Daytona, Florida. If you are a regular visitor of our beloved Page of ESPN NASCAR, First First, thank you. I've been here for a while and it's always great to see them all. That is always especially true on this day, the car holidays that is Daytona Speedweek, also known as Great American Race Eve. Now, my people, join me for a group hug with the second group that I would like us to address together.
Welcome, Nascar Novates! Daytona diapers dandies! You start the Stock Students cars that are trapped in the snow, still breastfeeding the bowls subsequent to the superchalamic and looking for a great sporting event to satisfy their appetite of great game. Well, how about the event we have referred to for a long time as Super Bowl of Stock Car Racing?
On Sunday afternoon, the 67th edition of the Daytona 500 will take the green flag with a field of 41 cars full of names that you know, names that you can know, names that you have never known and many names that you must definitely know. So exactly how are you going to learn all that and all of them before the great race begins? That's where we enter, with our annual leaf of Great American Race tricks. Bullet points and paragraphs designed to make you seem that you were born with Sunoco Green 15 fuel that crosses your veins and used a spark plug as your baby's rattle; Do not do that, all your new parents.
Then, put on some caps for the ears, tie some gargoyles, shout “Get up the hell, praise Dale!” And read in advance while we present our annual leaf of Daytona 500 tricks to print, hide in the palm of his hand and then shout random facts to his friends who make you seem that you have been seeing Nascar since Fireball Roberts was competing. And yes, that is a real name. He won this race in 1962 on the way to the Nascar Hall of Fame.
See? You are already learning things!
Five favorites for Daytona 500
Denny Hamlin is three times Daytona 500 champion, the most recent in 2020, less than a month before the world turned inside. If he wins a room, he will only follow Richard Petty (you have heard of him, even if it is only for the fact that it is “Mr. The King” in Pixar Cars movies) when it comes to victories of all time the bigger sport event. Petty won it seven times. (This is how you end up being known as Mr. The King.) Hamlin drives for Joe Gibbs Racing (speaking of Super Bowls, Gibbs won three as Washington chief coach) and also co -owner of the 23XI team. Who is the other co -owner? Michael Jordan. (If you don't know that name, just close the session).
I did my annual walk from Thursday night from Pit Road asking the drivers: “Who do you think will win not to call you?” And the most mentioned names were Hamlin, the 2023 Cup series champion Ryan Blaney, champion of the defending series Joey Logano, who won this race a decade ago, the 2022 Kyle Larson series champion and the teammate of teammate Larson Hendrick Motorsports Chase Elliott, who only two weeks ago won Nascar's Nascar's. Pre -season shock exhibition event at the Bowman Gray Stadium, a flat bull of a mile room that is the opposite pole to the huge International Daytona Speedway of 2.5 miles and high banks.
Five more to look
The next five most mentioned during my paddock Walk-And-Talk were defending Daytona 500 William Byron (another Hendrick pilot), two of the Hamlin and MJ pilots in 23xi, Tyler Reddick and Bubba Wallace, who won his qualifier Duel 150 on Thursday night, pilot/owner Brad Keselowski and his former Kyle Busch Cup champion, who has won 99 races, but are a race in the great American race.
But what if I like bad?
Busch is not the Darth Vader that used to be, but still receives its fair part of boos during the popularity contest that are previously driving presentations, when everyone in the race walks through a stage in front of La Tribuna. That always happens as runners age. Darrell Waltrip, Rusty Wallace and even Dale Earnhardt were bathed with boos in the apogee of their careers, but were loved by almost all.
The current current candidate to become the next Nascar Thanos is Carson Hocevar, who is the rookie of the year of the 22 -year -old series. Thanks to the clashes in multiple Nascar series, Michigan's native has been considered by his oldest racing companions as just a little less alborent than a pork that carries a jellyfish.
Wait … Busch has never won the Daytona 500?
It's true. Still. That is the bad news. The good news is that it has a great company.
· Busch: 63 victories in his career; 0 -for-19 in Daytona 500. Better end: 2nd, 2019
· Keselowski: 36 career victories; 0 of 15 in Daytona 500. Better end: 3rd, 2014
· Larson: 29 victories in his career; 0 -for-11 in Daytona 500. Better end: 7th, 2016 and 2019
· Elliott: 19 career victories; 0 -for-9 in Daytona 500. Better end: 2nd, 2021
· Martin Truex Jr.: 34 Carrera Victories; 0 -for-20 in Daytona 500. Better end: 2nd, 2016
All on that list have a championship trophy of the Cup Cup at home, but there are no trophies by Harley J. Earl (that is to win the Daytona 500, named for a legendary car designer and has a car of Giant stroke of ESO's spacecraft and looks super great). It is a sure bet that all on that list one day will be consecrated in the Nascar Hall, but one long before the others. That would be Truex, who withdrew from full -time races at the end of last season, but is back in Daytona on a part -time trip after running dramatically in the field during the 150 classification races of Thursday's duel by The night.
