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Sprint Cup
CUP: Bayne More Prepared In Seeking Daytona 500 Repeat
Trevor Bayne became the youngest ever Daytona 500 winner last season...
Trevor Bayne speaks during Thursday's Daytona 500 Media Day activities. (Photo: Getty Images)
This time Trevor Bayne will be driving to Daytona. You know, so he has a vehicle should he need to stick around after all the post-race festivities.
And he’ll pack extra clothes, just in case he needs to go on another victory jaunt.
This time, Bayne, the defending Daytona 500 winner, will be prepared for the possibility of a stunning upset.
“I’m driving down. I’m road-tripping,” the exuberant 20-year-old driver said. “… I’ll be more prepared. Or maybe I don’t need to be, maybe that’s the whole key.”
A year ago, the day after his 20th birthday, Bayne stunned the NASCAR world by becoming the youngest driver ever to win NASCAR’s biggest race, a feat he accomplished in just his second Sprint Cup start.
The win was so surprising that Bayne had driven his truck to Daytona and had no one to drive it back for him. And he hadn’t packed enough clothes for the post-race celebrations and whirlwind media tour that followed.
This year, he’s dealing with the emotions and excitement and expectations of returning to Daytona as the defending race winner. And trying his best to be realistic and more prepared.
“I figure I better savor the moment of being defending champion,” he said recently at the NASCAR Sprint Media Tour. “There are not many times you get to be called that, so I’ve got about a month of it left and I get to go fight for it again, and there might be a new one, or it might be the same and I get to be called that again.”
With sponsorship surprisingly scarce for last year’s biggest sensation, Bayne will once again run a limited Cup schedule for Wood Brothers Racing. He also will run a limited Nationwide Series schedule for Roush Fenway Racing, a deal he hopes turns into a full-time ride if sponsors can be found.
Despite his spectacular performance at Daytona, Bayne is taking nothing for granted this year. He knows it will take another extraordinary effort for he and the Wood Brothers to return to victory lane again.
“We have to go back and work at it. We can’t go into it expecting that it is going to be given to us, because it isn’t going to be,” he said. “Last year we had to fight for it and this year it is going to be even tougher. The competition level in NASCAR is so tough that you can’t expect to win anything. ….
“Even though the expectations are there, we have to be realistic. I expect wins, that’s what I want to do, but we have to be realistic.”
Like most drivers, Bayne doesn’t know what to expect at Daytona this year. He was one of the most effective drivers in the two-car draft last year, pushing driver after driver to the front before emerging in the lead late in the race. He used a push from Bobby Labonte to grab the lead on the final restart and held off the tandem of Carl Edwards and David Gilliland for the win.
There is expected to be less tandem drafting under NASCAR’s new rules this year, and more traditional pack racing.
Bayne, like everyone else, must adapt to that.
“I’ll use what I learned last year, if it is tandem drafting, but I have a feeling that it’s going to be totally different again,” he said.
“I don’t really have any preconceived notions of what it is going to be like. As drivers, if it’s not our way, sometimes we can spin ourselves out in our own minds. So for me, I don’t know what it’s going to be like so I can go in fresh and have a clean slate to work off of. I think that’s a benefit.”
Bayne will stick to a basic strategy of drafting with whomever he can work with, staying out of trouble and being around at the end.
“I think I have to go back with that same mindset of keeping my car in one piece,” he said. “Once you win a race like that, you get ahead of yourself. You’re like, ‘I need to be leading the laps, I need to up there in position to win.’ But at the 500 the first time, I was fast and I pushed people to the front, but I never really positioned myself in the lead and I never put myself in danger, because I knew I had to be there at the end.
“I think that’s what I have to do again at the end. Be cautious, keep my car around, and I know it’s going to be fast enough to be a winning car. So it’s all about how I position it and keep it in shape and not tear the fenders off, like last time.”
Bayne will have a similar approach to the season, trying to take what he learned as a rookie last year and improve on his performance. After the Daytona 500 triumph, he struggled most of the Cup season before showing improvement near the end.
He missed part of the Nationwide season while recovering from a mysterious illness, but then came on strong at the end, winning the November race at Texas for his first Nationwide victory.
He’s anxious to see what he and his two teams can do in their second seasons together.
“I think our guys are hungry this year. Our [Nationwide] guys are hungry, too,” he said. “We got a taste of victory and now we are able to go after it. I think we learned how to win in 2011, which is really important.
“A lot of guys can run good all year long, but then just winning is that hard edge to cross over. I think we started figuring out how to run good and actually win at the end of the year so we’re hoping to take that into 2012.”
At Daytona, with the Wood Brothers, he’s hoping to retrace his steps from last season and duplicate the most magical moment of his career.
