It was a roller coaster weekend for Daniel Dye, who announced a multi-year, full-time NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series deal with Jordan Anderson Racing on Friday. He was also pulling double duty, running both the NASCAR O’Reilly race and NASCAR Cup race.
Unfortunately, Dye’s NASCAR O’Reilly outing with JAR ended just 27 laps into the race as he slammed into an accident, finishing 38th (last).
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Dye’s Cup showing with Live Fast Motorsports lasted quite a bit longer, making it all the way to the final lap of the race. However, as he tried to avoid the backstretch pileup, he ended up making direct impact with the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. Larson had already crashed and was spinning out of control to the inside of the track.
Dye’s No. 78 climbed up the left-rear of Larson’s car, making contact with the window net and briefly resting on top of the Hendrick Chevrolet before slamming back onto the ground.
Larson wasn’t very rattled by the car parked in his window net. “I think I got hit in the window net, so that was interesting,” Larson said calmly.
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Dye actually drove the car back to the checkered flag, avoiding a DNF and finishing 29th. Larson finished 31st, the last car on the lead lap.
Here’s the best external look we have of Larson/Dye’s wild moment down the backstretch, via NBC’s coverage:
While Dye got off the ground, NASCAR thankfully avoided any rollover crashes during Saturday night’s race. 2026 is the first year of the Next Gen era where a car did not flip in either of the Daytona races on the schedule.
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Dye ended his four-race Cup deal with Live Fast Motorsports with finishes of 24th, 29th, 38th, and 29th.
Watch: Race Rewind: Preece wins his way into The Chase at Daytona
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