Sunday marked the 61st running of the Daytona 500 — by far the most prestigious race on the NASCAR calendar — and Denny Hamlin held off teammate Kyle Busch to win “The Great American Race” for the second time in his career.
Crossing the finish line in fifth place was Michael McDowell in his No. 34 Ford. It marked the best finish of McDowell’s career in the Daytona 500; he previously finished in ninth place in 2013 and 2018. Historically, McDowell has performed well at Daytona International Speedway, as six of his seven top-10 finishes in the NASCAR Cup Series have happened at Daytona.
McDowell is also a follower of Christ, and he is not afraid to share his faith publicly.
“I’m passionate about people coming to know Christ,” McDowell said recently on the Sports Spectrum Podcast. “Part of that is just a realization that you’re either alive in Christ or you’re dead. There’s no in-between.”
McDowell was not always a passionate evangelist. He didn’t grow up in the church, and when he first encountered Christianity, it was so unlike anything he’d ever heard before.
Some of McDowell’s mentors in racing first introduced him to the faith. The question they posed about the final destination of his soul lingered in McDowell’s mind for weeks.
Then came the event that McDowell is perhaps best known for: a horrific accident in qualifying at the 2008 Samsung 500. His car slammed against the wall before barrel-rolling to a stop. Amazingly, McDowell walked away from the wreckage unscathed and went on to race that weekend. His brush with death garnered national attention, from the sports world and the entertainment world alike.
Through it all, God revealed to McDowell the true power of the racing platform he’d been given.
“Once I fully surrendered, I realized that I love speaking and I love talking with people,” he said, “and if I’m going to do that, then I need to be doing it, 1) to glorify God, and 2) to lead people to Christ.”
God has watched over much in McDowell’s life, from car crashes to top-20 finishes and everything in between. He can’t help but look at the lost world around him and share with others the power and love and mercy of God.
“That area between your feet,” McDowell said, “that’s your mission field.”
McDowell hits the track again Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway, where he’ll look to earn his first ever win on stock car racing’s most competitive level.
THIS IS THE SPORTS SPECTRUM PODCAST WITH MATT FORTE & JASON ROMANO, FEATURING ANTHONY ALFREDO
Anthony Alfredo is the driver of the No. 42 Chevrolet car with Young’s Motorsports on the NASCAR Cup Series circuit. He made his NASCAR debut at the 2021 Daytona 500 and has two top-10 finishes in his young career.
Anthony brought in 31 endorsement deals in 2023, the most of any NASCAR driver, and is featured in the new book, “Sundays at the Track: Inspiring True Stories of Faith, Leadership and Determination from the World of NASCAR.”
Today on the podcast, Anthony Alfredo shares his testimony of coming to faith in Christ, being baptized at Daytona Beach in 2023, his pre-race prayer ritual, and the importance of his sponsors aligning with his moral convictions.
William Byron celebrates winning the NASCAR Daytona 500, Feb. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Terry Renna)
The drama that is the Daytona 500 once again did not disappoint. And emerging from the chaos for a second straight year was William Byron, driving the No. 24 Chevrolet to victory in the “Great American Race.”
The win Sunday in NASCAR’s famed, season-opening race makes Byron just the fifth driver to ever win back-to-back Daytona 500s, and the 27-year-old becomes the youngest driver to claim multiple Daytona 500 crowns.
“It’s obviously really special,” Byron said after the race. “It’s an amazing race, and obviously a lot of crazy racing out there tonight and just a lot of pushing and shoving.”
With one lap left in overtime, Byron sat in ninth place. But as he worked his way up near the wall, the leaders in front of him jockeyed for position — and crashed each other out of the race. Byron’s fortuitous position squeaked him just by a skidding Denny Hamlin in the No. 11 car, and a clear path to the finish line emerged.
The race was just four laps from completion in regulation when a wreck involving 10 cars forced it to overtime. An earlier crash on Lap 186 also took out some key contenders, and the drivers also endured two weather delays that totaled more than 3.5 hours.
“Yeah, obviously some good fortune, but just trusted my instincts on the last lap there,” Byron said afterward. “I felt like they were getting squirrelly on the bottom, and I was honestly going to go third (top) lane regardless because I was probably sixth coming down the back.
“Just obviously fortunate that it worked out in our favor. But just really proud of this team. … I can’t stress that enough. I’m just super thankful for this group and everything that they do in the offseason to get prepared. We plan on trying to win a lot of races this year, so we’re not going to stop here.”
