Ricky Stenhouse Jr. wins his first Daytona 500, the longest in history

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. won the Daytona 500 on Sunday, his first win of NASCAR’s biggest race of the year.

His best previous Daytona finish was seventh place. I was his third NASCAR Cup win.

The race went into overtime as two multi-car crashes marred the final three laps if the 500-mile race.

Then another caution came out on the final lap of the overtime. Stenhouse was leading the race when the caution came out. Thus, he was awarded the win.

The race was 212 laps, 12 longer than the accustomed 200. At 530 miles, it was the the longest Daytona 500 in history as the caution flags created extra laps, plus the overtime.

Stenhouse was a 30-to-1 long shot to win the race. While many of the drivers are parts of multi-driver teams. Stenhouse is the solo racer in the team owned by JTG Daugherty Racing.

Joey Lagano finished second, Christopher Bell third.

This story was originally published February 19, 2023 at 5:58 PM.