Mike Bianchi: Donald Trump revs up Daytona 500, William Byron wins it, but Mother Nature rains supreme

Mike Bianchi, Orlando Sentinel on Feb 16, 2025

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DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — That wasn’t rain that delayed the Daytona 500 on Sunday, it was Bill France’s tears.

Once upon a time, during NASCAR’s heyday, the Daytona 500 used to run without a hitch on a dry track and underneath the blue skies as race fans basked in what they famously called “Bill France Weather.”

The narrative back then was that Big Bill, the iron-fisted founder of NASCAR, had so much power and clout that the weather gods wouldn’t dare rain on his Great American Race.

Sadly, Big Bill died decades ago and NASCAR doesn’t have nearly the sway it once had as more than 150,000 race fans found out on Sunday when Bill France Weather yet again turned into Noah’s Arc Weather.

In the end, William Byron became only the fifth driver in history to win back-to-back Daytona 500s as he snuck his No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevy through a spate of late-race wrecks to pull out the overtime victory. It’s just too bad the checkered flag came nearly eight hours after the start of the race.

NASCAR, it seems, just can’t catch a break. With everything set up for an historic running of Sunday’s Daytona 500, the rains came after just 11 laps and caused 3 ½-hours of rain delays that turned Daytona International Speedway into Daytona International Slip ‘N Slide.

Donald Trump became the first president to ever attend multiple Daytona 500s when he arrived Sunday aboard Air Force One, which juiced up the crowd by buzzing Daytona International Speedway before it landed.

The president arrived on the track in his armored limo — “The Beast” — as the raucous crowd roared its approval. The limo took a lap leading the drivers around the track and then Trump released a presidential message, saying that the Daytona 500 brings together people from all walks of life in a “shared passion for speed, adrenaline and the thrill of the race.”

“From the roar of the engines on the track to the echo of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ soaring through the stands, the Daytona 500 is a timeless tribute to the speed, strength and unyielding spirit that make America great,” Trump added. “That spirit is what will fuel America’s Golden Age, and if we harness it, the future is truly ours.”

Unfortunately, by the time the race resumed after two separate rain delays, Trump was already gone — and was probably either practicing his short game in Mar-a-Lago, preparing a battle plan to invade Greenland or writing up a bill of sale for the purchase of Canada.

Seriously, would anybody have been surprised if the grandmarshal of the race — actor Anthony Mackie, who stars as Sam Wilson in the new “Captain America” movie — would have amended the traditional pre-race command with the declaration: “Gentlemen, start your windshield wipers!”

Simply put, this is just not what NASCAR needs at this time in the sport’s evolution. It’s no secret that NASCAR’s attendance and TV ratings pale in comparison to what they once were. At a time when the sport needs to be building major momentum, instead it loses velocity when its biggest race — the so-called “Super Bowl of Stock Car Racing”— continues to be disrupted by rain.

Before Sunday’s rain delay, two previous Daytona 500s (2020 and 2024) in five years were washed out completely on Sunday and weren’t completed until Monday. And that’s not even counting the 2021 race when no-name Michael McDowell took the checkered flag at a mostly empty track well after midnight after a six-hour rain delay.

Not exactly the Bill France Weather NASCAR had back in the day when there was a stretch of 37 races that never got rained on. Who knows. Maybe Big Bill’s deal with the devil has finally run out.

As Ken Willis, the longtime columnist of Daytona Beach News-Journal wrote after last year’s Sunday rainout: “Big Bill had poured truckloads of blood, sweat and tears into getting his big track built, but also handed over a bit of financial leverage to others. If that first Daytona 500 had been rained out, he told some confidants, he was done.”

Thankfully, things aren’t quite as dire these days. It’s not like NASCAR is on the verge of going bankrupt, but it certainly sucks momentum out of the sport when the season-opening Daytona 500 TV ratings continue to sag. Last year’s rain-delayed Daytona 500 averaged 5.96 million viewers — the second-least-watched edition of the race ever, ahead of just the 2021 rain-delayed race.

Even NASCAR’s plan to welcome in top drivers of other racing disciplines got all wet this week when Brazil’s Helio Castroneves, a four-time Indianapolis 500 champion, flopped miserably. NASCAR, hoping to get more international eyeballs on its sport, gave Castroneves an exemption into the race without having to qualify – a decision that didn’t sit well with some existing NASCAR drivers. After wrecking in three different races this week, Castroneves finally ended up Sunday where he belonged all along on Sunday — out of the race after crashing on Lap 70.

When it rains, it pours.

President Trump did his part to rev up Sunday’s Daytona 500.

William Byron did his part by winning it — again.

But sadly, in the end, Big Bill’s tears rained supreme.