Daytona 500 Duels: Tyler Reddick and Christopher Bell win as Jimmie Johnson sneaks into the race

Jimmie Johnson made the Daytona 500 with a last-lap pass as Tyler Reddick and Christopher Bell won the Duel qualifying races on Thursday night.

Johnson was on the outside looking in with a lap to go in the first Duel race, but got around JJ Yeley heading to the finish line after Yeley moved to the outside to avoid cars that had checked up ahead of him. Johnson stayed in line behind Ross Chastain and used a push from Martin Truex Jr. to sneak past Yeley at the checkered flag.

The seven-time Cup Series champion is running a part-time schedule for the second consecutive season. Since his No. 84 car isn’t full-time, he entered the Daytona 500 as one of six drivers competing for four open spots. Since Johnson had just the third-best qualifying time among non-chartered cars during Wednesday night’s pole qualifying, he needed to finish ahead of Yeley to guarantee himself into the race.

The late drama came after Johnson was caught up in a wreck that included Austin Dillon and Daniel Hemric. Johnson had minimal damage in the incident — Hemric got the worst of it — but the crash meant Johnson lost his comfortable advantage over Yeley as the laps wound down in the 60-lap race.

Reddick won the first Duel race after he also escaped a near-incident. Reddick made contact with Ty Gibbs as cars made their pit stops during the race and was forced to save his car from spinning out and potentially collecting others in a crash.

The second Duel was marred by a massive crash late in the race. Ten cars were involved after William Byron’s late block of Ryan Blaney set up a crash after Brad Keselowski pushed Kyle Busch into Byron with less than 15 laps to go.

Bell won the race on the final lap after getting around a block from his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Hamlin. Bell then had to hold off a late potential charge by Austin Cindric after he passed Harrison Burton for second entering Turn 3.

Kaz Grala got the final spot in the 500 in the second Duel race as he got past BJ McLeod for the transfer spot.

Toyotas look strong

Both Reddick and Bell drive Toyotas as the manufacturer's race pace looked great Thursday night.

The nine Toyota cars entered in the race weren't the fastest bunch in single-car qualifying Wednesday night, but that's not that big of a deal. How your car races in the draft with other cars around it is much more important than raw pace alone on the track during the Daytona 500. Six of those nine Toyota cars are starting inside the top 15 in Sunday's race.

A rain-delayed Daytona 500?

Make sure to check the weather forecast before you sit down to watch the Daytona 500 on Sunday. A storm system is set to impact Florida on Saturday and Sunday. Friday night's Truck Series race should go on as scheduled, but Saturday's ARCA and Xfinity Series races are in danger of being postponed along with Sunday's Daytona 500.

As of now, both Saturday and Sunday feature an 80% chance of rain for most of each day with the weather clearing up Monday.

Daytona 500 starting lineup

1. Joey Logano

2. Michael McDowell

3. Tyler Reddick

4. Christopher Bell

5. Chase Elliott

6. Austin Cindric

7. Alex Bowman

8. Denny Hamlin

9. Carson Hocevar

10. John Hunter Nemechek

11. Erik Jones

12. Harrison Burton

13. Daniel Suarez

14. Zane Smith

15. Ty Gibbs

16. Brad Keselowski

17. Kyle Larson

18. William Byron

19. Chris Buescher

20. Chase Briscoe

21. Ross Chastain

22. Justin Haley

23. Jimmie Johnson

24. Bubba Wallace

25. Ryan Preece

26. Kaz Grala

27. Martin Truex Jr.

28. AJ Allmendinger

29. Corey LaJoie

30. Josh Berry

31. Todd Gilliland

32. Ryan Blaney

33. Austin Dillon

34. Kyle Busch

35. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

36. Riley Herbst

37. Daniel Hemric

38. Noah Gragson

39. Anthony Alfredo

40. David Ragan