DAYTONA BEACH, Florida — In a race that couldn’t have been any more different from the opening America 250 Duel of the night on Thursday, the second America 250 Duel was clean; it remained green. At the end of some close battles at the front of the pack late in the race, Chase Elliott surged to the win.
Elliott, who held off Carson Hocevar by a margin of 0.065 seconds to score his third career Duel victory, will fire off from the fourth starting spot in Sunday’s Daytona 500. As an added bonus, Elliott’s Duel win allowed him to pocket 10 NASCAR Cup Series championship points, which puts him into a tie with Duel 1 winner Joey Logano for the point lead prior to the start of the Daytona 500.
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After the race, Elliott felt like he learned a lot about his car and the track for Sunday’s race.
“Yeah, a lot of good stuff in there I thought, honestly,” Elliott said in his post-race press conference. “I think that was large in part because it got pretty aggressive and fast at different times, which was really good. A lot of times you run this race, it’s not the craziest thing, the energy level is not super high, the pace doesn’t get super fast. I thought it did tonight at different points in the race.”
Kyle Larson, who inked a long-term contract extension with Hendrick Motorsports this week, came home with a third-place finish in the Duel, and he was followed by Michael McDowell and Christopher Bell inside the top-five.
Josh Berry, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Todd Gilliland, Ty Gibbs, and Denny Hamlin rounded out the top-10 finishers in the race.
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While Elliott was soaking up the thrill of victory in the Daytona International Speedway victory lane, an emotional Anthony Alfredo was coming to grips with the fact that he had advanced to the Daytona 500 field for the third time in his career.
However, after Alfredo’s 18th-place finish, drama ensued in post-race technical inspection. NASCAR Cup Series Managing Director Brad Moran addressed the media and explained that while NASCAR doesn’t want to penalize small “Open” teams, Alfredo and the No. 62 Beard Motorsports team were disqualified when NASCAR found issues with a transaxle cooling hose and a driver cooling hose on the No. 62 Chevrolet after the race.
“First of all, unfortunate to be here. Any small open team we don’t like to have these problems, but we do have to do our job, make sure there’s parity amongst the field and also parity amongst people trying to make the 500,” Moran stated.
Moran says the hoses were not installed properly, and were in the floorboard of the passenger side of the car when NASCAR inspected the car after the race. He says that was not the case in the pre-race check of the No. 62 Chevrolet.
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BJ McLeod, who suffered from a fuel miscalculation, which led to him finishing 19th, 27.5 seconds behind Elliott, the race’s winner, has advanced to the Daytona 500 starting field after his No. 78 Chevrolet passed post-race inspection.
McLeod will have to do a lot of fuel-saving racing on Sunday, which is something he took exception to after he initially missed the Daytona 500 field.
“Fuel saving stuff is the easiest thing. It doesn’t even, in my mind, belong in racing, like out here. It’s good at a mile-and-a-half or something, but on a speedway, fuel saving is just hard to stay awake,” McLeod lamented. “I can’t say enough bad about how easy it is, and I don’t like that. It has nothing to do with why we had a problem tonight. We miscalculated the fuel saving part. We saved plenty of fuel. We just miscalculated somehow, some way. I don’t know, I’ve got to get back to find out how.”
JJ Yeley, the other driver who was vying for the one remaining spot in the Daytona 500 field, was credited with a 22nd-place finish, and ended the race three laps down after suffering a mechanical issue during the event.
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“A failure of some kind stole that at least an opportunity from us today,” Yeley said in a media scrum after the race.
The Daytona 500 is set for Sunday, February 15, and will be televised on FOX with coverage set to begin at 2:30 PM ET. The Motor Racing Network (MRN) and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio will provide the radio broadcast of the race.
America 250 Duel 2 Race Results
1. 9-Chase Elliott
2. 77-Carson Hocevar
3. 5-Kyle Larson
4. 71-Michael McDowell
5. 20-Christopher Bell
6. 21-Josh Berry
7. 47-Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
8. 34-Todd Gilliland
9. 54-Ty Gibbs
10. 11-Denny Hamlin
11. 43-Erik Jones
12. 45-Tyler Reddick
13. 35-Riley Herbst
14. 38-Zane Smith
15. 88-Connor Zilisch
16. 10-Ty Dillon
17. 2-Austin Cindric
18. 78-BJ McLeod*
19. 19-Chase Briscoe
20. 40-Justin Allgaier
21. 44-JJ Yeley*
22. 62-Anthony Alfredo* DQ
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* indicates a driver not locked into Daytona 500 field prior to Duels.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com/onsi/racing-america as Elliott Claims Duel 2 Win; McLeod Makes Daytona 500 After Alfredo DQ.
