O’REILLY: Daniel Dye finishes last after big announcement, Playoff battle extends into the Bottom Five, and Ryan Sieg scores long-awaited first career win
by Brock Beard / LASTCAR.info Editor-in-Chief
SCREENSHOT: NASCAR on CW, @TheCW_Sports
Daniel Dye picked up the 3rd last-place finish of his NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series career in Friday’s Winn-Dixie 250 Powered by Coca-Cola at the Daytona International Speedway when his #32 Champion Containers Chevrolet was involved in a multi-car accident after he completed 27 of 105 laps.
The finish, which occurred in Dye’s 49th series start, was his first of the season and first in an O’Reilly Series race since May 31, 2025 at Nashville, 43 races ago. In the O’Reilly last-place rankings, it was the 14th for the #32, the 425th from a crash, and the 697th for Chevrolet. Across NASCAR’s top three series, it was the 47th for the #32, the 1,473rd from a crash, and the 2,062nd for Chevrolet.
Dye, himself a Florida native, has had a tale of two season in 2026. He began the year in the Truck Series as part of Kaulig RAM Racing’s multi-truck outfit, piloting the #10 entry through the first few races of the season. But disciplinary action following his comments during a livestream led to him resigning from the team, and raised questions about his future. Those questions were quickly answered with a series of yet more surprising announcements that have seen Dye and sponsor Champion Containers land multiple part-time rides in the Truck Series (with Young’s Motorsports), in ARCA (with Sigma Performance Services), and even in Cup (with Live Fast Motorsports).
Friday’s race would see Dye attempt his first O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race since the closing of AM Racing, where he briefly ran the team’s second car, and his first as driver of Jordan Anderson’s #32 Chevrolet. Up to this point, the #32 had run every race with seven different drivers, including Anderson himself. The team helped keep Rajah Caruth full-time since Cup regulars shared his JR Motorsports effort in the #88 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet. It also offered the series debuts of Tyler Ankrum, Andrew Patterson, and Carson Brown. Brown drove the car in the series’ most recent round in Iowa, and was soon after announced as Richard Childress Racing’s newest hire for 2027.
As it turned out, Dye’s deal wasn’t a one-off, but the start of the first multi-year contract ever entered by Anderson’s team, set to start in 2027. The announcement came within hours of the race itself, where Dye was one of 39 drivers set to contest the 38 available starting spots. His was the 25th car on track for qualifying, where he earned the 25th starting spot with a lap of 49.859 seconds (180.509mph). The lone team sent home was Mike Harmon Racing, whose returning driver Dawson Cram missed the cut by over a second in his #47 Fuku Energy Drink Chevrolet.
Taking the 38th and final starting spot was Andy Jankowiak, the surprise winner of the ARCA Menards Series race at Talladega this past-spring, who would make his NASCAR national series debut. He’d campaign the #39 for RSS Racing, the number driven by Ryan Sieg for most of his 423 previous O’Reilly Auto Parts Series starts. The number switch allowed Jankowiak to make the show on Owner Points driving the lone Ford in the field, a car sponsored by the Coastal Conservation Association of Florida which clocked in two-hundredths of a second slower than Cram. Sieg, piloting the #38 that had previously adorned the team’s “start-and-park” Ford over the summer, would run the number on his 12th-place starting Chevrolet, where Superior Integrity Services joined SciAps as sponsor.
Unapproved adjustments handed Jankowiak a redundant tail-end penalty prior to the start of the race – the same penalty handed to 16th-place Dean Thompson in his #26 Thompson Pipe Group Toyota. When the green flag dropped, Jankowiak had already moved up to the 37th spot, 3.838 seconds back of the lead and two-tenths back of 37th-place Josh Bilicki in the #07 Rita’s Chevrolet. Thompson was still catching up to the field, crossing the stripe a full 13.653 seconds back of the lead, nearly ten full seconds behind Jankowiak. Thompson must have crossed the stripe with a running start as, by the start of Lap 2, he had drawn within 10.112 seconds back of the lead and six seconds behind Jankowiak, who was himself struggling to keep up with Bilicki and the rest of the pack.