Speaking of the room, we say it every year and it is still true, the place is full of types that turned and lost in Daytona. “Texas” Terry Labonte, the little brother Bobby, Rusty Wallace, Mark Martin and Tony “Smoke” Stewart finished its races a combined 0 by 125 on the beach. Ricky Rudd, who has just been included in the hall a week ago, was 0 by 29.
Speaking of part -time
Truex also has a large company when it comes to boys who will be in the 500 who are racing legends, but not runners of the Cup Full Time. Start with a twice day winner 500, Jimmie Johnson, who is now co -owner of the team with his partner of the Mr. The King Cup, will be behind the wheel of his No. 84 Toyota, one of only two races will run this season ( Coca-Cola 600 in Charlotte is the other). Also in the field there is a property property, but not driven, by former Johnson teammate, another two -time Daytona 500 winner, Dale Earnhardt Jr.
JR Motorsports of Earnhardt (pronounced “Junior Motorsports”) has had tremendous success in the Xfinity series (think of triple-a baseball), much of the driver Justin Allgaier. On Thursday night, Allgaier ran to the field drama, transferring from its 150 duel through a late board, putting the first car of the Dale Jr. Cup in the race (a car sponsored by the whiskey of the Megaestrella of the country Chris Stapleton. And yes, Stapleton will be in the race on Sunday).
“Nowhere else, we celebrate like us, just doing the race, crying tears of joy, but this place,” said Earnhardt on Thursday night. “Nowhere does it mean more for me and nowhere means more for sport.”
Finally, if you are a fan of Indycar or perhaps a devotee of “Dancing with the Stars”, you will also recognize the Chevy driver No. 91 Wendy. It is Helio Castroneves, one of the four – -time quartet Indy 500 winners and, also, also the guy who won the Mirror Ball Trophy in 2007 with a yellow banana suit.
Reminder: This guy will be in the #Daytona500 Field on Sunday. (The one who is yellow, not the giant). pic.twitter.com/9twipchwsb
– Ryan McGee (@espnmcgee) February 14, 2025
Chris Stapleton?
Yes, and the singer of “Tennessee whiskey” (therefore, now makes whiskey) is just one of a horsepower of stars that will be in Daytona. Earnhardt who knows Thursday night that Stapleton was deeply involved in the car paint scheme and during qualifier 150 was exploding Dale Jr.'s phone (“Why are we changing the tires?”).
They will also attend the co -owner of the 23XI team, Jordan, and Pit Bull, who co -owned the song racing and will also perform a prerace concert. The Great Marshal of the Great American Carrera will naturally be Captain America, also known as Anthony Mackie of “Captain America: Brave New World”, and driving the rhythm car will be Alan Ritchson, star of the television series “Reacher ” The only concern is if Ritchson can fit the car. You may not know this, but racing drivers are usually small in stature. Ritchson is 6 feet 3 and 245 pounds with pectorals larger than most cup drivers.
Three other things you can shout so that you look really marked to Daytona … because “three for Earnhardt”
“It's the 75th anniversary of Wood Brothers in Nascar!”
Two years ago, Nascar celebrated its 75th anniversary. Last year, it was Mr. King's family who spent the season commemorating his 75th year of races. Now is the turn of the longest rival of Petty, the famous No. 21 forded for Stuart's family, Virginia, now driven by Josh Berry. Do you want to know about the forest? Read this story that I wrote in 2016 with the founder of the Glen Wood team, standing in the same Sands of Daytona Beach, where he once ran.
“That's right, they used to run on the beach of Daytona Real!”
It's true. There have been speed machines that explode on the sands of Daytona beach since the early twentieth century, when huge rocket -looking monsters used to establish speed records in the hard sand of Daytona. That finally gave way to motorcycle races and the first cars, which played the rough Blacktop of the A1A highway and then took her to the beach and would run to the north, dodging other cars, the tide and the bands of seagulls. They did not move from the beach until the founder of Nascar, Bill France Mr., built Daytona International Speedway in 1959.
By the way, you can still drive your rental car at Daytona Beach, but do not think that you are going to do like Cole Trickle and Rowdy Burns went to dinner at “Days of Thunder.” The speed limit on the beach where Major Henry Segrave was 203.7 MPH in 1928 is now … 15 mph.
“They will disembark!”
Save that for the final ten laps. Trust me. And you are probably going to shout twice.
Parity, from the level of talent to increase in young drivers (not to mention their questionable youth courage) to the career cars they now conduct, the “gene 7” machines that are, in their nucleus, the specifications of specifications, it means that More teams are in the afternoon mix. Add that to drowned engines and aerodynamic writing, the “big”, or, with greater precision, “large”, they have become the norm here. So, when the race has ten laps, we are probably still far from the checkered flag.
