The 2025 NASCAR season is officially underway, and just like that, we are three races in. The season started with a clash at the Bowman Gray Stadium, a speedway known for its tight racing and high tempers. The drivers ran in heats due to the extreme shortness of the track. In the end, after an absurd amount of cautions, Chase Elliott took home the win.
The Clash at Bowman Gray, however, was just an appetizer for what was to come. The first real race of the season is one of the biggest events of the whole year, the Daytona 500. Each year, the drivers are split into Duel 1 and Duel 2, and the results of these events are the starting position for the 200 laps around the 2.5-mile track. Roger Penske driver Austin Cindric secured the pole with the driver of the #23, Bubba Wallace Jr., rolling in second. It wouldn’t be NASCAR without a rain delay, however, pushing the race back almost 5 hours. After a majority of the race went by smoothly, the final stage brought some trouble. With 4 laps to go, leader Christopher Bell was spun into the wall and hit by Ryan Preece, who then lifted and flipped. This brought out the overtime restart. Once the final lap is reached, any flag after that will end the race. On the final backstretch, the leaders became too aggressive and took out a majority of the field, bringing the Hendrick Motorsports #24, driven by William Byron, who was running in ninth at the time of the incident. This brought back-to-back Daytona 500 wins for Byron, one of the few drivers to ever do it in history.
Next up, the drivers and their haulers traveled to Hampton, Georgia, for a 260-lap shootout. The track, another superspeedway, proved to be brutal to track position. The track brings aggressive blocking and unstoppable runs throughout the race. Ryan Blaney, driver of the #12, secured his first pole win of the season; however, as the race began, technical difficulties occurred, and he fell to the rear end of the field. Again, the race was clean until the end of regulation when drivers became increasingly aggressive. This led to another overtime brawl. On the final lap of overtime, Joe Gibbs’s driver, Christopher Bell, secured the victory as the caution was thrown on the final corner.
Off to Austin, Texas, now for the first road course race of the season, Circuit of the Americas. The track has almost 20 turns and a total of 3.5 miles of racing surface. Driver of the Monster Energy #45, Tyler Reddick, secured the pole in just around 2 minutes. The race ran very smooth, with cautions rare as they progressed through the 90 laps. In the final stage of the race, Kyle Busch led the majority; however, he was passed by Atlanta winner Christopher Bell, who stayed and won back-to-back victories.
Christopher Bell stands 3rd in points, as his DNF in Daytona cost him greatly. All the drivers return to Phoenix, Arizona, this Sunday at 3:30.
