NASCAR: Winners and losers of the 2023 Daytona 500

NASCAR’s winners and three losers in the 2023 Daytona 500

Winner: Rick Ware Racing

Full-time participants since the 2017 season, Rick Ware Racing has become something of a laughingstock around the NASCAR industry. In 2021, the team regularly sent out four cars and were nearly guaranteed to finish in the last four spots on the grid every single weekend.

Last year, the operation went down to two full-time cars and saw Cody Ware, son of owner Rick Ware, earn his first career top-10 at the Summer Daytona race.

On Sunday evening, 23-year-old Riley Herbst, best known for his successes in the Xfinity Series, was tabbed to make his series debut in the No. 15 car for RWR.

Herbst did not have a perfect race, spinning on entrance to pit road once and being involved in a Big One later in the evening. However, he stayed consistent despite the issues he ran across and ultimately scored a top-10 in his Cup Series debut.

Cody Ware, Herbst’s teammate for the evening, brought it home 14th, which is a great finish for someone who typically finishes near the back.

Loser: Jimmie Johnson

It’s tough to put Johnson in this category, but after being unable to avoid trouble, he finished 31st after such a promising start to his day.

Johnson, 47, came back to the Cup Series after a multi-year break. He retired from the sport at the end of the 2020 season and made his triumphant comeback to the series at this year’s Daytona 500.

After consistently running in the top-10 in the first two stages of the race, things seemed to be going smoothly for the seven-time series champion, until they weren’t.

Johnson was caught up in one of the last Big Ones of the day and earned himself a DNF in his return to the Cup Series. His final finishing spot was 31st on the leaderboard out of 40 drivers.