Daytona Beach, Fla.
William Byron snaked his way through a smoky crash late Saturday night at Daytona International Speedway and narrowly avoided another melee a few laps later.
Those moves got him to victory lane for the first time in his young NASCAR Cup Series career and back in the playoffs for the second consecutive season.
They also helped knock out Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson, a seven-time series champion whose final season won't end with another title.
Winless in 120 races, Johnson made a trip to victory lane to congratulate Byron and the No. 24 team, the one now directed by Johnson's former and long-time crew chief, Chad Knaus.
"It's a big win for Chad Knaus and William Byron," Johnson said. "I really felt like we had a way to transfer, to win, or point our way in and things just got ugly. Unfortunate, but that's plate racing."
Byron won the race in overtime after two late cautions and locked up one of the three postseason berths available going into the finale. Matt DiBenedetto finished 12th and secured the final spot. Clint Bowyer wrapped up a berth at the end of the opening stage.
Johnson looked as if he would land one of those spots. But he got shuffled back in the final stage and then got caught up in a wreck in the closing laps that started when Denny Hamlin made contact with Joey Logano. Byron squeezed between the two, took the lead and held on after a green-white-checkered finish.
"It's been a hard couple of years in the Cup Series and trying to get my first win and trying to gel with this team," Byron said. "These guys have done an awesome job and to be in the playoffs is amazing, man."
About 20,000 fans tried to spread out in Daytona's massive motorsports stadium and were treated to a frantic finish.
The race was pretty clean for most of the night, but got crazy down the stretch.
Tyler Reddick started the first one by trying to block Kyle Busch after getting a huge push to take the lead. Busch clipped Reddick's bumper, sending him into the outside wall and collecting several other cars.
Busch, Erik Jones, Kurt Busch, Austin Dillon, Ryan Newman, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and others were knocked out.
"(Reddick) just ran out of talent," Newman said. "All it takes is one goofball to make a mistake."
Reddick accepted responsibility for the crash.
"If someone made that move on me, I'd be pretty mad, too," he said.
Byron swerved his way through clouds of smoke to stay in the mix there. He was even luckier after Hamlin and Logano got together.
Boycott not considered
Bubba Wallace said there was not much of a dialogue among NASCAR drivers regarding sitting out the Cup Series regular-season finale at Daytona International Speedway.
While other sports postponed games and practices this week in the wake of the shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, by a white police officer in Kenosha, Wis., NASCAR pressed on at its historic track.
"We still have a lot of work to do as a nation to make things better for us, our next generation coming up through," Wallace told NBC Sports before Saturday night's race. "What I simply said about not competing (was) us not following suit does not mean that we're standing down. We still know what's on our table or what's on our plate to go out and accomplish and attempt to accomplish to make this a better place
"With tonight's race being held, we still know that we have a lot on our minds thinking about everybody, the African American community specifically, to help out."
Wallace, the only Black driver at NASCAR's top level, commended other sports for taking action. But he said there needs to be a unified approach to fighting racial injustice.
"I respect my brothers and sisters that want to use their platform in that certain way," he said. "I'm all for it. I think we all have to come together as one and figure out some solution because nothing's helping — not playing games, playing games, racing, not racing, being silent. We're still seeing the tragic events happen.
"Jacob Blake, fortunately he survived through that madness there. But it's something we still shouldn't have to go through and witness, and he never should have been a part of. "
NASCAR President Steve Phelps made it clear that the sanctioning body took a strong stance in June, when it banned the Confederate flag at events.
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