was partially on the sand and also on the highway near the beach. Earlier events featured races with stock cars. A stock car race was held at Daytona International Speedway in 1959. It was the second 500-mile NASCAR race, following the annual Southern 500, and has been held every year since. By 1961, it began to be referred to as the Daytona 500, by which it is still commonly known. Daytona International Speedway is long and a 500-mile race requires 200 laps to complete. However, the race was considered official after halfway (100 laps/250 miles) had been completed from 1959 to 2016. From 2017 to 2019, the race was considered official after the conclusion of Stage 2 (120 laps/300 miles) when stage-racing was introduced. In 2020, they revised the rule in which a race is considered official at either halfway or the conclusion of Stage 2 (whichever comes first, in this case halfway). The race has been shortened four times due to rain (in 1965, 1966, 2003, and 2009) and once in response to the energy crisis of 1974. Since the adaptation of the green–white–checkered finish rule in 2004, the race has gone past 500 miles on ten occasions (2005, 2006, 2007, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2023). It took two attempts to finish the race in 2010, 2011, and 2020. The 2023 running is the longest Daytona 500 contested, lasting 212 laps/530 miles. History highlights 1959: Lee Petty, patriarch of the racing family, won the inaugural Daytona 500 on February 22, 1959, defeating Johnny Beauchamp. 1960: Junior Johnson made use of the draft, then a little-understood phenomenon, to win while running a slower, year-old car in a field of 68 cars, the most in the history of the Daytona 500. 1965: The first rain-shortened Daytona 500. Fred Lorenzen was in the lead when the race was called on lap 133 of 200. 1966: Richard Petty becomes the first two-time winner, having previously won the 1964 race. Through 2020, only 12 drivers have won 2 or more Daytona 500s. 1967: Mario Andretti led 112 of the 200 laps including the last 33 to capture his first and only win in the Cup Series. 1968: For much of this race, both Cale Yarborough and (unrelated) LeeRoy Yarbrough traded the lead. With 5 laps to go, Cale made a successful slingshot pass on the third turn to take the