'If you win, you become a legend': Speedweek signals green flag for NASCAR's 75th season
DAYTONA BEACH, Florida — NASCAR will begin its Diamond Anniversary season with the most lucrative crown jewel race in all of stock car racing.
Welcome to Speedweek.
One week after the NFL closes its season with today's Super Bowl, NASCAR will hold the Super Bowl of Stock Car Racing with the 65th running of the Daytona 500. Green flag is slated to drop at 2:30 p.m. on Feb. 19.
It will begin the 75th season of NASCAR, which was founded at the Streamline Hotel in Daytona Beach and certainly, the 2.5-mile tri-oval nestled on International Speedway Boulevard has been the stage for some of the sport’s most memorable moments, both triumphant and tragic.
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Dale Earnhardt won the event on his 20th try in 1998 and perished after crashing in Turn 4 just three years later. Richard Petty matched his seven series titles with seven Daytona 500 wins. Greats like Jeff Gordon, Cale Yarborough and Jimmie Johnson have all won the 500 but so too have underdogs like Derrike Cope, Trevor Bayne and Michael McDowell. Last year, rookie Austin Cindric somewhat improbably piloted the No. 2 Team Penske Ford to Victory Lane in his first race as a full-time Cup Series driver.
And it's that history, unpredictability and the prestige built over six-and-a-half decades that put the Daytona 500 at the top of every driver's bucket list.
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“It’s one of those races you put on your resume. If you win, you become a legend and that’s how it is,” AJ Allmendinger, driver of the No. 16 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet, said. "If you can go up to somebody that knows nothing about racing and go, 'Yeah I won the Daytona 500,' more often than not they know what you’re talking about and they know how big of a deal that is."
And since 1982, the 500 has had the distinction of kicking things things off in the world of stock-car racing.
“Find me another sport that starts their season with the biggest event,” Mike Joy, long-time sportscaster and lead race announcer for Fox Sports, pointed out. “It’s just a part of the uniqueness of the sport.”
Allmendinger went on to steal a line from late sports broadcaster Keith Jackson, referring to the 500 as, “The granddaddy of them all.”
But this is not your granddaddy’s Speedweek.
In fact, it’s just the second year that the term should be singular with the Busch Light Clash, an event historically held on the Sunday before the 500 at Daytona as well, moving to the L.A. Coliseum prior to last year.
What was long referred to as “Speedweeks” now has been condensed to less than seven days, yet there will still be plenty to see this week at the World Center of Racing including the season openers for all of NASCAR’s major series including the Cup Series, Xfinity Series, Craftsman Truck Series and the ARCA Menards Series.
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Aside from a one-stop, top-to-bottom showcase of the organization’s major racing platforms, the qualifying method for Sunday’s main event remains unlike any other on the schedule.
It all started on Tuesday with drivers drawing for qualifying order, and on Wednesday at 8:15 p.m., Cup Series cars hit the track one-by-one in an effort to lay down the best single-lap time. The top two will be locked into the front row of the Daytona 500.
As for the rest of the starting grid, it will be determined by Thursday night’s Bluegreen Vacation Duel races, a pair of 150-mile shootouts scheduled for 7 p.m. and approximately 8:45 p.m. One race will determine the order of all odd starting positions and the other, all even starting spots.
Ratcheting up the drama is the fact that there are 42 cars currently on the Daytona 500 entry list, but the field is capped at 40, meaning two teams will go home before Sunday arrives. While 36 teams are guaranteed starting spots due to holding a charter, NASCAR’s version of a franchise, six entries will try and race their way in to one of the final four positions. Two of those remaining four spots will be awarded to the teams with the two best qualifying times on Wednesday among those entries. The remaining two will be decided by finishes in the Duels.
ARCA practice will start on-track festivities on Thursday at 4:05 p.m. with a Truck Series practice scheduled to follow an hour later. Qualifying in those two series is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. (ARCA) and 3 p.m. (Trucks) on Friday afternoon with the Truck Series opener, the NextEra Energy 250, set for a 7:30 p.m. green flag that night.
The Xfinity Series, meanwhile, will hold its first practice at 4:30 p.m. on Friday and will qualify at 11:30 a.m. Saturday morning ahead of the Beef. It’s What’s for Dinner. 300 at 5 p.m. Sandwiched in between will be the ARCA opener featuring the series debut of former “Malcolm in the Middle” star Frankie Muniz at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday.
That all leads to the Daytona 500 on Sunday with a prerace concert from country music star Dierks Bentley scheduled to start at 1:15 p.m., an hour before driver introductions.
Allmendinger said that all of the festivities throughout the week only add to the pressure and anxiety on the drivers.
"The place is sold out, the action between the practices and the duels on Thursday, the truck race Friday night, the Xfinity race Saturday and just all the preparation for it — It’s hard to sleep Saturday,” Allmendinger said.
Though camping and grandstand seating is sold out for the Daytona 500, tickets can be found on SeatGeek. UNOH Fanzone and infield passes are still available at daytonainternationalspeedway.com as are tickets for the Xfinity, Truck and ARCA races as well as the Duels. Packages are also available as is admission to the new 31-Degrees Hospitality Experience and the Daytona 500 Club.