Tyler Reddick roared past Kyle Larson on the final half-lap to win the Bluegreen Vacations Duel No. 1 at Daytona International Speedway Thursday night in Daytona Beach, Florida.
Positioned below Larson, the No. 45 Toyota Camry XSE of 23XI Racing — which started 19th — outran Larson and two other Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolets for the win.
Chase Elliott finished second followed by Alex Bowman, Carson Hocevar and Erik Jones.
Seven-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson raced his way into the 66th Daytona 500 by coming in 12th.
In the first of the two 125-mile qualifying races that will form the 40-car field for Sunday’s 66th annual Daytona 500, pole winner Joey Logano led 20 competitors to the green flag but fell back as Larson took the point followed by David Gilliland.
With 21 laps to go and the first set of fuel-only pit stops beginning, Ty Gibbs and Reddick made contact off Turn 4 while coming to pit road but managed to keep their cars straight.
The remainder of the field came to pit road with 16 laps left, with Martin Truex Jr. stalling in his pit stall and losing the draft as the rest of the cars roared off pit road.
Hard-charging Ross Chastain also suffered a tough fate when he was nabbed for too fast exiting pit road.
After the final stops had cycled around, Larson put his No. 5 Chevrolet into the top spot for the second time.
Daniel Suarez, Elliott, Alex Bowman and Logano positioned themselves in single-file fashion behind Larson.
However, the first caution flew with just over 10 circuits left as an accordion effect of bumping caused Daniel Hemric to loop his car into the east end of the track’s wall.
Johnson also spun down to the apron but managed to work his way back into position to make Sunday’s 40-car field.
–Field Level Media