Whether you have Sunoco fuel in your veins or you’re new to NASCAR, Ryan McGee has all the info you need to know ahead of Sunday’s Daytona 500.
— If you are a regular visitor to our beloved ESPN NASCAR page, first off, thanks. I’ve been here for a while now and it’s always great to see y’all. That’s always especially true on this day, the stock car holiday that is Daytona Speedweek, also known as Great American Race Eve. Now, my people, please join me for a group hug with the second group I’d like for us to address together.
Welcome, NASCAR Newbies! Daytona Diaper Dandies! You Startup Stock Car Students who are stuck in the snow, still nursing post-Super Bowl hangovers and looking for a ginormous sporting event to satisfy your big-game appetite. Well, how about the event we have long referred to as Super Bowl of Stock Car Racing?
On Sunday afternoon, the 67th edition of the Daytona 500 will take the green flag with a 41-car field packed with names you know, names you might know, names you’ve never known and a lot of names that you definitely should know. So, exactly how are you going to learn all of that and all of them before the big race begins? That’s where we come in, with our annual Great American Race Cheat Sheet. Bullet points and paragraphs designed to make you seem like you were born with Sunoco Green 15 fuel coursing through your veins and used a spark plug as your baby rattle — don’t actually do that, all you new parents.
So, put in some earplugs, strap on some Gargoyles, shout „Raise hell, praise Dale!“ and read ahead as we present our annual Daytona 500 cheat sheet to print out, hide in the palm of your hand and then holler out random facts to your friends that make you seem like you’ve been watching NASCAR since Fireball Roberts was racing. And yes, that’s a real name. He won this race in 1962 en route to the NASCAR Hall of Fame.
See? You’re already learning stuff!
Denny Hamlin is a three-time Daytona 500 champion, the most recent coming in 2020, less than a month before the world was turned inside out. If he earns a fourth, he will trail only Richard Petty (you’ve heard of him, even if it’s just from the fact that he’s „Mr. The King“ in the Pixar Cars movies) when it comes to all-time wins in the sport’s biggest event. Petty won it seven times. (That’s how you end up being known as Mr. The King.) Hamlin drives for Joe Gibbs Racing (speaking of Super Bowls, Gibbs won three as Washington’s head coach) and also co-owns Team 23XI. Who is the other co-owner? Michael Jordan. (If you don’t know that name, just log off.)
I did my annual Thursday evening stroll of pit road asking drivers, „Who do you think will win that isn’t named you?“ and the most mentioned names were Hamlin, 2023 Cup Series champ Ryan Blaney, defending series champ Joey Logano, who won this race a decade ago, 2022 series champ Kyle Larson, and Larson’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate Chase Elliott, who just two weeks ago won NASCAR’s preseason Clash exhibition event at Bowman Gray Stadium, a flat quarter-mile bullring that is the polar opposite of the massive 2.5-mile, high-banked Daytona International Speedway.
The next five most mentioned during my paddock walk-and-talk was defending Daytona 500 winner William Byron (another Hendrick driver), two of Hamlin and MJ’s drivers at 23XI, Tyler Reddick and Bubba Wallace, who won his Duel 150 qualifier on Thursday night, driver/owner Brad Keselowski and fellow former Cup champ Kyle Busch, who between them have won 99 races, but are a career oh-fer in the Great American Race.