Next to join the last-place battle was 21st-place qualifier Caesar Bacarella, whose part-time #4 entry at Alpha Prime Racing was the lone “go-or-go-homer” in qualifying that ultimately bumped Cram out of the field. After some directions by NASCAR during the pace laps, Bacarella rolled off in 29th based on intervals, but his #4 Prime Bites Chevrolet started to lose ground on Lap 3, ultimately taking last from the trailing Jankowiak and Thompson. Bacarella had a tire going down, and his crew first called for a two-tire change. But when they found the left-rear tire was flat, they changed four instead, and sent him back out on Lap 4, now the only driver one lap down. The crew soon reported he’d run over debris that punctured the tire, so there wasn’t an issue with the car. Unfortunately, during his stop, one of his crew members came over the wall too soon, handing him a pass-through penalty. The team decided to serve it immediately, dropping them a second lap behind with the race still under green. By now, Jankowiak had also lost touch with the draft and was falling back toward Thompson, who Bacarella was also catching. As Bacarella drafted with Thompson, both quickly caught Jankowiak, who the crew said, “When you get to him, we’ve got to blow his doors off.” This was done on Lap 9, moving Thompson up to 36th and Jankowiak back to 37th.
On Lap 11, the now 36th-place Thompson was showing 21.793 seconds back of the lead with 37th-place Jankowiak now 24.691 seconds behind. For Bacarella, the hope was for a quick caution before the end of Stage 1, allowing them to take the wave-around, then get their other lap back at the end of the stage. But the stranded Jankowiak was losing so much ground that he was caught and lapped by the leaders on Lap 21, taking the “Lucky Dog” from Bacarella. This was also the same lap that Jesse Love pitted his #2 Whelen Chevrolet, which was overheating due to a large plastic bag that became stuck in his car’s grille. Love’s crew yanked the bag out of the hole and sent him back out, and Bacarella now set to work trying to catch Love’s draft. He did, but also lost touch with Thompson, who was now also dropping into the leader’s clutches. Between Laps 22 and 23, Thompson fell from six carlengths back of Bacarella to 15.
On Lap 26, with just four laps to go in Stage 1, Bacarella was on the same straightaway as 35th-place Love, who was 40.798 seconds back of the lead, and both were about five seconds ahead of 36th-place Thompson. Soon after, exiting Turn 4, the leaders caught Thompson, who held the low lane and went a lap down, taking the Lucky Dog from Jankowiak. The leaders now set their sights on Bacarella, threatening to put his #4 a third lap down and even further out of contention.
But on Lap 28, as the leaders entered Turn 3, Jeremy Clements’ #51 AllSouthElectric.com Chevrolet made contact with Dr. Patrick Staropoli’s #48 Syfovre Chevrolet, sending Staropoli hard into the outside wall. His car then skated down the track, clipping the right side of Sam Mayer’s #41 Starkey / CW NXT Heatwave Chevrolet, then also collected a passing Brent Crews in the #19 Yahoo! Toyota. As Staropoli’s car spun back to the apron, he was struck in the side by Dye’s #32, and Josh Williams spun his #92 Optum Chevrolet to avoid striking them both. Crews made it to pit road, crediting him with one more lap completed than Staropoli and Dye, whose cars had to be towed back to the garage.
By the time this caution fell, Bacarella had lost the Lucky Dog to Thompson, but he still dropped Dye to last on Lap 31 with Staropoli in 37th, followed a lap later by dropping Crews to 36th. Unfortunately for Bacarella, he never got his two laps back and finished in 31st. On Lap 34, someone came on Dye’s channel and said, “Guys, you got me on one? We’re done.” Soon after, as the crew started to gather their equipment on pit road, NASCAR declared Dye out of the race.
Bottom Five becomes battleground for final few Chase spots
With just over half the race to go, this regular season finale brought the battle for the final few spots in the Chase into focus. The 36th-place Crews entered the night 12th in points, tied with his 11th-place teammate William Sawalich as just one point to the good for the final spots in the Chase. As Crews’ team attempted to bolt in a new radiator, work was also being done on Staropoli’s battered #48. While ranked a distant 23rd in points, well out of Chase contention, Staropoli was just one lap behind Crews, meaning he could move ahead of Crews if he managed to get back on track at least two laps sooner. While there was no report of an arrangement between teams, passing Crews could potentially help fellow Chevrolet drivers Mayer, already damaged and just 19 points ahead of the bubble, or polesitter Rajah Caruth, who arrived 15 points below the cutline.
