Bubba Wallace, Austin Cindric Win Duels; Allgaier, LaJoie Make Daytona 500

Calamity was served early and often throughout Thursday night's NASCAR Cup Series Duel Qualifier Races, which officially set the starting lineups for Sunday's 67th-annual Daytona 500. And at the end of all of the chaos Bubba Wallace was in victory lane celebrating a win in Duel 1. A little over an hour later, Austin Cindric inherited the win from Erik Jones in Duel 2 following a caution, which froze the field in the last few hundred feet of the final lap.

Early in Duel 1, Chandler Smith, driving the No. 66 Garage 66 Ford Mustang Dark Horse, clawed his way from the 22nd starting spot up to the third-position by Lap 13. Smith, who was one of five "Open" entries in the race was attempting to lock into the Daytona 500 for the first time in his young career.

However, after his digital rear view mirror malfunctioned on the opening lap of the race, Smith found himself in a precarious position as he attempted to change lanes in Turn 2 on Lap 14. As Smith transitioned from the high lane to the bottom lane, he collided with Justin Haley, which triggered a four-car crash. Ty Gibbs and Helio Castroneves were the other drivers in the crash.

Smith would pound the outside hard, and his hopes to advance to the Daytona 500 were over. However, Smith felt bad that he had torn up the cars of his competitors with his misjudgment from behind the wheel.

"So, it's on me, and I apologize," Smith said with sincerity. "There's a lot of torn-up race cars tonight that were really good. Quality race cars that got put together. A lot of hard-working men and women back at the shops in the offseasons were working on those cars, and I hate that for them. But unfortunately, that's Daytona."

After Smith's crash, Wallace would begin to work his way toward thr front of the field, and he would take the lead for the first time on Lap 31.

In all, Wallace would snag the race lead on five occasions, and he led for a race-high 21 laps. While he had a stout No. 23 Toyota Camry XSE, Wallace had to endure a battle from a hungry Ty Dillon for the race win.

Ultimately, as the pack got chippy in the closing laps, Dillon would make contact with the outside wall, which would cause him to finish third.

As Wallace crossed the finish line to win Duel 1, William Byron, the defending Daytona 500 race winner, would cross the finish line right behind him in the runner-up spot. While it wasn't an official NASCAR Cup Series full points-paying win (the Duel winners receive 10 championship points), Wallace was just happy to find victory lane in any race after being shutout for two years.

"Yeah, a win in general. I didn't know whether to stop on the front stretch, where to go to victory lane. Two years hiatus, you lose memory a lot or really quick," Wallace quipped.

Now, the 23XI Racing driver hopes the Duel win is a good omen as he looks to collect his first career Daytona 500 win on Sunday from the third starting position.

"To finally get a duel win, I hope it's the right stepping stone for accomplishing Sunday," Wallace stated.

Well behind the race winner was Justin Allgaier, who secured the first ever NASCAR Cup Series start for JR Motorsports with a haerd-fought ninth-place finish. With roughly five laps to go, Allgaier was staring down the barrel of a failed Daytona 500 attempt as JJ Yeley held an advantage on him.

At this point, Allgaier found himself stuck behind Martin Truex Jr., and his No. 40 machine had no forward momentum. Allgaier became antsy.

"It was funny. I was pushing Martin with three or four to go, and I mean pushing. He's got his hand at the window like, What are we doing? I can't go anywhere," Allgaier recalled. "I told him, I said, I apologize to him, but we got to go."

Allgaier said he felt a lot of emotions and pressure weighing on him as he wanted to secure the Daytona 500 start for JR Motorsports, a team that gave him an opportunity to accomplish a NASCAR Xfinity Series championship last year.

"I mean, I think for me, I just don't want to let Dale down, don't want to let Kelley down, don't want to let our fans down. Chris Stapleton has been extremely excited about this project with Traveler Whiskey. He's coming on Sunday hopefully, and I didn't want him to show up and not have a car in the field, right? That would be pretty weird."

With his back against the wall, Allgaier would knife his way to the outside lane with a few laps to go, and he would use drafting help to climb to the top-10 finish. Yeley would fade to 17th. Awkward crisis averted for Allgaier as he will start the Daytona 500 for the third time in his career.

