"I think we will win" - Underdog Ricky Stenhouse Jr was confident of triumphing in Daytona 500 before the race had even begun

Ricky Stenhouse Jr won in double overtime Sunday in the longest Daytona 500 race in history, kicking off the 75th NASCAR season. An incident with three laps to go caused a yellow, pushing the race into overtime and eventually extending it to a Daytona 500 record 212-lap run. The race was supposed to last 200 laps.

On the first overtime restart, a crash involving at least 10 cars caused the race to proceed to a second overtime. Ricky Stenhouse Jr had a brief lead over Joey Logano on the penultimate lap of double overtime before a multiple-car collision, involving Kyle Larson's car, brought out the yellow flag.

Stenhouse Jr was the leader at the time of the yellow flag, according to NASCAR officials, and Logano finished second.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr's win is his third of the season and his first since July 1, 2017. The 35-year-old's previous best finish at the 'Great American Race' was ninth. It was tense minutes before a historic celebration: the first Daytona 500-winning team co-owned by a black man and a woman.

Before the race, all the drivers were asked why they would win Daytona 500 and Ricky Stenshouse Jr was confident that he would emerge as the victor.

"I think we will win the Daytona 500 because we were prepared and we put ourselves in really good position in 2022 with this car and we were really leading the last, I don't know how many laps, towards the end until the caution came out..."

Ricky Stenhouse Jr's only other victories came in 2017, at Talladega and the Daytona 500. His 199-race winless skid was the fourth longest in Cup Series history. Now, the 35-year-old has won the Daytona 500 for the second time.

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Ricky Stenhouse Jr "worked really hard" to win the 2023 Daytona 500

Ricky Stenhouse Jr benefited significantly from an unexpected source to win NASCAR's most prestigious race. That too, after a spectacular crash halted the field in the second overtime.

On Lap 212, Stenhouse Jr and reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion Joey Logano were vying for the lead. At that time, Aric Almirola's Ford sent Travis Pastrana's Toyota spinning at Turn 2. Kyle Larson's Chevrolet was clipped by Pastrana's Camry and sent soaring into the outside wall.

Tires screamed, sparks flew, and smoke billowed as the cars of reigning race winner Austin Cindric, Brad Keselowski, Kyle Busch, AJ Allmendinger, Denny Hamlin, Bubba Wallace, and Ryan Blaney collided.

As NASCAR triggered the yellow lights, Ricky Stenhouse Jr's No. 47 JTG Daugherty Chevy pulled ahead of Logano's Ford. This was courtesy a timely nudge from the third-place finishing Toyota of Christopher Bell, who, like Stenhouse Jr, came from a dirt-track background.

“Man, this is unbelievable. This was the site of my last win back in 2017. We’ve worked really hard. We had a couple shots last year to get a win and fell short. It was a tough season, but, man, we got it done. Daytona 500!” he said on his team radio.

That was an incredible triumph, and the ideal way to commemorate NASCAR's 75th anniversary. Ricky Stenhouse Jr is the first driver from a single-car team to win the Great American Race since Wood Brothers Racing's Trevor Bayne in 2011.