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\"Engines roared and flags waved. It was the Daytona 500! It was on February 16 [2025]. Drivers raced for 500 miles (805 km). William Byron crossed the finish line after 200 laps. He claimed the victory. This wasn’t Byron’s first Daytona 500 win. He won in 2024 too. He is the fifth driver to win back-to-back Daytona 500s.\" (News-O-Matic) Read about William Byron's back-to-back win at the Daytona 500.

The two -- Earnhardt in a Chevy Monte Carlo and Irvan in a Ford Thunderbird -- had clinched the two front-row spots for the Daytona 500 on Saturday, with Earnhardt on the pole. But the two 50-lap races today set the rest of the 43-car lineup, as well as allowing the contenders to see how they run in traffic. What helped Earnhardt was that Marlin, like Earnhardt, makes up a one-driver team and that Labonte was separated from Schrader and Gordon, his teammates. Dale Jarrett, fourth behind Labonte, will be reunited with his teammate Irvan on Sunday, too. Irvan discounted team loyalties as well as a possibility that Ford drivers would team up against Chevy drivers. \"When we go out here racing,\" Irvan said, \"it doesn't matter whether you're in a Ford or a Chevrolet. You're all trying for first.\"

\"Dale Earnhardt Jr., taking a page from the old man, barreled past Tony Stewart and won the Daytona 500...on the same track that claimed his father's life three years ago.\" (Daytona Beach News-Journal) Learn more about Earnhardt's win and find out how the death of Earnhardt's father in the 2001 Daytona 500 impacted Earnhardt's victory. Highlights of the 2004 Daytona 500 race are presented.

\"Michael Waltrip is the new master of Daytona. He doesn't win anywhere else. It's a burden well worth bearing--being the best driver in NASCAR's biggest race, at stock-car racing's most famous track.\" (Sun-Sentinel) Read about Michael Waltrip's victory in the 2003 Daytona 500. Details of the race are highlighted.

While leading at the 200-mile mark in the Daytona 500, Marlin's Chevy slowed, and he pulled into the pits with a souring engine. Marlin's crew tried to get the car going again, but after one slow lap, the engine failure was deemed terminal.

Jarrett, who won $362,775 today, knew there was plotting going on behind him. But he wasn't worried, he said. \"I knew he had a helping Chevrolet behind him,\" he said of Earnhardt's potential hookup with Schrader that could have helped both men pass Jarrett. \"But I had a Robert Yates engine.\" \"Make it perfectly clear that it wasn't the driver who won this race today,\" Jarrett said. \"There's no better than Dale Earnhardt. I had a better race car than Dale Earnhardt today.\" That wasn't the case in 1993, when Jarrett drove past Earnhardt on the final lap to win his first Daytona 500. Today, though, Jarrett's modesty did not seem false. \"It wasn't going to happen, because we couldn't even get a run on Jarrett,\" Schrader said of a potential Earnhardt-Schrader drafting maneuver past Jarrett. \"And you have to get a run to get your nose in there.\"

Buddy Baker knows what it's like to wait as long as Earnhardt to win the Daytona 500. If Earnhardt doesn't come through Sunday on his 18th attempt, however, he's on his own as far as Baker's empathy is concerned. \"I waited 18 years to win it,\" said Baker, who broke through in 1980. \"The media attention was nothing like it is now. But in another way, it was just as bad as what Dale's going through, because people kept bringing it to my attention.\" \"It's the race everybody wants to win,\" Earnhardt said on Feb. 10, after winning the pole position for Sunday's race. But it's not win at any price, he said, especially if it costs him a chance to break the tie with Petty for Cup titles. \"If I had to weigh it between the championship this year, I'd give it up for the championship,\" Earnhardt said. \"That's how important the championship, the big picture, is for me.\" So how come Earnhardt hasn't won it? \"If you look at it, they've always been so dominant early in the week,\" said Darrell Waltrip, who won his only Daytona 500 in 1989 when he was 42. \"It's like a coach with a big lead early in the game, and then the team gets complacent. I think you get confident that you've got it under control, and you keep the car under the cover, while other teams are still out there working on their cars, trying to get better.\"

Because [Sterling Marlin] hadn't backed up last year's Daytona victory with any others, he knew he was considered a one-shot wonder. \"The rumor was circulating through the garage area that the '3' bunch said we couldn't do it again, that we'd find some way to mess up,\" Marlin said after the race, referring to [Dale Earnhardt]'s car number. \"So it feels real good to beat him.\" \"Sterling had too much power,\" said [Mark Martin], who watched Earnhardt's futile pursuit from behind the wheel of his Thunderbird. \"Dale didn't have anyone to help him in the draft because he needed someone with new tires, too.\" \"Anytime you lose it, you don't feel good,\" said Richard Childress, Earnhardt's car owner. \"But it was one of those things where we decided we'd rather run 10th than run 5th and not give it everything we had.\" PIT STOPS

[Rick Hendrick] also remembered the first time he saw [Jeff Gordon] race a stock car. \"I saw this guy come around the turn with the back end hanging out,\" Hendrick said on Thursday, \"and I said to someone who was with me, 'Let's wait a minute and see this guy bust his tail.' But I stood there for 20 laps, and he just kept doing it.\" Native of California Hendrick knows that overconfidence could become a problem with Gordon. \"I fully expect him to make some mistakes this year and wreck a few cars,\" Hendrick said. \"But I think that's the price you have to pay when you have a guy who's aggressive and has that kind of talent.\" \"I got no problem with it,\" [Dale Earnhardt] said when asked how he felt about racing within inches of Gordon. \"He doesn't move around on the race track and make dumb mistakes.\" Challenge to Veterans

DALE JARRETT, received the first installment of what he expects will be a big payoff for taking a big chance.