DAYTONA BEACH — Richard Petty, Cale Yarborough, Sterling Martin, Denny Hamlin, William Byron.
That’s the list of NASCAR drivers that have won back-to-back Daytona 500s.
Hamlin’s run from 2019-20 ended with a fifth-place finish in 2021, and Petty’s from 1973-74 was discontinued by a seventh-place finish in 1975. Both Yarborough (1983-84) and Martin (1994-95) didn’t finish due to engine failure in their respective bids.
Byron’s run at back-to-back-to-back Daytona 500s is alive after surviving late wrecks for victories in 2024 and 2025. If he can avoid the chaos that often plagues Daytona International Speedway again, he could find himself in the history books.
But if you asked Byron about it, it’s just another day on the racetrack.
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“I’ve been asked about that quite a bit today. I mean, not much, to be honest. I think some here and there,” Byron said of his thoughts about winning three consecutive 500s. “Obviously that’s the goal. I get reminders of the previous races, whether I see just the videos or whatnot. They’re great career-defining moments that we’ve had. It’s awesome. It’s special. But I don’t really think ahead too much. I just think about what it’s going to take in these next couple days leading up to it.”
Winning at Daytona is a lot harder than it looks, believe it or not.
Even if Byron runs a perfect race, there’s still the chance that an unavoidable crash presents itself in front of him and knocks him out of the race or severely hinders his chance at winning. After all, half of the drivers that made it to back-to-back wins didn’t finish their third race.
And it’s pretty common. Byron himself has benefitted from the massive wrecks that can’t seem to stay away from Daytona. In his consecutive wins, he has led a combined 14 laps and taken the lead because of accidents ahead or around him.
Byron may have gotten that out of his system Thursday night, when he was involved in a crash during the Duels that barred him from finishing and will force him into a backup car for Sunday’s grand finale. It’ll be familiar territory for Byron, who won the 2024 Great American Race in a backup.
“I think I’m never gonna know the answer to that, but I definitely have had my fair share of races that I felt like I did a lot of things right in it, and maybe one thing went wrong, and I got crashed,” he said. “And it seems like it’s flipped the other way the last couple years, where I’ve been fortunate to be in the right positions, and I made good decisions and it worked out. So I don’t know. I think it’s probably a law of averages.”
The law of averages has skewed in Byron’s favor as of late. Some of NASCAR’s best — Tony Stewart, Rusty Wallace, Martin Truex Jr. — weren’t able to win one Daytona 500 in their careers, let alone two.
Of all the great talent to ever burn rubber on the asphalt, none was able to win three straight.
“It does surprise me in the sense that I feel like there’s been some drafting packages that were honestly easier to win three in a row than this one currently,” Byron said. “So I’m a little surprised that there wasn’t a run by somebody … It just shows how hard this race is and how much pressure there is.”
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This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: No driver has won three straight Daytona 500s. Can William Byron break the streak?
Reporting by Zach Allen, Daytona Beach News-Journal / The Daytona Beach News-Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
