The Daytona 500 would end in a green-white-checkered finish for the third year in a row. However, this finish would be the highlight reel spectacle that NASCAR envisioned when overtime finishes were introduced.
It was easy to assume that Mark Martin would win the race from the lead like the two previous races, but the final lap devolved into a wild scramble. Martin weaved side-to-side down the backstretch to block Kyle Busch. Kevin Harvick, who was sitting in fifth, charged to the front. Harvick and Martin were side-by-side on the run to the checkered field as everyone else crashed behind them.
Harvick would win the 2007 Daytona 500 by two-hundredths of a second, the race’s closest finish since 1959.
