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Aric Almirola held a stiff load from Joey Logano coming to the checkered flag to win the Bluegreen No. 1 holiday duel on Thursday night at the Daytona International Speedway.
Almirola, a No. 10 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford driver, led 52 of the 60 lap qualifying race for Sunday’s Daytona 500 (Sunday at 2:30 pm ET, FOX, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
RELATED: Results of Duel Race # 1
Joe Gibbs Racing’s Christopher Bell overtook Logano to reach the finish line to finish second, followed by Ryan Newman, Logano and Ryan Preece completing the top five.
Preece, at the 37th JTG Daugherty Racing Chevrolet, was already stuck in qualifying speed with the best time among Open cars. However, as the Open’s best finisher in the duel, that distinction was transferred to Austin Cindric. While Cindric, driver of the No. 33 Team Penske Ford, finished 16th and one lap behind after a penalty for speeding in the pits during the round of stops. But luckily for him, his time during the qualifying session of the Daytona 500 on Wednesday night was good enough to get to his first Daytona 500 at speed thanks to Preece’s finish, where he defeated the other open Ty Dillon car . Due to Preece’s fifth place and Cindric’s qualifying time, Dillon was sent home after leaving narrowly, finishing sixth at No. 96 Gaunt Brothers Racing Toyota.
With 29 laps to go, Daytona 500 polesitter Alex Bowman reported to Chevrolet’s # 48 team that he felt the engine was “exploding”, but after the team checked under the hood, he returned to the track.
The next is Duel Race # 2 (FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), which features all even-numbered riders from Wednesday night’s Daytona 500 qualifying speeds and will set the starting points of the outer track for Sunday’s race.