Turning Fortune - Daytona 500 TopicItems in the Daytona 500 topic on Turning Fortunehttps://turningfortune.com/Tyler Reddick wins the Daytona 500https://turningfortune.com/news/tyler-reddick-wins-the-daytona-500/https://turningfortune.com/news/tyler-reddick-wins-the-daytona-500/23XI starts off its victory tour with a bang.Sun, 15 Feb 2026 16:55:00 GMT2026-02-15T16:55:00.000ZJon Mitchell2025 was a tough year for 23XI racing, with its distracting lawsuit against NASCAR threatening its existence as a team, and Tyler Reddick in particular, with scary health issues in his family and whatever other factors combining to have him go winless. That’s all behind them now; 23XI won a settlement in the lawsuit — a historic financial win for Cup Series teams over France family ownership — and Tyler Reddick went out and won the Great American Race. Michael Jordan’s impact on the sport cannot be overstated at this point. Remarkably — given Riley Herbst’s usual irrelevance — all three 23XI cars finished in the top 10, giving the team a decisive early championship lead.

It was your usual crazy Daytona race, but this time it felt like the Daytona 500 is supposed to.

This was no fluke drive, he was right back there with Denny in case anything stupid happened, and then it did, and he drove right through it on Nightmare Mode

— Jon 🛞 (@jon.turningfortune.com) Feb 15, 2026 at 5:44 PM

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]]>Daytona 500 start moved up to 1:30 due to weatherhttps://turningfortune.com/news/daytona-500-start-moved-up-to-130-due-to-weather/https://turningfortune.com/news/daytona-500-start-moved-up-to-130-due-to-weather/Perhaps NASCAR will win the lottery this time.Sat, 14 Feb 2026 18:21:15 GMT2026-02-14T18:21:15.595ZJon MitchellI wonder if the climate has changed the weather patterns for Daytona 500 weekend over the course of the race’s history, and if NASCAR has noticed.

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]]>Bart Simpson will wave the green flag at the Daytona 500https://turningfortune.com/news/bart-simpson-will-wave-the-green-flag-at-the-daytona-500/https://turningfortune.com/news/bart-simpson-will-wave-the-green-flag-at-the-daytona-500/NASCAR's much-needed chilling out continues.Fri, 13 Feb 2026 19:50:30 GMT2026-02-13T19:50:30.245ZJon MitchellOnce again, the dorky PR-speak in which the news is delivered masks the fact that NASCAR is figuring out a way to be funny and chill in this very un-funny and un-chill century.

I love shit like this, they used to always to this type of stuff when I was watching this sport growing up so it's neat to still see it being done these days!

— Shoogy Racing 🏁 (@shoogyracing.bsky.social) Feb 13, 2026 at 2:44 PM

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]]>Daytona 500 qualifying results were surprisingly awesomehttps://turningfortune.com/news/daytona-500-qualifying-results-were-surprisingly-awesome/https://turningfortune.com/news/daytona-500-qualifying-results-were-surprisingly-awesome/The usual suspects are there, but there are also some dark horses.Thu, 12 Feb 2026 19:27:37 GMT2026-02-12T19:27:37.816ZJon MitchellI often hear a take that NASCAR superspeedway racing is so much of a crapshoot that qualifying doesn’t matter, and I get it, but I don’t agree. I mean, I agree that it’s a crapshoot, but to me the point of watching stock car racing at Daytona or Talladega is to see who has the best car and — if they don’t win — compare it to the one who overcomes the circumstances. I did not have it on my bingo card that Richard Childress Racing would prepare the #8 as the fastest car, or that — in his 21st attempt — Kyle Busch would drive it to pole. My rooting for him feels super rewarded.

In other good news, Corey Heim’s #67 23XI entry was blazingly fast, and both he and my main man Justin Allgaier in the JR Motorsports #40 locked into the 500. JRM is now two for two on making the race, and after their great run last year, I would be overjoyed to see a strong result.

Also, in an amusing twist, Noah Gragson had his qualifying lap deleted because he did the hand-in-the-window aero trick that was literally just banned.

The race sold out for the 11th straight year, the purse is bigger than ever — I’d say the omens are good. As long as the weather doesn’t completely sap the event of joy like last year.

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]]>Carson Hocevar is racing in all three Daytona NASCAR serieshttps://turningfortune.com/news/carson-hocevar-is-racing-in-all-three-daytona-nascar-series/https://turningfortune.com/news/carson-hocevar-is-racing-in-all-three-daytona-nascar-series/The guy is hungry. Let him eat.Thu, 12 Feb 2026 19:17:14 GMT2026-02-12T19:17:14.847ZJon MitchellI’m still in the process of warming to Carson Hocevar, and I don’t think I’m alone in that. I really love listening to him be himself off track. On track, I’d say I love watching him 50% of the time, which is not quite enough. But there is nothing a racing driver can do to get in my good graces like driving all the time in as many different cars as possible, and doing Trucks, O’Reilly, and the Daytona 500 is admirable. I do hope he has something left for Sunday from the 50% I like, though.

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