The silence of the first stage was deafening, but Daytona bared its teeth in stage 2. The most prestigious superspeedway came back to NASCAR’s Cup schedule for a second time with a bang. The first wreck involved 16 drivers spun off by Corey LaJoie. Denny Hamlin escaped that melee and fired shots at him.

However, another wreck happened soon after and was more bone-chilling. Michael McDowell was in the middle of it and stirred memories of last year.

Michael McDowell chills with a flipping wreck

The drafting track has already made some drivers sob, and Michael McDowell was the prey with nine laps to go. The Front Row Motorsports driver started on the pole with his teammate Todd Gilliland. He posted a lap of 183.165 MPH to win his fourth pole of the 2024 season. He lingered around the front row and maintained the lead solidly for several laps. But when bad luck struck, it came with a resounding crash.

Michael McDowell was leading and looked poised to grab his second Daytona victory after the 2021 win at the Daytona 500. But the Coke Zero Sugar 400 this year had different plans for him. Second-running Ryan Blaney contacted the No. 34’s rear coming out of turn 2. Then McDowell lost control of his wheel, flipped to the side, and hit Joey Logano’s No. 22 Ford. Both the Fords maintained that right-angle posture, as Logano’s car ate away at McDowell’s side in a scary wreck.

Finally, Michael McDowell slumped back on four wheels and smacked the wall. A total of 14 cars were involved in this melee. McDowell’s fiery crash reminded people of Ryan Preece’s scary debacle last year. In the August Daytona race in 2023, Preece had undertaken a dozen flips on the grassy stretch before finally landing on his feet. Thankfully, McDowell’s situation was not as nail-biting as his.

However, the subsequent wreck engulfing Josh Berry’s No. 4 Ford was a more intense spine-chiller. It seemed like an unlucky day for Ford in general.

Berry checks off the Daytona tradition

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When it looked like Michael McDowell would mimic Ryan Preece’s fortune last year, we had another winner. Josh Berry was snuggling among the leaders – Kyle Busch, Austin Cindric, and others – when Cindric nudged him from the back. With two laps to go, both drivers spun out onto the backstretch apron. But the No. 4 Ford went for a dance – the 3400Ib race car flipped on its roof and slid until it slammed against the wall, throwing out sparks.

The emergency trucks surrounded Berry’s car, and everyone heaved a sigh of relief as he came out okay. The Stewart-Haas Racing driver even talked about the harrowing experience, which closely resembled Preece’s wreck. “Unfortunately, we’re seeing a lot of these blow-overs lately … obviously paving that section helped keep me from really barrel rolling. As bad as it looked, they made a big improvement over what Ryan had last year. I just can’t believe we flipped two of our Stewart-Haas cars in a row like that, but it was just a great job by Rodney and this whole 4 team. We were in contention all night and had a hell of a race car and had a shot at it.”

So the Coke Zero Sugar 400 continued its trend of featuring some of the most spine-chilling wrecks. Thankfully, at the end of the day, nobody was seriously hurt.