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Sprint Cup
CUP: Daytona Sometimes Showcases Surprises
Teams prepare for testing at newly repaved track ...
2010 Daytona 500 winner Jamie McMurray during the first day of Goodyear tire testing at Daytona International Speedway in December of 2010. (Photo courtesy of Daytona International Speedway)
It’s less than seven weeks to the green flag for the Daytona 500, which means that most teams who have a reasonable hope of winning NASCAR’s biggest race have their best couple of superspeedway cars identified and their engine shops perking along in pursuit of the last kick of restricted horsepower.
Even with a new, very level (thanks to last year’s repaving) playing field, the odds at Daytona always ride with the big guns – the Hendricks, Roushes and Childresses of the stock car racing world. Those team owners have the money and the muscle to throw everything at the long fortnight that is Daytona SpeedWeeks, and they have the best chance at coming out of the other end of the tunnel with the Harley Earl trophy in hand.
As fans begin eyeing Feb. 20 on their new calendars, however, it’s worth noting that Daytona – because of its unique drafting packs (quite unlike Talladega’s), its immense pressure and the possibility that race’s end can be zany – sometimes produces big surprises.
One could argue that the past three 500s have had winners that were bolts from the blue.
Last year Jamie McMurray scored one of the more popular 500 wins in recent memory, holding on at the end to survive “overtime,” not to mention a racetrack that didn’t want to stay together. McMurray, who had won only three races in his Sprint Cup career, wasn’t exactly a pre-500 favorite.
In 2009, Matt Kenseth, who normally does things so quietly that you hardly notice, rolled into 500 victory lane with a stealth attack of sorts, scoring the first 500 win by a Ford driver since Dale Jarrett, who now talks for a living, won in 2000.
The previous year, Ryan Newman used drafting help from teammate Kurt Busch to win the 500 and put team owner Roger Penske in the event’s victory lane for the first time. Newman also wasn’t a betting favorite in Vegas.
For most of the previous several years, the race results made much more sense. Most of the winners from Jarrett’s triumph in 2000 through Kevin Harvick's victory in 2007 were not shocking, with the exception of Ward Burton’s victory in a Bill Davis Racing Dodge in 2002. That win launched Burton, in his famous words, into a “whirlpool” of activity.
The 500 belonged to Chevrolet from 2003 to 2007, as Michael Waltrip, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Harvick found victory lane. Waltrip also won in 2001, the year of Dale Earnhardt Sr.’s death on the race’s last lap. That year again underlined the strength of DEI Chevrolets on restrictor-plate tracks, a situation that would slowly begin to fade.
Now the questions revolve around the track’s new surface – which showed super grip in Goodyear test runs last month – and drivers’ ability to manage the probable larger drafting packs in the 500.
Some hints about favorites will become known Jan. 20-22 as Sprint Cup teams run open tests on the new surface.
Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 28 years. He has written several books on NASCAR, including "NASCAR: The Definitive History of America's Sport" and "Then Tony Said To Junior: The Best NASCAR Stories Ever Told". He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.
Even with a new, very level (thanks to last year’s repaving) playing field, the odds at Daytona always ride with the big guns – the Hendricks, Roushes and Childresses of the stock car racing world. Those team owners have the money and the muscle to throw everything at the long fortnight that is Daytona SpeedWeeks, and they have the best chance at coming out of the other end of the tunnel with the Harley Earl trophy in hand.
As fans begin eyeing Feb. 20 on their new calendars, however, it’s worth noting that Daytona – because of its unique drafting packs (quite unlike Talladega’s), its immense pressure and the possibility that race’s end can be zany – sometimes produces big surprises.
One could argue that the past three 500s have had winners that were bolts from the blue.
Last year Jamie McMurray scored one of the more popular 500 wins in recent memory, holding on at the end to survive “overtime,” not to mention a racetrack that didn’t want to stay together. McMurray, who had won only three races in his Sprint Cup career, wasn’t exactly a pre-500 favorite.
In 2009, Matt Kenseth, who normally does things so quietly that you hardly notice, rolled into 500 victory lane with a stealth attack of sorts, scoring the first 500 win by a Ford driver since Dale Jarrett, who now talks for a living, won in 2000.
The previous year, Ryan Newman used drafting help from teammate Kurt Busch to win the 500 and put team owner Roger Penske in the event’s victory lane for the first time. Newman also wasn’t a betting favorite in Vegas.
For most of the previous several years, the race results made much more sense. Most of the winners from Jarrett’s triumph in 2000 through Kevin Harvick's victory in 2007 were not shocking, with the exception of Ward Burton’s victory in a Bill Davis Racing Dodge in 2002. That win launched Burton, in his famous words, into a “whirlpool” of activity.
The 500 belonged to Chevrolet from 2003 to 2007, as Michael Waltrip, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Harvick found victory lane. Waltrip also won in 2001, the year of Dale Earnhardt Sr.’s death on the race’s last lap. That year again underlined the strength of DEI Chevrolets on restrictor-plate tracks, a situation that would slowly begin to fade.
Now the questions revolve around the track’s new surface – which showed super grip in Goodyear test runs last month – and drivers’ ability to manage the probable larger drafting packs in the 500.
Some hints about favorites will become known Jan. 20-22 as Sprint Cup teams run open tests on the new surface.
Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 28 years. He has written several books on NASCAR, including "NASCAR: The Definitive History of America's Sport" and "Then Tony Said To Junior: The Best NASCAR Stories Ever Told". He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.
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