This Sunday’s 67th Daytona 500 has a front row of pole winner Chase Briscoe and 2022 race champ Austin Cindric, but starting up front in NASCAR’s season-opening Cup Series race has not historically resulted in a checkered flag.
“A great way to start our season,” said Briscoe, the new wheelman in the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing car formerly piloted by Martin Truex Jr., of his third career pole and the first ever for Toyota in the sport’s biggest race.
“Unbelievable way to start off the year,” he added. “Unbelievable way to start off with Toyota.”
Believably, the numbers are not on the hot-lap duo’s side.
Since the turn of the century, only once has a driver collected a 500 victory from Row 1: polesitter Dale Jarrett in 2000.
In the past 32 500s, it has only occurred two other times — top qualifier Jeff Gordon the year before and Jarrett again in 1993 (started second).
Riding in the right place at the right time and avoiding the Big One — basically playing out the 500 miles like a game of chess and being downright lucky in spots — have been keys to success.
Defending champion William Byron testifies to the importance of positioning.
“There’s a lot of circumstances,” Byron told First Coast News. “I think that being in the right place and being able to have the right tactical sort of advantage and knowing where to be on the racetrack is huge.”
Byron is aiming to be the first back-to-back Daytona 500 winner since Denny Hamlin in 2019-20.
Regardless of who does what in Laps 1 through 199, weather permitting (the start time was moved up to 1:30 p.m. ET because of possible showers), Lap 200 is sure to be intense.
In the season’s first decisive lap, where each driver up front will be looking to etch his name into the Daytona International Speedway record book and become part of NASCAR lore, something will have to give and points will be become pointless because no one will care at that point.
No driver cares about a spot in the playoffs in the 500.
The leader will be fearful of a run by a line of cars down the lengthy Superstretch, and he may have to do his best to break the draft and protect two lanes, maybe even a third lane.
Meanwhile, those running behind will have to plot their strategy and decide to run with a teammate or manufacturer mate, or dare to cross the line and get help from someone with a different symbol on the hood.
Consider it a dog and cat teaming up against an ornery raccoon.
Drivers roughly 10th or worse will have to hope for mayhem resulting in a “Moses parting the Red Sea” moment to create a path to victory, like it did for Austin Dillon in the 2022 summer DIS event.
An almost immortalizing win will be there for the taking after navigating the final two turns.
The season-opening race will feature storylines aplenty, from Hamlin’s pursuit of a fourth race victory to Briscoe’s debut in the No. 19 car to whether 2024 Cup Series champ Joey Logano will start the year strong.
“You need to fight complacency, especially at this point in my career,” Logano told local reporters this week. “You can’t feel like it’s good enough, ever. And so whether that’s as far as the wins or your team, your car, yourself, nothing can ever be good enough, and you just got to keep looking for those little things to be better.”
–Field Level Media