As he’s developed into one of the top NASCAR drivers in the world, Byron has also leaned on his faith in Jesus. One of his longtime sponsors is Liberty University, a large private evangelical Christian university in Lynchburg, Virginia, and the school’s logo is featured on Byron’s car and racing jacket. The school itself has impacted his life, as the Charlotte native is in the process of earning his degree in strategic communication through Liberty’s extensive online program. More importantly, he credits his racing partnership with the school for aiding him in his spiritual growth.
“I grew up Christian with my family being Christians and taking me to church. That was a big part of my childhood,” Byron said in a July 2019 episode of the Sports Spectrum Podcast. “But I would say really when I started racing, in my second year racing, Liberty became a sponsor of mine and that’s really when I was kind of thrust into something in the spotlight of racing.
“But I realized what was really important, and so I guess that connection (with Liberty) allowed me to further that and pursue that with people that were around me at the time. That was pretty special to me and kind of kept me grounded and helped me understand what’s really important in my life.”
In October, Byron — who describes himself as a “Follower of Christ” on social media — was a guest at one of Liberty’s convocation services and talked about discovering God’s purpose for him.
“Why do you wake up in the morning? What motivates you to do what you do?” Byron said. “How does your faith incorporate into that and what do you use from your faith to motivate you? I knew [racing] was my calling. I knew it was what I wanted to do and then there were a lot of things that lined up for me to do it. Nothing else in my life has had that effect, and I owe a lot of that to God and His purpose for me.
“… Our sport is very volatile with the way that you compete. You don’t win a lot, so there’s a lot of bad days and a lot of days that you really have to figure out what your purpose is besides just racing the car.”
He also shared that he raced with Ephesians 3:20 on his car’s dashboard for many years. The verse reads, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.” Byron said he has seen God fulfill that promise through racing.
“I grew up in Sunday School, going to a Presbyterian church almost every Sunday, but really my faith took off when I started racing,” he said. “I got out on my own and it was kind of my faith journey. God was always guiding my decisions and whether I was winning or losing races, I always had the grace of God be able to go through experiences and learn from it.”
One thing he learned after winning Daytona last year, Bryon said Sunday, was that he looked ahead to the rest of the season too quickly. NASCAR’s biggest race is also its first race, so there’s still a long season to come after this big win.
“I think this year, I’ll enjoy this race and then we’ll get down the road and get focused on the year,” Bryon said.
The next race on the NASCAR schedule is the Ambetter Health 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Sunday at 3 p.m. ET.
THIS IS THE GET IN THE GAME PODCAST
WITH SCOTT LINEBRINK
Aric Almirola is a NASCAR driver currently racing part-time with Joe Gibbs Racing. Following in the footsteps of his grandfather, dirt sprint-car driver Sam Rodriguez, Almirola races in the NASCAR Xfinity Series as well as NASCAR’s Truck Series.
His first career win came in the 2014 Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway. He won the Foxwoods Resort Casino 301 in 2021, and in 2022 had seven top-10 finishes, including a fifth-place result at the Daytona 500. Almirola began racing nationally at the age of 14 and made his NASCAR debut in the Sun Belt Weekly Racing Division in 2002. He finished second in the Rookie of the Year standings that year.
Today on the podcast, Scott Linebrink talks to Aric Almirola about his walk with Jesus, serving and giving back, and how racing has tested his faith.
Crazy to reflect and see where God has brought me in my career. I made my first Xfinity series start at Richmond for @joegibbsracing in 2006. Now I get to go back 18 years later with @hegetsus on the car on Easter weekend to share about Jesus love for us. Amazing and humbling. pic.twitter.com/qhAeyDVGxw
THIS IS THE SPORTS SPECTRUM PODCAST
WITH JASON ROMANO, FEATURING HOWIE DISAVINO III
Howie DiSavino III is a NASCAR driver who in 2022 reached the second-highest division of stock car racing, the NASCAR Xfinity Series. In the summer of 2019, DiSavino made his ARCA Menards Series debut (a semi-pro league for stock car racing) and two years after that he was racing in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. He took 2023 off but plans to return to racing in 2024.
Today on the podcast, we talk to Howie DiSavino III about his racing journey, growing up on a farm in Virginia, losing his mom to cancer in 2021, battling anger, and growing in his faith after that tragic loss.
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