I think it would be fair to say that everyone was a little apprehensive going into the Gatorade Duel races Thursday. Everyone was wondering whether NASCAR made too many changes and went too far with them.
Now that the races are in the books and the field is set for Sunday’s Daytona 500, I think we are in pretty good shape. We saw some really good racing, and now we can all look forward to 43 cars for 200 laps on FOX on Sunday afternoon.
I maintain that it has all the markings of one of the best Daytona 500’s we’ve ever had. We are seeing a lot of action and a lot of lead changes. We saw it Saturday night in the Budweiser Shootout and Thursday in both Duel races.
I know it takes some getting used to, but instead of big packs of cars, we now have big packs of tandem cars. The Richard Childress Racing cars have looked strong all week long. We actually saw that clearly back in testing. Their restrictor plate program has always been pretty awesome.
We also see that the Ford cars seem to be able to push a lot longer than the other brands. So it would seem they have done a little more homework and a better job with their cooling system. The other thing to remember is that one of the agendas when Ford built the new FR9 engine was a better cooling system on it, and it seems to be paying dividends.
Unfortunately Dale Earnhardt Jr. has had an up-and-down Speedweeks. He drew the pole for the Budweiser Shootout but came home with a wrecked race car. He won the pole for the Daytona 500, but then Wednesday was wrecked and forced to go to a backup car. That means Sunday he will have to start in the rear of the field.
But no matter who goes to Victory Lane on Sunday, it is going to be a huge story because of all that our sport has been through. Think about a brand-new pavement at the track, a new nose for the cars, a new fueling system for them, plus pit crews with one fewer man being allowed to go over the wall.
Probably the only thing that could add to an already big story would be a Richard Childress-owned car or Dale Jr. or Michael Waltrip pulling into Victory Lane. It would seem appropriate with this being the 10th anniversary of Dale Earnhardt Sr.’s death at this track.
