Joey Logano and Chase Elliott collect Duel victories, lead the points heading into the Daytona 500

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Joey Logano and Chase Elliott outduels their competition to win their respective Duel at Daytona races. The two now lead the points and start in the second row heading into the 68th annual Daytona 500

Logano picked up his fourth career duel win while Elliott picked up his third duel win and ten points each.

With the return of the Chase points system, a 10-point swing can carry major weight in the closing races of the regular season and could ultimately decide who qualifies.

The rest of the top ten earn descending points. Nine for second down to one for tenth with an additional bonus point awarded for the fastest lap in each event.

The Daytona 500 is scheduled for Sunday, Feb 15th at 2:30 p.m EST (FOX, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

NASCAR Cup Series points standings entering the Daytona 500

1. Joey Logano: 10 Points
2. Chase Elliott: 10
3. Ryan Blaney: 9
4. Carson Hocevar: 9
5. Austin Dillon: 8
6. Kyle Larson: 8
7. John Hunter Nemechek: 7
8. Michael McDowell: 7
9. Brad Keselowski: 6
10. Christopher Bell: 6
11. Josh Berry: 6
12. Shane van Gisbergen: 5
13. Casey Mears: 4
14. Ricky Stenhouse JR.: 4
15. Daniel Suarez: 3
16. Todd Gilliland: 3
17. Ryan Preece: 3
18. Ty Gibbs: 2
19. Alex Bowman: 1
20. Denny Hamlin: 1

No other drivers has points while 16th is the Chase cutoff.

Duel 1 Recap and Results

Eight laps is all it took for all four RFK Racing cars to gather nose to tail on the top line for control of the race.

Ryan Preece led 35 straight laps before diving to pit road to trigger the only green-flag pit cycle.

Though the green-flag portion of the pit cycle ended quickly.

Casey Mears missed his braking point entering pit road, spun into Noah Gragson, and brought out the caution after flat-spotting his tires while stranded in the tri-oval infield.

From that event, Ryan Preece relinquished the lead down to sixth during the stop but the RFK Racing camp still held four of the top six spots on the restart. Meanwhile, Joey Logano’s crew executed his fuel-only pit stop flawlessly which sent him to the lead.

The duel restarted on lap 50 with the other open-car duelists Chandler Smith and Corey LaJoie side by side and their sights set on transfer.

With six to go, Brad Keselowski shuffled Smith behind his open-car teammate, trading paint and raising the intensity.

Two laps later, on the backstretch, Bubba Wallace carried too much momentum on the bottom and took a bad push from Austin Dillon, shooting him into the grass and triggering a wreck that eliminated William Byron and Chris Buescher while damaging Chandler Smith.

Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski led the green-white-checkered restart. The field came around to collect the white flag but did not come around green for the finish.

The open-car drama climaxed heading into turn three when a push from Daniel Suarez on Corey LaJoie goes wrong sending LaJoie up into the outside wall.

Casey Mears split the wreck and drilled Suarez, but was able to get back to the finish line locking Garage 66 into the Daytona 500.

LaJoie, Ross Chastain, and AJ Allmendinger failed to reach the line. Logano took the checkered flag and the early points lead with 10 bonus points.

Duel 1 Results:

1. Joey Logano
2. Ryan Blaney
3. Austin Dillon
4. John Hunter Nemechek
5. Brad Keselowski
6. Shane van Gisbergen
7. Casey Mears – qualified into the Daytona 500
8. Daniel Suarez
9. Ryan Preece
10. Alex Bowman
11. Noah Gragson
12. Cole Custer
13. Bubba Wallace
14. Corey Heim
15. Jimmie Johnson
16. Chandler Smith – going home
17. Cody Ware
18. Kyle Busch
19. Corey LaJoie -DNF & going home
20. AJ Allmendinger -DNF
21. Ross Chastain -DNF
22. William Byron – DNF
23. Chris Buescher – DNF

Duel 2 Recap and Results

The second duel started with teammates Chase Briscoe and Denny Hamlin taking the point while the field expanded to three abreast behind.

Much like the first Duel, the second one hit the two-thirds mark with the same notes of getting up to grips with the high-banks. This resulted in a clam race through two-thirds distance before the intensity rose near the lone pit cycle.

On lap 45, Briscoe pitted after leading 38 laps but needed extra fuel and nearly lost the draft. Two laps later, rookie Connor Zilisch surrendered the lead to pit alone, nearly falling off sequence as well.

Then, the largest group came down on lap 48.

However, after blending onto the track Josh Berry decided to pull in front of the charging Erik Jones which vastly changed the complexity of the final ten laps.

Chase Elliott took the lead with eight to go and guided Hocevar, Larson, McDowell, and Stenhouse single-file to the checkered in a caution-free finish.

Lastly, while not as dramatic as the first duel, the open entry of Anthony Alfredo managed to outpace BJ McLeod and JJ Yeley to advance to the Daytona 500.

Unfortunately for Alfredo, he was disqualified during post-race inspection due to a lose air hose and an unproperly attached driver air hose during the race. Therefore, BJ McLeod earned the final open entrance spot in the Daytona 500.

Duel 2 Results:

1. Chase Elliott
2. Carson Hocevar
3. Kyle Larson
4. Michael McDowell
5. Christopher Bell
6. Josh Berry
7. Ricky Stenhouse JR.
8. Todd Gilliland
9. Ty Gibbs
10. Denny Hamlin
11. Erik Jones
12. Tyler Reddick
13. Riley Herbst
14. Zane Smith
15. Connor Zilisch
16. Ty Dillon
17. Austin Cindric
18. BJ McLeod – qualified into the Daytona 500
19. Chase Briscoe
20. Justin Allgaier – qualified in on speed
21. JJ Yeley – going home
22. Anthony Alfredo – going home