2024 Coke Zero Sugar 400

2024 Coke Zero Sugar 400

Race details[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]
Race 25 of 36 in the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series
Date	August 24, 2024 (2024-08-24)
Location	Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida
Course	Permanent racing facility 2.5 mi (4 km)
Distance	164 laps, 410 mi (656 km)
Scheduled Distance	160 laps, 400 mi (640 km)
Average speed	135.413 miles per hour (217.926 km/h)
Pole position
Driver	Michael McDowell	Front Row Motorsports
Time	49.136
Most laps led
Driver	Joey Logano	Team Penske
Laps	34
Winner
No. 21	Harrison Burton	Wood Brothers Racing
Television in the United States
Network	NBC
Announcers	Leigh Diffey, Jeff Burton and Steve Letarte (booth) Jimmie Johnson and Dale Jarrett (NBC Peacock Pitbox)
Nielsen Ratings	(4.2 million)
Radio in the United States
Radio	MRN
Booth Announcers	Alex Hayden, Jeff Striegle and Rusty Wallace
Turn Announcers	Dave Moody (1 & 2), Mike Bagley (Backstretch) and Chris Wilner (3 & 4)

The 2024 Coke Zero Sugar 400 was a NASCAR Cup Series race held on August 24, 2024, at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida. Contested over 164 laps -- extended from 160 laps due to an overtime finish, on the 2.5-mile (4.0 km) superspeedway, it was the 25th race of the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season. Harrison Burton won the race, his first career win in the NASCAR Cup Series, as well as getting Wood Brothers Racing's 100th win. Kyle Busch finished 2nd, and Christopher Bell finished 3rd. Cody Ware and Ty Gibbs rounded out the top five, and Bubba Wallace, Parker Retzlaff, Brad Keselowski, Daniel Hemric, and Chris Buescher rounded out the top ten.

The race was held at Daytona International Speedway, a race track located in Daytona Beach, Florida, United States. Since its opening in 1959, the track has been the home of the Daytona 500, the most prestigious race in NASCAR. In addition to NASCAR, the track also hosts ARCA, AMA Superbike, USCC, SCCA, and Motocross races. It features multiple layouts including the primary 2.5 miles (4.0 km) high speed tri-oval, a 3.56 miles (5.73 km) sports car course, a 2.95 miles (4.75 km) motorcycle course, and a .25 miles (0.40 km) karting and motorcycle flat-track. The track's 180-acre (73 ha) infield includes the 29-acre (12 ha) Lake Lloyd, which has hosted powerboat racing. The speedway is owned and operated by International Speedway Corporation.

The track was built in 1959 by NASCAR founder William "Bill" France, Sr. to host racing held at the former Daytona Beach Road Course. His banked design permitted higher speeds and gave fans a better view of the cars. Lights were installed around the track in 1998 and today, it is the third-largest single lit outdoor sports facility. The speedway has been renovated three times, with the infield renovated in 2004 and the track repaved twice — in 1978 and in 2010. On January 22, 2013, the track unveiled artist depictions of a renovated speedway. On July 5 of that year, ground was broken for a project that would remove the backstretch seating and completely redevelop the frontstretch seating. The renovation to the speedway was done by Rossetti Architects. The project, named "Daytona Rising", was completed in January 2016, at a cost of US $400 million, placing emphasis on improving fan experience with five expanded and redesigned fan entrances (called "injectors") as well as wider and more comfortable seating with more restrooms and concession stands. After the renovations, the track's grandstands included 101,000 permanent seats with the ability to increase permanent seating to 125,000.^[9][10] The project was completed before the start of Speedweeks.

Prior to the race, NASCAR imposed a 75-point penalty on Denny Hamlin after Toyota self-reported an infraction from the May Darlington race. The 11 car, as was required, used the engine from the Bristol race winning car at Darlington, but the engine was taken to Toyota's California factory to be rebuilt instead of being taken to NASCAR for inspection. The team lost credit for the win for playoff seeding purposes and was assessed a ten playoff point penalty in addition to the 75 point penalty.^[11]

• (R) denotes rookie driver.
• (i) denotes driver who is ineligible for series driver points.

