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Ryan McGee
DAYTONA, Fla. — If you’re a daily customer to our beloved ESPN NASCAR web page, first off, thanks. I have been right here for some time now and it is all the time nice to see y’all. That is all the time very true on today, the inventory automobile vacation that’s Daytona Speedweek, often known as Nice American Race Eve. Now, my individuals, please be part of me for a bunch hug with the second group I would like for us to handle collectively.
Welcome, NASCAR Newbies! Daytona Diaper Dandies! You Startup Inventory Automobile College students who’re caught within the snow, nonetheless nursing post-Tremendous Bowl hangovers and searching for a ginormous sporting occasion to fulfill your big-game urge for food. Properly, how in regards to the occasion now we have lengthy known as Tremendous Bowl of Inventory Automobile Racing?
On Sunday afternoon, the 67th version of the Daytona 500 will take the inexperienced flag with a 41-car area full of names you understand, names you may know, names you have by no means identified and plenty of names that you just undoubtedly ought to know. So, precisely how are you going to be taught all of that and all of them earlier than the large race begins? That is the place we are available in, with our annual Nice American Race Cheat Sheet. Bullet factors and paragraphs designed to make you appear to be you had been born with Sunoco Inexperienced 15 gas coursing by means of your veins and used a spark plug as your child rattle — do not truly do this, all you new dad and mom.
So, put in some earplugs, strap on some Gargoyles, shout “Increase hell, reward Dale!” and browse forward as we current our annual Daytona 500 cheat sheet to print out, conceal within the palm of your hand after which holler out random information to your pals that make you appear to be you have been watching NASCAR since Fireball Roberts was racing. And sure, that is an actual title. He gained this race in 1962 en path to the NASCAR Corridor of Fame.
See? You are already studying stuff!
5 favorites for the Daytona 500
Denny Hamlin is a three-time Daytona 500 champion, the newest coming in 2020, lower than a month earlier than the world was turned inside out. If he earns a fourth, he’ll path solely Richard Petty (you have heard of him, even when it is simply from the truth that he is “Mr. The King” within the Pixar Automobiles films) in the case of all-time wins within the sport’s largest occasion. Petty gained it seven instances. (That is how you find yourself being often known as Mr. The King.) Hamlin drives for Joe Gibbs Racing (talking of Tremendous Bowls, Gibbs gained three as Washington’s head coach) and in addition co-owns Crew 23XI. Who’s the opposite co-owner? Michael Jordan. (If you do not know that title, simply sign off.)
I did my annual Thursday night stroll of pit highway asking drivers, “Who do you suppose will win that is not named you?” and probably the most talked about names had been Hamlin, 2023 Cup Sequence champ Ryan Blaney, defending sequence champ Joey Logano, who gained this race a decade in the past, 2022 sequence champ Kyle Larson, and Larson’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate Chase Elliott, who simply two weeks in the past gained NASCAR’s preseason Conflict exhibition occasion at Bowman Grey Stadium, a flat quarter-mile bullring that’s the polar reverse of the large 2.5-mile, high-banked Daytona Worldwide Speedway.
5 extra to observe
The following 5 most talked about throughout my paddock walk-and-talk was defending Daytona 500 winner William Byron (one other Hendrick driver), two of Hamlin and MJ’s drivers at 23XI, Tyler Reddick and Bubba Wallace, who gained his Duel 150 qualifier on Thursday evening, driver/proprietor Brad Keselowski and fellow former Cup champ Kyle Busch, who between them have gained 99 races, however are a profession oh-fer within the Nice American Race.
However what if I like unhealthy guys?
Busch is not the Darth Vader he was once, however he nonetheless receives his fair proportion of boos in the course of the reputation contest that’s prerace driver introductions, when everybody within the race walks throughout a stage in entrance of the grandstand. That all the time occurs as racers become older. Darrell Waltrip, Rusty Wallace and even Dale Earnhardt had been showered with boos on the peak of their careers however grew to become beloved by just about all.
The present main candidate to turn out to be the following NASCAR Thanos is Carson Hocevar, who’s the 22-year-old reigning Cup Sequence Rookie of the Yr. Because of run-ins throughout a number of NASCAR sequence, the Michigan native has to date been thought-about by his older racing friends as solely barely much less huggable than a porcupine carrying a jellyfish.
Wait … Busch has by no means gained the Daytona 500?
It is true. Nonetheless. That is the unhealthy information. The excellent news is that he has nice firm.
· Busch: 63 profession wins; 0-for-19 in Daytona 500. Finest end: 2nd, 2019
· Keselowski: 36 profession wins; 0-for-15 in Daytona 500. Finest end: third, 2014
· Larson: 29 profession wins; 0-for-11 in Daytona 500. Finest end: seventh, 2016 and 2019
· Elliott: 19 profession wins; 0-for-9 in Daytona 500. Finest end: 2nd, 2021
· Martin Truex Jr.: 34 profession wins; 0-for-20 in Daytona 500. Finest end: 2nd, 2016
Everybody on that checklist has a Cup Sequence championship trophy on the home, however no Harley J. Earl Trophies (that is for profitable the Daytona 500, named for a legendary automobile designer and it has an enormous silver spaceship-looking race automobile bolted to the highest of it and appears tremendous cool). It is a secure guess that everybody on that checklist will at some point be enshrined within the NASCAR Corridor, however one a lot before the others. That’d be Truex, who retired from full-time racing on the finish of final season however is again at Daytona in a part-time journey after dramatically racing his manner into the sphere throughout Thursday evening’s Duel 150 qualifying races.
