DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Christopher Bell has locked up a spot on the second row of Monday’s rain-postponed Daytona 500 (4 p.m. ET on Fox) by winning the second Duel race.
Bell used aggressive blocking to hold off Austin Cindric at the checkered flag and closed out a race that featured a multi-car crash and a red flag delay. Cindric finished second while Denny Hamlin, John Hunter Nemechek and Harrison Burton rounded out the top five.
Kaz Grala, one of the three open cars in the Duel race, locked himself into the Daytona 500 by only two spots. He finished 12th after going three-wide with BJ McLeod and Bubba Wallace on the final lap. McLeod finished 14th while David Ragan, who qualified on speed Wednesday night, finished 15th.
MORE: Duel 1 results
MORE: Duel 2 results
MORE: Daytona 500 starting lineup
Bell was the second Toyota driver to win a Duel race Thursday. Tyler Reddick won the first Duel race. Thursday marked the first time Toyota drivers have swept the Duel races since the 2014 season.
“These plate races, I don’t know what to make of them,” Bell told Fox Sports after the race. “Me and Adam Stevens, my crew chief, we have a running joke that I always say these races are 100 percent luck. And I know that’s not true, but it seems like we’ve been struggling to get to the end of it.
“I know I’ve been a common denominator in a lot of these wrecks, so feels good to do everything right today.”
The big multi-car crash took place with 13 laps to go in the race. It involved Brad Keselowski, Ryan Blaney, McLeod, Kyle Busch, Justin Haley, Noah Gragson, Chase Briscoe, William Byron, Bubba Wallace, and Riley Herbst.
The incident began when Kyle Busch checked up on the outside line. Brad Keselowski hit Busch from behind, who hit William Byron from behind and turned him into Ryan Blaney.
HALF OF THE FIELD INVOLVED!
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) February 16, 2024
Ryan Blaney, William Byron, Kyle Busch and more are in this 10-car pileup!
🎥: NASCAR pic.twitter.com/a7k2PnpQHf
The contact spun Blaney into the outside wall. Blaney then rebounded into the field as several other drivers wrecked. McLeod was hit multiple times.
The wreck brought out the red flag as the crews removed the cars of Blaney, Busch, Herbst and Gragson from the track. Josh Berry, who avoided the wreck, also headed to the garage with assistance from the tow truck after the No. 4 Ford failed to start.
“I’m getting pretty sick of getting right-reared by someone’s awful push,” Blaney told Fox Sports’ Josh Sims after exiting the care center. “It’s unfortunate we’ve got to build a whole new (Daytona 500) car.”
Blaney’s team will now have to prep a new Ford Mustang for Sunday’s Daytona 500. He will be one of multiple drivers in a backup car after wrecks in the two Duel races.
Grala’s path to the Daytona 500 lineup was not straightforward. He started 21st, just behind McLeod, but lost the draft and several spots during green flag pit stops. The red flag delay and subsequent restart put him back in a position to race against McLeod and Ragan.
Grala prevailed and locked himself into the Daytona 500 for the third time in his career.
“When we lost touch with the pack, normally you’d be down and out and not feeling too good about it,” Grala said in his post-race media session. “But I’ve been in enough of these Duels to know that anything can happen so you’re never really out of it completely.
“Just kept kept focused and confident that, hopefully, something will work out. And sure enough things played into our favor there just enough, just by a couple of spots, to get there.”