Michael McDowell scored the pole for the race with a time of 49.136 and a speed of 183.165 mph (294.775 km/h).^[12]

Pole sitter Michael McDowell led the first lap of the race as he and his teammate Todd Gilliland were side by side. The pack behind them would immediately be 3 by 3 by lap 3. McDowell would get in front of Gilliland by lap 5. On lap 6, Joey Logano would take the lead. On lap 7, rookie Josh Berry would take the lead. On lap 8, Brad Keselowski would take the lead. Berry would get in front for a brief moment the next lap before Keselowski took it back. On lap 12, Joey Logano would take the lead before Josh Berry would pass him the same lap and take the lead. On lap 13, Daytona 500 champ William Byron would take the lead before Berry took it back the next lap. On lap 15, Joey Logano would take the lead. Josh Berry attempted to take the lead on lap 17 but failed to get in front of Logano. Berry and Todd Gilliland tried on lap 18 but failed to get in front of Logano. On lap 20, Todd Gilliland would take the lead. On lap 22, Joey Logano would take the lead back. Gilliland would take it back on lap 24. On lap 27, Austin Cindric took the lead but got passed by Josh Berry on the same lap and Berry took the lead. On lap 30, Joey Logano took the lead. On laps 31 and 34, Brad Keselowski attempted to take the lead but failed to get in front of Logano. On the last lap of stage 1 on lap 35, Keselowski would take the lead but would get immeadietly passed by Josh Berry and Berry would win stage 1, his first career Cup Series stage win.

During pit stops, some fuel spilled out of Daniel Suárez's car. Suárez was stuck in his pit box trying not to hit Harrison Burton. Behind Suárez, Denny Hamlin ran into the fuel spill which ignited a fire and the fire trickled into the left rear of Suárez's car and caught the left rear diffuser on fire. The fire would not extinguish and would eventually blow up once Suárez attempted to entire back onto pit road catching the whole rear of his car on fire. Suárez got out and unhurt and was given a chance to continue to race even with the whole rear charred and a bit melted from the fire but chose not to and his race was over. Joey Logano won the race off of pit road and he led the field to the restart on lap 42. Chris Buescher battled for the lead with Logano for a few laps but could not get in front of him. On lap 46, Bubba Wallace took the lead. On lap 48, Chris Buescher took the lead. Chase Briscoe took the lead the next lap but was immeadietly passed by Bubba Wallace and Wallace would take the lead back. Briscoe got side by side with Wallace the next lap and led the next 2 laps before Bubba took it back on lap 52. On lap 60, the first of three big ones would occur down the backstretch bringing out the second caution of the race and the first for incident. Corey LaJoie was pushing Noah Gragson down the backstretch when LaJoie got Gragson at the wrong angle and pushed Gragson into Justin Haley which caused Gragson to spin and cause a chain reaction where he clipped John Hunter Nemechek causing Nemechek to spin and clip Ross Chastain causing Chastain to spin. The wreck collected a total of 19 cars. The wreck collected Ross Chastain, Martin Truex Jr., Ryan Preece, Alex Bowman, William Byron, Chase Elliott, Erik Jones, Tyler Reddick, Kyle Larson, Daniel Hemric, Corey LaJoie, Ryan Blaney, Austin Dillon, Denny Hamlin, Noah Gragson, Christopher Bell, John Hunter Nemechek, Ty Gibbs, and Austin Hill. Chris Buescher won the race off of pit road and he led the field to the restart on lap 67. On lap 73, Bubba Wallace took the lead. On lap 75, Todd Gilliland took the lead but was passed by Joey Logano and Logano took the lead. On lap 78, Austin Cindric got hit at the wrong angle by his teammate Ryan Blaney which caused Cindric to get sideways but Cindric saved it from spinning. At the same time, Kyle Larson took the lead. Logano would take it back the next lap but Larson would take it back the lap after. Logano would take it back again the next lap on lap 81. At the same time, three different drivers ran into issues. Martin Truex Jr. and Erik Jones would get flat tires all while Shane van Gisbergen's car all of a sudden blew up as thick smoke plumed out of his car signaling his engine expired and brought out the third caution of the race for fluid on the track. His right side tailpipe of his car also caught on fire but was not as big as Suárez's fire. It was SVG's first Cup Series race at Daytona and would unfortunately come to an end. The race would restart on lap 89 with 7 laps to go in the stage. On the restart, Kyle Larson took the lead. On lap 92, Brad Keselowski took the lead. On the last lap of stage 2 on lap 95, Joey Logano took the lead and would win the stage.

