The Daytona 500 is no longer defined by racecraft, it's all about crash avoidance

It’s becoming clearer and clearer that NASCAR is completely fine with its most prestigious race being defined by crashes and decided by those who avoid them.

William Byron became a two-time Daytona 500 winner Sunday night because he was in the right place at the right time. And that right place wasn't even the top five. Byron was outside the top five halfway through the final lap before race leader Denny Hamlin got turned to set off a crash that allowed Byron to drive through unscathed for second straight Daytona 500 win.

The crash was the third in less than a dozen laps as chaos once again became the norm at the end of the Daytona 500. The race has been decided on a two-lap race to the finish in each of the past four races. And the last race that wasn’t — the 2021 Daytona 500 — ended under caution when Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski crashed while racing for the lead on the final lap.

The year before, Ryan Newman was hospitalized for days after his car flipped over on the last lap and was hit while upside down.

Since NASCAR mandated restrictor plates after Bobby Allison’s terrifying Talladega crash in the late 80s, NASCAR races at Talladega have always been somewhat defined by crash avoidance. The restrictor plates that NASCAR mandated in the cars’ engines prevented cars from pulling away from each other and created pack racing. Pack racing created crashes that included more cars.

But it's hard not to wonder if NASCAR has gone past the point of no return when it comes to racing at Daytona and Talladega. After 80 of the 114 vehicles in NASCAR's top three series were involved in wrecks to open the season at Daytona a year ago, we asked if NASCAR was going to do anything about the wreck-infected racing.

NASCAR hasn’t done anything. Inaction is acceptance.

Ryan Preece’s car flipped for the second time in two races at Daytona on Sunday night. In August, Preece’s car flipped over 10 times and left him with two black eyes. Sunday night, he flipped just once. But in his interview on Fox after the crash, Preece openly wondered why it was so easy for Cup Series cars to flip over and said that the only thing he could think about when his car tipped upside down was his daughter.

The 2025 Daytona 500 marked 24 years since Dale Earnhardt died in a head-on crash during the 2025 Daytona 500. In a hype video celebrating its 25 years of NASCAR coverage published Sunday morning, Fox inexplicably included a clip of Earnhardt’s car in the Turn 4 wall.

Earnhardt is the last NASCAR Cup Series driver to die during a race and his death spurred numerous safety advancements throughout NASCAR’s top series. Those safety advancements should be commended at every opportunity.

But the races that now unfold at Talladega and Daytona feel like they’re testing the limits of those advancements with every passing event. Do we need to keep pushing those boundaries?

The new Cup Series car that NASCAR introduced in 2022 has only exacerbated NASCAR’s pack racing problem too. Drivers are forced to push each other to make passes in the draft as blocking has become a necessary skill with little margin for error.

That lack of tolerance leads to crashes. Especially late in races.

But if NASCAR didn’t do anything after the races in 2024, why would it do anything after Sunday night? Byron’s win looks good for viral highlights and casual viewers, even if those people aren’t going to tune in next week at Atlanta — a track that was recently redesigned to produce closer racing and bigger crashes.