“We’re trying to do the same things, but do them better,” he said. “Everybody improves every year, so for us we’ve got to be improving, just like the competition.”
SceneDaily.com • NASCAR Hall of Fame still behind financial, admission goals
And he’ll pack extra clothes, just in case he needs to go on another victory jaunt.
This time, Bayne, the defending Daytona 500 winner, will be prepared for the possibility of a stunning upset.
“I’m driving down. I’m road-tripping,” the exuberant 20-year-old driver said. “… I’ll be more prepared. Or maybe I don’t need to be, maybe that’s the whole key.”
A year ago, the day after his 20th birthday, Bayne stunned the NASCAR world by becoming the youngest driver ever to win NASCAR’s biggest race, a feat he accomplished in just his second Sprint Cup start.
The win was so surprising that Bayne had driven his truck to Daytona and had no one to drive it back for him. And he hadn’t packed enough clothes for the post-race celebrations and whirlwind media tour that followed.
This year, he’s dealing with the emotions and excitement and expectations of returning to Daytona as the defending race winner. And trying his best to be realistic and more prepared.
“I figure I better savor the moment of being defending champion,” he said recently at the NASCAR Sprint Media Tour. “There are not many times you get to be called that, so I’ve got about a month of it left and I get to go fight for it again, and there might be a new one, or it might be the same and I get to be called that again.”
With sponsorship surprisingly scarce for last year’s biggest sensation, Bayne will once again run a limited Cup schedule for Wood Brothers Racing. He also will run a limited Nationwide Series schedule for Roush Fenway Racing, a deal he hopes turns into a full-time ride if sponsors can be found.
Despite his spectacular performance at Daytona, Bayne is taking nothing for granted this year. He knows it will take another extraordinary effort for he and the Wood Brothers to return to victory lane again.
“We have to go back and work at it. We can’t go into it expecting that it is going to be given to us, because it isn’t going to be,” he said. “Last year we had to fight for it and this year it is going to be even tougher. The competition level in NASCAR is so tough that you can’t expect to win anything. ….
“Even though the expectations are there, we have to be realistic. I expect wins, that’s what I want to do, but we have to be realistic.”
Like most drivers, Bayne doesn’t know what to expect at Daytona this year. He was one of the most effective drivers in the two-car draft last year, pushing driver after driver to the front before emerging in the lead late in the race. He used a push from Bobby Labonte to grab the lead on the final restart and held off the tandem of Carl Edwards and David Gilliland for the win.
There is expected to be less tandem drafting under NASCAR’s new rules this year, and more traditional pack racing.
Bayne, like everyone else, must adapt to that.
“I’ll use what I learned last year, if it is tandem drafting, but I have a feeling that it’s going to be totally different again,” he said.
“I don’t really have any preconceived notions of what it is going to be like. As drivers, if it’s not our way, sometimes we can spin ourselves out in our own minds. So for me, I don’t know what it’s going to be like so I can go in fresh and have a clean slate to work off of. I think that’s a benefit.”
Bayne will stick to a basic strategy of drafting with whomever he can work with, staying out of trouble and being around at the end.
“I think I have to go back with that same mindset of keeping my car in one piece,” he said. “Once you win a race like that, you get ahead of yourself. You’re like, ‘I need to be leading the laps, I need to up there in position to win.’ But at the 500 the first time, I was fast and I pushed people to the front, but I never really positioned myself in the lead and I never put myself in danger, because I knew I had to be there at the end.
“I think that’s what I have to do again at the end. Be cautious, keep my car around, and I know it’s going to be fast enough to be a winning car. So it’s all about how I position it and keep it in shape and not tear the fenders off, like last time.”
Bayne will have a similar approach to the season, trying to take what he learned as a rookie last year and improve on his performance. After the Daytona 500 triumph, he struggled most of the Cup season before showing improvement near the end.
He missed part of the Nationwide season while recovering from a mysterious illness, but then came on strong at the end, winning the November race at Texas for his first Nationwide victory.
He’s anxious to see what he and his two teams can do in their second seasons together.
“I think our guys are hungry this year. Our [Nationwide] guys are hungry, too,” he said. “We got a taste of victory and now we are able to go after it. I think we learned how to win in 2011, which is really important.
“A lot of guys can run good all year long, but then just winning is that hard edge to cross over. I think we started figuring out how to run good and actually win at the end of the year so we’re hoping to take that into 2012.”
At Daytona, with the Wood Brothers, he’s hoping to retrace his steps from last season and duplicate the most magical moment of his career.
“We’re trying to do the same things, but do them better,” he said. “Everybody improves every year, so for us we’ve got to be improving, just like the competition.”
SceneDaily.com • NASCAR Hall of Fame still behind financial, admission goals
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