Michael McDowell won the race off of pit road and he led the field to the restart with 60 laps to go on lap 101. With 42 to go, Justin Haley took the lead in a move that even impressed six–time NBA champion and owner of 23XI Racing Michael Jordan. With 23 to go, John Hunter Nemechek attempted to take the lead but failed to get in front of Haley. Unfortunately for Nemechek, his chances of hopefully getting a win vanished when he got a big bump from Kyle Larson that sent him down into Justin Haley and Nemechek turned across Haley's nose bringing out the 5th caution of the race. Before the caution flew, Kyle Busch took the lead. Austin Cindric won the race off of pit road and he led the field to the restart with 16 laps to go. Brad Keselowski was attempting to take the lead but was penalized for beating Cindric to the restart box and had to come down pit road. Keselowski and his team argued Cindric spun the tires before eventually serving his penalty with 13 to go. At the same time, Michael McDowell was attempting to take the lead but failed to get in front of Cindric. With 10 to go, Michael McDowell would take the lead from Austin Cindric and moved up to the high lane.

But with 9 to go, McDowell would get turned by Cindric in turn 1. McDowell's car spun across the track, got t-boned in the driver's door by Joey Logano which lifted McDowell's car off the ground, and nearly hitting the catchfence in the process but did not flip as the second big one of the night took place taking out 15 cars and bringing out the 6th caution of the race. McDowell's near flip was almost similar to Tony Stewart's airborne wreck at Talladega Superspeedway in the Fall of 2012. Fortunately, McDowell would get out unhurt. The cars involved were Michael McDowell, Austin Cindric, Kyle Larson, Bubba Wallace, Joey Logano, Alex Bowman, Tyler Reddick, Justin Haley, William Byron, Ryan Blaney, Kyle Busch, Christopher Bell, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Chris Buescher, and Austin Hill. Austin Cindric would be the new leader and he led the field to the restart with 3 laps to go. With 2 to go, Josh Berry attempted to take the lead but got turned by William Byron going down the backstretch triggering the third and final big one taking out 8 cars and bringing out the 7th and final caution of the race in the biggest wreck of the night. Berry turned down into Cindric and the two spun to the inside where Berry's car lifted off the ground and flipped onto its roof. The car continued to slide on its roof and hit the inside wall head on while upside down causing the car to spin around like a top on its roof before it stopped on its roof. The red flag was issued that would last for 7 minutes as safety crews were over there quickly and were able to turn the car back upright and allowed Berry to crawl out uninjured in three minutes. Berry's wreck was almost identical to his teammate Ryan Preece in last year's race but this time Berry's car never began to barrel roll violently like Preece's due to the track getting rid of the infield grass on the backstretch to slow cars down when they spin. Berry became the fourth car in the top three Series of NASCAR to be involved in an airborne crash in the last week joining McDowell and both Kyle Sieg and Corey LaJoie the previous week at Michigan where both Sieg and LaJoie flipped over.^[13] The cars involved were Austin Cindric, Austin Dillon, Josh Berry, William Byron, Austin Hill, Todd Gilliland, Erik Jones, and Austin Hill. Up to this point, six out of the 40 cars were not involved in any incident. The wreck would also set up NASCAR overtime with Kyle Busch as the leader. Busch was looking for his first win of the season and extending his winning streak to 20 consecutive seasons with a win that dated back to his rookie year in 2005. On the restart, Busch would get to the lead with help from his former Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Christopher Bell. On the last lap, Busch had a big gap between him and the second place cars of Christopher Bell and Harrison Burton and allowed the pack to catch up but Busch held onto the lead down the backstretch. It looked like it was gonna be Busch's race to win. But all of a sudden, Harrison Burton shot out to the lead into turn 3 with a big push by Parker Retzlaff. Burton would be able to hold off and block a big charging Busch and Burton would win by just .047 seconds and Busch would finish in second. This would be Burton's first career victory in his 98th Cup Series start. The win would have a couple of special parts in it with one being Harrison's mother Kim in his pit box and his father Jeff in the booth calling the race and witnessing his son's win and being the 100th win for the Wood Brothers in their history as a team and their first since Ryan Blaney at Pocono in 2017. The win also locked Burton into the NASCAR playoffs as he was the 14th different winner of 2024 after he was 34th in points coming into the race, last among the full–time drivers.^[14] Christopher Bell, Cody Ware, and Ty Gibbs rounded out the top 5 while Bubba Wallace, Parker Retzlaff, Brad Keselowski, Daniel Hemric, and Chris Buescher rounded out the top 10. This would be Cody Ware's best career Cup Series finish, his first career top 5 finish of his Cup Series career, and his second top 10 in his Cup Series career after he finished in 6th at the same track two years ago. This was Parker Retzlaff's second career Cup Series race and his first career top 10 in his Cup Series career while almost tying a feat that was held by Trevor Bayne by winning in his second career Cup Series start as he was in second before falling back to 7th with no drafting help.

