NASCAR

3 Daytona 500 Drivers Who Could Benefit From Bad Weather In 2025

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By
Jared Turner
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Jared Turner Sports Editor

Jared Turner is a motorsports writer who has covered NASCAR for 20 years. He has interviewed over 20 NASCAR Hall of Famers and around 100 drivers, crew chiefs, and team owners, both past and present. He has also covered the sport for FOX Sports (where he was a two-time recipient of the FOX “X” Award for “Xtraordinary” job performance), NASCAR.com, Sporting News, NASCAR Pole Position Magazine, the SPEED network, and plenty of other online and print-only publications throughout his career. Notably, Jared has penned dozens of articles for NASCAR souvenir programs, including several featured prominently in Daytona 500 keepsakes. A Virginia Press Association award winner and former member of the National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA), Jared has racked up accolades both for his writing and his academic work. He studied both Communication and Psychology at Virginia Tech, where he was permanently enshrined in Phi Beta Kappa — the nation’s oldest and most prestigious academic honor society. Jared excels at feature writing and opinion writing, much of which stems from his dedication to all levels of racing.

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Published15 Feb 2025

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Chase Elliott rain

While forecasts have indicated that rain could put a damper on Sunday’s proceedings at Daytona International Speedway, wet weather isn’t always a nuisance.

That’s especially true if you’re AJ Allmendinger, Chase Elliott or Joey Logano. These three drivers, all on this weekend’s Daytona 500 starting grid, have enjoyed stellar runs in soggy conditions in fairly recent times.

Let’s do a quick review of each driver’s proclivity to excel in precipitation — which could bode well for their chances of doing the same in 2025.

AJ Allmendinger

AJ Allmendinger’s nickname is simply “the Dinger,’’ but you could just as easily call him the “Rain Man.’’ That’s because Allmendinger, more so than any other driver entered in Sunday’s Daytona 500, has a history of success in the rain.

How successful has Allmendinger been on soaking surfaces? Well, he has multiple wins on them.

One came in the NASCAR Xfinity Series’ Round of 12 elimination race at the 17-turn Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL in 2020. Another came in 2022 when the Xfinity Series competed for the first time at Portland International Speedway. On that day, Allmendinger scored the victory despite sliding off the road course more than once in his No. 16 car fielded by Kaulig Racing.

“It might be one of the craziest wins I’ve ever had,’’ said Allmendinger, who made his way to the front after starting last on the grid at Portland. “I was making so many mistakes, trying so hard.’’

Chase Elliott

Chase Elliott has accomplished a lot in his NASCAR Cup Series career, but one of the 2020 champion’s lesser known but nonetheless notable achievements took place in the rain. A ton of rain.

The occasion was the Cup Series’ inaugural race at Circuit of the Americas road course in Austin, Texas in 2021. Track conditions were so poor due to the weather that NASCAR had to call the race early, ahead of the scheduled distance.

“The visibility further back in the pack, which I restarted back there on multiple occasions, made it super-hard to see,” Elliott said. “That was really the case kind of all day long. I don’t really know how you fix that with the spray coming off the cars.”

That race at COTA stands as easily the rainiest in NASCAR Cup Series history.

“I think where it got to there at the end was just there were puddles of standing water,” Elliott said. “I think that was where NASCAR got to and they’re like, ‘Hey, this is not good.’

“Visibility is one thing, but when you hydroplane going however fast we’re going, that’s probably not good. I think that’s kind of the situation we found ourselves in there at the end.”

Joey Logano

The 2015 Daytona 500 winner and a three-time NASCAR Cup Series champion, Joey Logano obviously possesses unquestionable driving talent. On occasion, that talent has even been on display in the rain.

Consider, for the example, the day at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in 2009 when Logano — then a NASCAR Cup Series rookie — secured his first triumph at the sport’s highest level. An oft-forgotten factoid about that day is that it was a rainy one.

Specifically, Logano held on for the victory as drops fell from the sky and brought the race to a standstill on lap 273 of the scheduled 301 laps.

Nearly a decade later, in a 2018 NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Watkins Glen International, Logano was rain dancing once again. Only that time, wet weather didn’t cut the race the short.

Logano, with rain tires bolted on his No. 22 Team Penske Ford, led 31 of 82 laps on an absolutely drenched 2.45-mile road course on the way to an impressive victory.