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Daytona International Speedway adds a $200,000 bonus for driver leading the halfway lap of the 500…
Mike Hembree  |  Posted February 02, 2012   Charlotte, NC
The 2012 Daytona 500 is scheduled for Feb. 26. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
Publicity accompanying NASCAR races – often aided by driver comments – attempts to create the idea that the 43 drivers competing in the race are turning every lap at the highest possible speed, always yearning for first place, forever charging.

This is clearly a fallacy, of course, as anyone who’s watched some of the parade-style racing at some 1.5-mile tracks or the “I’ll wait in the back” strategy at Talladega and Daytona can attest.

The only lap one really needs to lead is the last one, and that often makes the rest of the race simply a matter of using intelligence and strategy to get there.

Fans generally like to see frequent – if not constant – battling at the front, of course, and, over the years, race promoters have tried to provide that – or something close to it – with a gimmick or two.

The latest to make the move is a track relatively new to this game – Daytona International Speedway. In announcing the purse ($19.1 million) Wednesday for the Daytona 500, the speedway also said it will pay $200,000 to the leader of the race’s halfway lap. If the race is under caution at that point (lap 100), the bonus will go to the leader of the race at the completion of the fifth consecutive green-flag lap after the caution period.

“There is plenty of incentive for drivers to run up front the entire race but even more so at the halfway point and the last lap of the Daytona 500,” speedway president Joie Chitwood said.

The impact of this new wrinkle on the race is unknown. It seems unlikely that teams will go overboard to plan for it since winning the race and its $1.4 million first prize have dominated every leading team’s scheduling since the end of last season.

Drivers should beware. Indianapolis Motor Speedway posted a similar bonus in the Brickyard 400 in 1998. Dale Jarrett had a dominant car early in the race but stretched his fuel too far and ran out on the bonus lap, losing laps and, ultimately, a good shot at winning the race. Jarrett was so upset after the race that it was one of the rare race occasions when he refused to talk to news media representatives.

But, if caution flags and pit stops and other incidentals fall the right way at Daytona, there could be an interesting halfway dash for the cash.

Other tracks – perhaps most notably Charlotte Motor Speedway – have used this device in attempts to stimulate up-front racing over the years.

David Pearson was a dominant force at CMS in the 1970s. And he did well there using the strategy he typically used everywhere – race in the top 15 or 20 for most of the race then run to the front near the end.

CMS tried to juice its competition by posting significant lap-leader bonus money at 100-mile intervals.

What did Pearson do? He charged to the front at the appropriate intervals, pocketed the money and then dropped back into the pack.

They didn’t call him the Silver Fox for nothing.

Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 30 years. He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.
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