Those few positions became even more critical on Lap 45, when Sawalich’s #18 CW NXT Heatwave / SoundGear Toyota was also collected in another multi-car wreck. It was soon determined Sawalich’s car was too damaged to continue along with the involved Sammy Smith in JR Motorsports’ #8 Pilot Chevrolet. Both cars were credited with just 44 completed laps, each just 17 and 18 laps ahead of both Crews and Staropoli with 48 laps left to go on the ensuing restart.
On Lap 50, Crews’ team re-fired the engine, but still weren’t quite ready to return to the track. Instead, Staropoli returned around Lap 59, allowing him to climb past Crews into the 36th spot. By the time Crews returned around Lap 61, he was not only in 37th, but also two laps behind Staropoli. By the checkered flag, both had climbed past Sawalich and Smith, dropping them to 37th and 36th, but advanced no further. In fact, Crews lost even more ground to Staropoli due to an overheating issue that forced him to pit road at least one extra time. By the checkered flag, the two were 12 laps apart, but more than 20 laps behind 33rd-place Clements. And even though Caruth crashed out of 2nd while battling for the lead, Caruth beat Sawalich for the final spot by six points, five over 13th-place Sawalich, while Taylor Gray leapfrogged all three to take 11th.
Ryan Sieg finally breaks through with first career win
All these stories provided the backdrop for the eventual winner as Friday saw Ryan Sieg score his long-awaited first win of his NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series career in his 424th start across 13 years on the circuit. Just months after Sheldon Creed saw his own losing streak end in Atlanta, Sieg led only the final two laps, but methodically worked his way to the front. On the overtime finish, he inched his way to the lead, then deftly defended both lanes headed by Carson Kvapil and Austin Hill. The pack struggled to uncoil behind him, and Hill nearly spun across the line as Sieg reached the finish line first. Due to his number change with Jankowiak to ensure all three RSS Racing entries made the field, he didn’t win in his familiar #39, but in the #38, a number last taken to victory lane in the series by Jason Leffler back in 2007. Weaving his car on the apron before overtime, Sieg ran out of fuel after celebrating on the frontstretch. Congratulations to Sieg and the RSS Racing team on their tremendous win.
Further back, Harrison Burton earned an 8th-place finish in the #24 Klutch Vodka Toyota, scoring back-to-back top-ten finishes for the first time all season, and just this third all year. Josh Williams bounced back from his spin during the Staropoli accident to finish in 11th, his best finish of the season in his first start since Sears Point in June. Right behind 12th-place Garrett Smithley in SS-Green Light Racing’s #0 True Brands Chevrolet was Leland Honeyman, Jr., who once again battled among the Top Five in the closing stages and restarted alongside Sieg in overtime before his #71 DPR Construction Chevrolet – itself a team that hadn’t run since Sears Point – came home in 13th.
LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This marked the first time the #32 finished last in an O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race at Daytona since February 15, 1997, when Dale Jarrett’s #32 White Rain Ford was involved in a seven-car accident after 11 laps of the season opener, putting him last in a field of 45 starters.
*This marked Dye’s second series last-place finish at Daytona. The other, his first in the series, occurred on February 15, 2025, when he was involved in a multi-car crash after 5 laps while driving for Kaulig Racing.
THE BOTTOM FIVE
38) #32-Daniel Dye / 27 laps / crash
37) #18-William Sawalich / 44 laps / crash
36) #8-Sammy Smith / 44 laps / crash
35) #19-Brent Crews / 61 laps / running
34) #48-Patrick Staropoli / 73 laps / running
2026 LASTCAR O’REILLY AUTO PARTS SERIES OWNER’S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) RSS Racing (4)
2nd) DGM Racing x JIM, Joey Gase Motorsports with Scott Osteen, Jordan Anderson Racing Bommarito Autosport, Mike Harmon Racing, Young’s Motorsports (2)
3rd) AM Racing, Big Machine Racing, Haas Factory Team, Hendrick Motorsports, Hettinger Racing, JR Motorsports, Sam Hunt Racing, SS-Green Light Racing, Viking Motorsports (1)
2026 LASTCAR O’REILLY AUTO PARTS SERIES MANUFACTURER’S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Chevrolet (17)
2nd) Ford (5)
3rd) Toyota (1)
2026 LASTCAR O’REILLY AUTO PARTS SERIES DRIVER’S CHAMPIONSHIP
