Daytona 25

 William Byron won the Daytona 500 yesterday in the 24 car Jeff Gordon made iconic, and it was a great day for Hendrick Motorsports and Chevrolet because Byron and runnerup Alex Bowman gave Hendrick a 1-2 finish, and four of the top five finishers were Chevies.

I know this because I watched it. 

Well, OK. I watched the last ten laps of it.

Which is all you really needed to watch, because it was Daytona and a plate race and plate races are nothing but a three-hour-long freight train until the last ten laps, when everyone commences getting crazy.

And so, right on cue, there was a huge demolition derby in those last ten laps that collected 23 cars and red-flagged the race for 15 minutes. After that there were four laps to run and if you thought there wasn't going to be one final wreck, you've never watched the Daytona 500.

Of course there was one final wreck. It happened precisely as Byron crossed the line to begin the 200th and final lap, and thus the race finished under yellow. Had everyone started running into each other just a few more yards back, there would have been a green-white-checker finish -- also a Daytona staple.

So good for William Byron, who's only 26 and got his start playing racing video games. And good for all of us who adhered to the Daytona Principle, which says you can safely miss 475 of its 500 miles because everything that matters happens in the last 25 miles.

The Daytona 25.

Now that's your Great American Race, by golly.