By crashing early in the race, Castroneves will be relegated to utlize the Open Exemption Provisional, which is reserved for World-Class drivers. The starting field will be expanded to 41 cars to accomodate Castoneves and the No. 91 Trackhouse Racing team, however, the four-time Indy 500 winner will not be eligible to score points, and he will also not receive any portion of the race purse. But he'll get to compete in his first career Daytona 500.

Following a chaotic Duel 1, Duel 2 would have all of the earmarks of a clean of being everything that Duel 1 wasn't. Until that narrative was flipped on its head thanks to a three car pileup on Lap 48 involving Brad Keselowski, Alex Bowman, and Daniel Suarez on the backstretch.

When the race resumed, a fevered battle between Cindric and Chris Buescher broke out for the lead. After trading the lead five times over the race's final seven laps, Erik Jones emerged as a new threat for the win on the final lap of the event.

Coming off of Turn 4, a massive crash erupted behind Cindric and Jones, who were side-by-side and marching toward the finish line. Jones would narrowly edge out Cindric for the race win as a shower of sparks and debris showered the infield grass.

Here's another look at what happened at the end of Duel No. 2 at Daytona. pic.twitter.com/mDrqSC83aN
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) February 14, 2025

For roughly seven minutes, Jones believed he was the winner of Duel 2, however, after reviewing the finish of the race, NASCAR determined that the caution was displayed before Jones and Cindric crossed the finish line, and after further review, NASCAR concluded that Cindric was in possession of the lead at the official time the caution came out.

With the judgment call by NASCAR, Cindric was awarded his first career victory in the Duel at Daytona.

j/k. It's Austin Cindric! https://t.co/AuMdxG9t50
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) February 14, 2025

Now, the already confident outside polesitter for the Daytona 500 will carry a little extra confidence about the quality of his No. 2 Team Penske Ford Mustang Dark Horse as he chases his second Harley J. Earl trophy on Sunday afternoon at Daytona International Speedway.

"Overall, proud of everybody at Team Penske getting lined up there, the execution of the cycle there. It's cool, but there's still a lot to go for the race," Cindric explained after being named the winner of Duel 2.

It was a weird ending for Jones, who felt the elation of a race win only to experience the disappointment of actually coming up just short due to the field being frozen just before the finish line.

"Yeah, I mean, you feel like you do everything right, and get the pay off of it and it kind of gets slipped away from you," Jones said. "It's frustrating. I'll take it tonight over Sunday for sure. I can't imagine going through that on the [Daytona] 500 for sure."

He was disappointed, but Jones took the technical defeat in stride, and actually sided with NASCAR on the final lap decision.

"It's a tough call, you know it becomes a judgement at that point right? In that situation, it's easy to say let them race, because nobody is going to slow down at that point," Jones said, "but it's how far do you push it, right? You know, you say, okay, it's 200 feet, it's 300 feet, well I don't know, maybe it's off of [Turn] 4. It gets to be too much of a judgement call, it really has to stay how it is as frustrating as it is for fans for drivers and fans for sure."

Corey LaJoie sliced his way from the 17th-position at the start of the race to finish sixth, and the impressive finish was more than enough to secure LaJoie a starting spot in Sunday's Daytona 500 as he was the best-finishing "Open" entry in Duel 2.

With LaJoie advancing to the Daytona 500 field, Rick Ware Racing will have two cars in the 2025 Daytona 500.

Anthony Alfredo (finished 13th), and BJ McLeod (17th) both failed to advance to the Daytona 500 starting grid.

While Wallace and Cindric took home the wins in the Duels, a lot of teams will be going into overtime in the garage area as they assess whether or not to go to backup cars heading into the Daytona 500.

The drivers involved in crashes in the Duels on Thursday night included Keselowski, Bowman, Suarez, Kyle Larson, Shane van Gisbergen, Riley Herbst, Alfredo, Cody Ware, Zane Smith, Chandler Smith, Justin Haley, Ty Gibbs, and Helio Castroneves.

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