The Biggest Winners and Losers From the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona

Ryan Preece stole the final Chase position, Daniel Suárez nearly stole the victory and Shane van Gisbergen watched a 31-point advantage disappear. Daytona changed a lot of seasons in one night.

Daytona doesn't care about your plans. That's probably the easiest way to describe what happened in the Coke Zero Sugar 400. Some drivers arrived simply looking for momentum before The Chase. Others needed everything to go right just to keep their championship hopes alive. Then the green flag dropped, Daytona started doing Daytona things, and by the end of overtime the entire complexion of the postseason had changed.

There is no bigger winner than Ryan Preece. He arrived 31 points behind Shane van Gisbergen for the final position in The Chase, got caught in an incident at the end of Stage 1 while SVG won the stage and somehow responded by driving all the way back into contention. Preece finished second in Stage 2 and ultimately found himself exactly where he needed to be when the race went to overtime. His first points-paying Cup victory erased the deficit and gave him the final Chase position by 17 points. There really isn't a more dramatic way to race your way into the postseason.

Daniel Suárez deserves nearly as much attention for what he accomplished. Starting 23rd, Suárez worked his way through the Daytona madness and ended the night second, just 0.024 seconds behind Preece when NASCAR determined the running order at the final caution. He didn't get the trophy, but moving from 23rd to second in the regular-season finale is exactly the kind of performance a team wants before beginning a championship run.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was another driver who quietly put together an excellent night. Starting 32nd at Daytona can either become an opportunity or a disaster very quickly. Stenhouse made it an opportunity, gaining 27 positions and finishing fifth. Michael McDowell did what we've come to expect from him at superspeedways by putting himself in position late and bringing home a fourth-place finish, while Austin Dillon deserves some credit for climbing from 29th to seventh. None of those drivers got the attention Preece received, but all of them left Daytona with something worth feeling good about.

Then there was the other side of the equation.

Nobody left Daytona feeling the sting more than SVG. Van Gisbergen entered the race with a 31-point cushion over Preece and made that situation look even better when he won Stage 1 while Preece went spinning through the grass. For a moment, SVG seemed to have one hand on the final Chase spot. But the No. 60 refused to disappear, and a late caution created a fuel dilemma for the No. 97 team. SVG came to pit road, restarted 27th and was caught in the final-lap chaos. He finished 28th and watched Preece turn a 31-point deficit into a 17-point advantage.

That's not necessarily a case of SVG choking away the position, either. His team faced a legitimate fuel concern and made the decision they believed gave them the best chance to reach the finish. Had the race unfolded differently, it could have worked. That's what makes Daytona so brutal. Sometimes you make a completely reasonable decision and somebody else wins the damn race.

Zane Smith may have an argument for the most painful finish of anybody outside SVG. Smith was leading on the final lap. Not 20 laps to go. Not five. The final lap. Contact with Tyler Reddick sent Smith spinning and triggered the race-ending chaos. NASCAR ultimately credited him with a 32nd-place finish. Leading the final lap at Daytona and finishing 32nd might be the most Daytona statistic imaginable.

Ryan Blaney's final result didn't reflect the race he ran either. Blaney won Stage 2 and spent portions of the night looking like a legitimate threat to win, only to get collected in the final-lap wreck and finish 33rd. The stage points help, and Blaney was already safely positioned for The Chase, but it's still a rough way to finish a night when the car was capable of so much more.

Kyle Larson also had one of those evenings where trouble seemed to keep finding him. He was involved in the incident with Buescher and Preece at the end of Stage 1, continued racing and then got swept into more trouble later. He ultimately finished 31st. Chris Buescher had an even worse result, ending the night 40th after completing 151 laps. For two drivers capable of running near the front, those are results they'd rather leave in Daytona.

That's ultimately what makes labeling winners and losers after a superspeedway race so difficult. A driver's finishing position doesn't always tell you how well they actually raced. Smith was leading on the final lap and finished 32nd. Blaney won a stage and finished 33rd. SVG won the other stage and finished 28th. Meanwhile, Stenhouse started 32nd and drove away with a top five.

You can spend the entire week studying statistics, calculating points and predicting how the race should unfold.

Then they drop the green flag at Daytona.

And Daytona doesn't care.