Stage One Laps: 35

Stage Two Laps: 60

Stage Three Laps: 65

• Lead changes: 40 among 16 different drivers
• Cautions/Laps: 7 for 34
• Red flags: 1 for 6 minutes and 52 seconds
• Time of race: 3 hours, 1 minute, and 40 seconds
• Average speed: 135.413 miles per hour (217.926 km/h)
• Margin of victory: 0.047 seconds

NBC Sports covered the race on the television side. Leigh Diffey, 2000 race winner Jeff Burton, and Steve Letarte called the race from the broadcast booth. Seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson and 1999 NASCAR Cup Series champion Dale Jarrett called from the NBC Peacock Pit Box on pit road. Dave Burns, Kim Coon, Parker Kligerman, and Marty Snider handled the pit road duties from pit lane.

MRN had the radio call for the race, which was also simulcast on Sirius XM NASCAR Radio. Alex Hayden, Jeff Striegle, and 1989 NASCAR Cup Series Champion Rusty Wallace called the action for MRN when the field raced thru the front straightaway. Dave Moody called the action for MRN from atop the Sunoco tower outside the exit of turn 2 when the field raced thru turns 1 & 2. Mike Bagley worked the Daytona Backstretch for MRN from a spotter's stand in the inside of the track. Chris Wilner worked the action for MRN when the field raced thru turns 3 & 4. Pit road was operated by lead pit reporter Steve Post, PRN Radio's Alan Cavanna & Brad Gillie & Jacklyn Drake.

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Tyler Reddick 823 1 2 Kyle Larson 806 (–17) 1 3 Chase Elliott 805 (–18) 4 Ryan Blaney 755 (–68) 5 William Byron 743 (–70) 1 6 Christopher Bell 737 (–86) 2 7 Brad Keselowski 719 (–104) 2 8 Denny Hamlin 712 (–111) 1 9 Martin Truex Jr. 695 (–128) 10 Ty Gibbs 676 (–147) 1 11 Chris Buescher 658 (–165) 1 12 Alex Bowman 648 (–175) 1 13 Bubba Wallace 637 (–186) 1 14 Ross Chastain 631 (–192) 15 Joey Logano 586 (–237) 1 16 Kyle Busch 552 (–271) Official driver's standings

Manufacturers' Championship standings Pos Manufacturer Points 1 Chevrolet 909 2 Toyota 895 (–14) 3 Ford 868 (–41) Note: Only the first 16 positions are included for the driver standings. . – Driver has clinched a position in the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs.