DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — After a week of preparation, drivers will strap into NASCAR Cup Series race cars Sunday afternoon and kick off the season with stock car racing’s biggest event, the Daytona 500.
The storylines surrounding the 63rd running of The Great American Race at Daytona Int’l Speedway are almost too numerous to count.
New ownership by internationally-known superstars will debut in the Cup Series, headlined by NBA legend Michael Jordan and Grammy Award-winning rapper Pitbull, who will debut as co-owners for 23XI Racing and Trackhouse Racing Team, respectively.
Denny Hamlin will chase his record-setting third consecutive Daytona 500 victory, trying to tie Cale Yarborough for second on the list of all-time wins in the historic event with his fourth win overall. Richard Petty won seven Daytona 500s.
Austin Dillon, the 2018 Daytona 500 winner, will try to deliver a Daytona 500 triumph for Richard Childress Racing 20 years after the team left Daytona Beach mourning the death of seven-time Cup Series champion Dale Earnhardt.
And Kyle Larson will make his highly-publicized return to NASCAR Cup Series racing with Hendrick Motorsports, 10 months after the use of a racial slur in a streamed esports event cost him his job with Chip Ganassi Racing and led to Larson putting together a season for the ages in dirt-track competition.
But through all the storylines that have been talked about ad nauseam during Daytona Speedweeks, one topic has flown under the radar that may well decide the winner of the iconic Harley J. Earl Trophy: manufacturer alliances.
Like it has for nearly the past decade, team and manufacturer alignments are expected to play a pivotal part in the outcome of the Daytona 500, with Ford, Chevrolet and Toyota competition officials all meeting with their drivers during the week and devising plans for success on NASCAR’s biggest stage.
It’s a strategy that first reached major prominence in 2016, when Joe Gibbs Racing and Furniture Row Racing’s Toyota teams dominated the closing laps of The Great American Race before settling the final lap among themselves, with Hamlin beating Martin Truex Jr. in a photo finish for his first 500 win.
Ever since, Cup Series drivers have heard the mantra, “Help the brand you drive for,” preached time and time again during the lead-up to the four superspeedway races on the calendar.
However, that line takes on even more meaning on race day for the Daytona 500, which has annually paid out more than $1 million to the winner and made legends of the drivers who have parked in victory lane.
Toyota-backed young gun Christopher Bell has been with the marque for his entire professional career in motorsports, and believes the Toyotas in the field will “try to stick together” when they can.
“I think it’s going to be a big part of what you see on Sunday, but I think when it gets to the end of the race, we’re going to all be out for each other and trying to get to victory lane ourselves,” noted Bell. “There’s no doubt that sticking together as a team will help us out the course of the race and keep us up front a little bit, but it’s not going to solely be what decides the outcome, I don’t think.”
Bell knows the numbers aren’t necessarily in Toyota’s favor, with only five Camrys in the field compared to 18 Chevrolet Camaros and 17 Ford Mustangs, but he’s hopeful that won’t matter as much “when it’s every man for themselves” coming toward the checkered flag.
“The numbers don’t work in our favor. We only have five cars in the field, so we don’t have a lot of depth, but I do think we have a lot of strength,” Bell said. “We saw that through practice in the draft, and we’ll see what happens at the end of the 500. The biggest thing for me is going to be trying to finish the race and get all the way to the checkered flag this time (after crashing out last year).”
To continue reading, advance to the next page.