Jimmie Johnson made the Daytona 500 with a last-lap pass as Tyler Reddick and Christopher Bell won the Duel qualifying races on Thursday night.
Johnson was on the outside looking in with a lap to go in the first Duel race, but got around JJ Yeley heading to the finish line after Yeley moved to the outside to avoid cars that had checked up ahead of him. Johnson stayed in line behind Ross Chastain and used a push from Martin Truex Jr. to sneak past Yeley at the checkered flag.
The seven-time Cup Series champion is running a part-time schedule for the second consecutive season. Since his No. 84 car isn’t full-time, he entered the 500 as one of six drivers competing for four open spots. Since Johnson had just the third-best qualifying time during Wednesday night’s pole qualifying, he needed to finish ahead of Yeley to guarantee himself into the race.
The late drama came after Johnson was caught up in a wreck that included Austin Dillon and Daniel Hemric. Johnson had minimal damage in the incident — Hemric got the worst of it — but the crash meant Johnson lost his comfortable advantage over Yeley as the laps wound down in the 60-lap race.
Reddick won the first Duel race after he also escaped a near-incident. Reddick made contact with Ty Gibbs as cars made their pit stops during the race and was forced to save his car from spinning out and potentially collecting others in a crash.
The second Duel was marred be a massive crash late in the race. Ten cars were involved after William Byron’s late block of Ryan Blaney set up a crash after Brad Keselowski pushed Kyle Busch into Byron with less than 15 laps to go.
Trouble in the tri-oval! @Blaney climbs from the vehicle safely after this crash in Duel No. 2! pic.twitter.com/oKffQcU4Zp
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) February 16, 2024
Bell won the race on the final lap after getting around a block from his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Hamlin. Bell then had to hold off a late potential charge by Austin Cindric after he passed Harrison Burton for second entering Turn 3.
Kaz Grala got the final spot in the 500 in the second Duel race as he got past BJ McLeod for the transfer spot.
Daytona 500 starting lineup
1. Joey Logano
2. Michael McDowell
3. Tyler Reddick
4. Christopher Bell
5. Chase Elliott
6. Austin Cindric
7. Alex Bowman
8. Denny Hamlin
9. Carson Hocevar
10. John Hunter Nemechek
11. Erik Jones
12. Harrison Burton
13. Daniel Suarez
14. Zane Smith
15. Ty Gibbs
16. Brad Keselowski
17. Kyle Larson
18. William Byron
19. Chris Buescher
20. Chase Briscoe
21. Ross Chastain
22. Justin Haley
23. Jimmie Johnson
24. Bubba Wallace
25. Ryan Preece
26. Kaz Grala
27. Martin Truex Jr.
28. AJ Allmendinger
29. Corey LaJoie
30. Josh Berry
31. Todd Gilliland
32. Ryan Blaney
33. Austin Dillon
34. Kyle Busch
35. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
36. Riley Herbst
37. Daniel Hemric
38. Noah Gragson
39. Anthony Alfredo
40. David Ragan
