Austin Dillon and Ty Dillon are brothers.
Here’s how Ty’s night ended:
Here’s how Austin’s wound up:
Now, Ty Dillon and Austin Dillon weren’t in the same duel, and were in vastly different situations. Austin drives for a chartered team, so his spot in the Daytona 500 was guaranteed. Ty doesn’t drive for a chartered team and he didn’t clinch a Daytona 500 spot in qualifying, so he needed to finish the highest of the four non-charter drivers in his duel to make Sunday’s field.
For a while, it looked like Ty was going to do it. But he was behind Joey Logano, who drives for Penske, and Penske has a non-chartered, part-time car driven by Austin Cindric. Austin Cindric, like Ty Dillon, needed to finish first among the four non-charter drivers in the duel to qualify. But Cindric had another route: Because Ryan Preece, another non-charter driver, had already locked in a spot via qualifying, if Preece was the highest non-charter finisher in Duel 1, Cindric would get in as the next-fastest from qualifying.
If that sounds confusing, it is. And when Joey Logano checked up, holding Cindric back while Preece passed him at the line, a lot of people were confused, as Ty Dillon was kept out of the Daytona 500, and Austin Cindric found his way in, despite the former finishing the duel ahead of the latter. Don’t be surprised if this changes after next year.
The second duel was more exciting. Here’s Austin Dillon’s pass to win it:
Here’s a wreck that collected a good bit of the field, and in a roundabout way got Kaz Grala into the last non-charter spot:
And here’s an air dryer losing grip on the banking during the rain delay between the duels:
Other Notes from Last Night
As you may have noticed in the Austin Dillon clip, Bubba Wallace had a great night, almost winning Duel 2. Wallace has always been a good superspeedway racer. This car’s looking better than anything he’s gotten to drive before.
There was a lot of praise for the package last night. NASCAR designs these “packages,” specific car designs used at various combinations of tracks, to ideally improve the quality of racing at those tracks. They seem to have gotten a good one here, as each of last night’s races was electric. Sunday should be very, very fun.
A number of teams will have to go to backup cars after having their primary car crash out of the field. Cole Custer. William Byron. Brad Keselowski. Chase Briscoe. Kaz Grala. Ross Chastain. Possibly others. Alex Bowman’s using his primary car, but Hendrick Motorsports might have to swap out his engine, which would cost him the pole and send him to the back of the field. No definitive word on that yet, but for the time being, Chad Knaus (Bowman’s crew chief) has said this morning that they think it’ll be ok, but that’s a big risk to take. So we’ll see.
I didn’t realize the duels had points attached to them. Similar to race stages, the top ten drivers in each race got points last night. So, entering Sunday, Aric Almirola (who I didn’t even mention won the first duel) and Austin Dillon lead the pack with ten points apiece. And with each potentially a playoff bubble driver, that could be big!
The Weekend Schedule
TRUCKS! Tonight at 7:30 PM EST.
BEEF. IT’S WHAT’S FOR DINNER.! (This weekend’s Xfinity race’s sponsor) Tomorrow at 5:00 PM EST.
THE DAYTONA 500!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sunday at 2:30 PM EST.
Vroom vroom.
