Florida Speedweek is in its final days and the 67th Daytona 500 is only two days away. Here’s what’s on our mind in a Valentine’s Day edition of the Friday Morning Heat Race.
Hot Laps: Under A Blanket
Not sure about you, but my largest blanket won’t cover the hood of my street car let alone fit six NASCAR Cup Series cars under it. Racing announcers must be issued special blankets.
Qualifications: Violations
We’ve lost count of the number of disqualifications in super late model and pro late model competition during this week’s World Series of Asphalt Stock Car Racing at New Smyrna Speedway.
First Heat: Few Surprises
It comes as no surprise that there have been no surprise winners during Speedweeks this year. Whether its winged sprint cars, dirt late models, asphalt late models or non-winged sprint cars, the best of the best are on hand. For example, winners on Wednesday night included Justin Grant, Ricky Thornton, Jonathan Davenport and Matt Sheppard. All four are among the winningest drivers in the country in recent years.
Second Heat: The Champs
Eight drivers (Jimmie Johnson, Martin Truex Jr., Joey Logano, Ryan Blaney, Kyle Busch, Brad Keselowski, Kyle Larson, Chase Elliott) with NASCAR Cup Series championships on their résumés will compete in Sunday’s Daytona 500.
There will be eight (Johnson, Logano, Ricky Stenhouse, William Byron, Austin Cindric, Michael McDowell, Denny Hamlin, Austin Dillon) Daytona 500 winners in the field.
Third Heat: Double Duty
With the departure of Jay Frye as president of IndyCar, longtime Indianapolis Motor Speedway president Doug Boles will do double duty, also serving as president of IndyCar.
Long regarded as “a man of the people” by racing fans, it will be interesting to see if Boles can also be “a man of the motorcoach lot.”
Fourth Heat: Indy-Daytona
When four-time Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves takes the green flag Sunday, he will be the fourth member of this year’s Daytona 500 field to race in both the Indy 500 and the Daytona 500. The others are Kyle Larson, Jimmie Johnson and A.J. Allmendinger.
Dash: Four-For-Four
There have been four USAC National Sprint Car Championship races so far this year, and there have been four (Brady Bacon, Justin Grant, Logan Seavey and Kyle Cummins) different winners.
C Main: Interlopers
For decades NASCAR fans decried the fact that NASCAR Cup Series drivers dominated Xfinity Series races, getting particularly riled up about the big races such as Daytona and Charlotte.
That rarely happens and is evidenced by the entry list for Saturday’s season opener at Daytona.
Only three (Justin Allgaier, J.J. Yeley and Anthony Alfredo) drivers are entered in both the Daytona 500 and the United Rentals 300 and none of them has a full-time Cup Series drive.
B Main: Control The Race
Many drivers speaking during NASCAR’s media day this week said there was no way to control one’s fate with the style of racing we see in the Daytona 500 since the Next Gen car was introduced.
Three-time series champion Joey Logano, however, had a different opinion.
“I think you can control all of it. I don’t see what part you can’t,” Logano said. “If you understand the probabilities and the chances of what’s going on around you and who is around you and what they’re most likely to do, you can control most of your destiny.
“I mean, I kind of look at it as a card game. You can win with any hand if you play it correctly. Maybe you don’t have the best hand, but you can probably figure out how to do something with it. That’s kind of how I see it.”
Feature: Great American Race?
Should the Daytona 500 still be considered the Great American Race? It is truly American, but it’s not so much the race it used to be, and not just the Daytona 500 itself but the events leading up to it have become a wreck fest.
Thursday’s Daytona Duels were more evidence that events at Daytona more resemble a demolition derby than an auto race such as the ones won by Richard Petty, Cale Yarborough, Buddy Baker and Bobby Allison decades ago.
More than half the field was damaged during the two 60-lap events with several cars totally destroyed. The Daytona 500 has been plagued by the Big One for decades and the race routinely ends in a green-white-checkered finish.
Running half throttle to save gas, few passes and manufacturer strategies rule the day. Can you imagine Bobby Allison and Darrell Waltrip working together because they both drove for the same brand of race car? Wouldn’t have happened.
Here’s hoping that in next week’s column I am eating my words and touting how wonderful the 67th Daytona 500 was to watch. I’ll be watching, and I know you will be, too.
