lap 42 crash that sent both cars to the garage.
“We were inherently unlucky for the last 36 hours, but we got lucky,” Daly said. “I wish I could have said that I drove it in on pure pace, but it was just crazy. When we went out there, the car was bouncing around. I had no idea what was going on. I thought the drivetrain was broken, and Tony (crew chief Tony Eury, Jr.) just made it better every time. We got lucky with the yellows to try to get some experience, but it is pretty crazy.
“This race, I’ve watched it for so many years and so much crazy stuff can happen, and thankfully we were on the right side of the craziness. It’s pretty amazing.”