Talking of the Corridor, we are saying it yearly and it’s nonetheless true, the place is full of guys who swung and missed at Daytona. “Texas” Terry Labonte, little brother Bobby, Rusty Wallace, Mark Martin and Tony “Smoke” Stewart completed their careers a mixed 0-for-125 on the seashore. Ricky Rudd, who was simply inducted into the Corridor one week in the past, was 0-for-29.
Talking of part-timers
Truex additionally has nice firm in the case of guys who will likely be within the 500 which can be racing legends, however not full-time Cup Sequence racers. It begins with a two-time Daytona 500 winner, Jimmie Johnson — who’s now a group co-owner with fellow seven-time Cup champ Mr. The King — will likely be behind the wheel of his No. 84 Toyota, one in all solely two races he’ll run this season (the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte is the opposite). Additionally within the area is a automobile owned, however not pushed, by Johnson’s former teammate, one other two-time Daytona 500 winner, Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Earnhardt’s JR Motorsports (pronounced “Junior Motorsports”) has had large success within the Xfinity Sequence (suppose Triple-A baseball), a lot of it with driver Justin Allgaier. On Thursday evening, Allgaier raced his manner into the sphere in dramatic style, transferring from his Duel 150 by way of a late sprint, placing Dale Jr.’s first-ever Cup automobile into the race (a automobile sponsored by nation megastar Chris Stapleton’s whiskey … and sure, Stapleton will likely be on the race on Sunday).
“Nowhere else, will we rejoice like we do, simply making the race, crying tears of pleasure, however this place,” Earnhardt stated on Thursday evening. “Nowhere means extra to me and nowhere means extra to the game.”
Lastly, in case you are an IndyCar fan or maybe a devotee of “Dancing with the Stars,” then additionally, you will acknowledge the driving force of the No. 91 Wendy’s Chevy. It is Helio Castroneves, one of many quartet of four-time Indy 500 winners and, sure, additionally the man who gained the mirror ball trophy in 2007 in a banana yellow go well with.
Reminder: This man will likely be within the #DAYTONA500 area on Sunday. (The one in yellow, not the Large.) pic.twitter.com/9TwIpCHwSb
— Ryan McGee (@ESPNMcGee) February 14, 2025
Chris Stapleton?!
Sure, and the singer of “Tennessee Whiskey” (thus he now makes whiskey) is only one of a cavalcade of stars who will likely be at Daytona. Earnhardt let or not it’s identified on Thursday evening that Stapleton was deeply concerned within the automobile’s paint scheme and in the course of the 150 qualifier was blowing up Dale Jr.’s cellphone (“Why are we altering tires?!”).
Additionally in attendance will likely be group 23XI co-owner Jordan, and Pit Bull, who co-owns Trackhouse Racing and also will carry out a prerace live performance. Sunday’s grand marshal of the Nice American Race will likely be, naturally, Captain America, aka Anthony Mackie of “Captain America: Courageous New World,” and driving the tempo automobile will likely be Alan Ritchson, star of the “Reacher” TV sequence. The one concern there may be whether or not Ritchson can match into the automobile. Chances are you’ll not know this, however race automobile drivers are sometimes small in stature. Ritchson is 6-foot-3 and 245 kilos with pecs greater than most Cup drivers.
Three extra issues you’ll be able to shout out to make you appear actually dialed in to Daytona … as a result of “Three for Earnhardt”
“It is the Wooden Brothers’ seventy fifth anniversary in NASCAR!”
It was two years in the past that NASCAR celebrated it is seventy fifth anniversary. Final yr, it was Mr. The King’s household that spent the season commemorating their seventy fifth yr of racing. Now it is the flip of Petty’s longest rival, the well-known No. 21 Fords fielded by the household from Stuart, Virginia, now pushed by Josh Berry. You wish to know in regards to the Woods? Learn this story I wrote in 2016 with group founder Glen Wooden, standing on the very Daytona Seaside sands the place he as soon as raced.
“That is proper, they used to race on the precise Daytona Seaside!”
It is true. There have been pace machines blasting over the sands of Daytona Seaside for the reason that early twentieth century, when huge rocket-looking monsters used to set land pace data on Daytona’s hard-packed sand. That ultimately gave technique to motorbike races and early inventory vehicles, which might hammer down the tough blacktop of Freeway A1A after which wheel it out onto the seashore and race again north, dodging different vehicles, the tide and flocks of seagulls. They did not transfer off the seashore till NASCAR founder Invoice France Sr. constructed Daytona Worldwide Speedway in 1959.
By the best way, you’ll be able to nonetheless drive your rental automobile on Daytona Seaside, however do not suppose you are gonna do like Cole Trickle and Rowdy Burns headed to dinner in “Days of Thunder.” The pace restrict on the seashore the place Main Henry Segrave went 203.7 mph in 1928 is now … 15 mph.
“They’re gonna wreck!”
Save that one for the ultimate ten laps. Belief me. And also you’re in all probability going to shout that one twice.
Parity, from the rising expertise stage of younger drivers (to not point out their questionable youthful fearlessness) to the race vehicles that they now drive, the “Gen 7” machines which can be, at their core, spec rides, means extra groups are within the combine late. Add that to the choked engines and aerodynamic drafting, the “Large One” — or, extra precisely, “Large Ones” — have turn out to be the norm right here. So, when the race has ten laps to go, likelihood is we’re nonetheless a great distance from the checkered flag.
