Stop if you’ve heard this before: the 2025 Daytona 500 ended with wrecks, more wrecks, even more wrecks… and a winner (William Byron) who did nothing but simply find himself in the right place at the right time.
This is the most prestigious race on the NASCAR Cup Series calendar. These days, though, it feels more like a glorified demolition derby. It’s hard to say when exactly it became this way, but it’s reached the point where these utter lotteries are now considered the expectation every year. Many fans and even people within the industry have had enough, and rightfully so.
A number of factors have likely contributed to the death of the Daytona 500’s magnitude. The biggest one, though, has to be the fact that the racing at Daytona International Speedway has still yet to recover from its 2010 repave, which completely destroyed the track’s character. Prior to that, handling and tire wear played a major role at Daytona and the racing was more spread out.
Drivers still raced in packs, but they could maneuver to the front by themselves, and wrecks were generally smaller and easier to avoid. The cream tended to rise to the top, and it gave the 500 a cinematic type of feel as action slowly built up throughout the afternoon in preparation for a thrilling dash to the finish.
Now that feeling is gone. Ever since it was repaved, Daytona has driven like a narrower Talladega Superspeedway, where the packs are tighter and there is much less finesse involved in getting to the front. Furthermore, the introduction of stage racing and the “win-and-you’re-in” playoff format has severely hampered the art form of give and take, as drivers today are incentivized to only take.
The durability of today’s cars additionally allows drivers to take their safety for granted, while NASCAR’s shift away from its blue-collar roots has left the sport with a generation of competitors who lack perspective on the cost of torn-up equipment. Increasingly reckless actions on the track are a direct result of this, and Daytona is prime grounds for such chaos to rear its head.
It’s hard to say what can even be done to fix the Daytona 500 at this point. Maybe NASCAR needs to let the cars run slightly faster, that way they’re forced to lift in the corners and the pack gets more spread out, making the wrecks smaller and maneuverability easier. Maybe the season opener should be moved to Atlanta, which ever since its reconfiguration in 2022 drives like a smaller version of the Daytona we used to know and love. Or maybe the surface will eventually wear out enough again to where the problem solves itself. One can only hope.
Realistically, though, none of those things are probably going to happen, and we’re going to need to just accept that this is now the new normal for Daytona. It’s been this way for the better part of the past decade if not longer, and it’s unlikely that it will change anytime soon. As with most issues in racing and other sports today, a major part of the problem is a cultural one, and culture problems take a long time to fix.
For teams and drivers, the Daytona 500 is still the race on the NASCAR Cup Series calendar that carries the most weight, due to its tradition and prestige. For fans, though, it’s hard to watch what has become of it these days and act like it’s the most meaningful race to win. It far too often comes down to luck more than skill, and as a result, the “cinema” of the 500 is no longer of the Oscar-winning Hollywood drama variety. Instead, it is a cheap action flick with no plot, no character development, no substance whatsoever — just explosion after explosion for the sake of entertainment.
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