The Daytona 500
I’ll admit that the NASCAR drivers are talented. Not athletically gifted as other professional athletes, but they still must be talented since there is so little difference among the cars yet some people are always near the top. I’m sure attending the Daytona 500 would be exciting. However, I wasn’t even aware that the Daytona 500 was going on until I turned on SportsCenter and heard about the winner and the winning team. Anyway, I read an article entitled, “Daytona: There’s nothing better … nothing.” It’s completely real and not written in jest. It almost reads like an article from The Onion!
The Daytona 500 is my favorite sports event of the year. It’s better than the Super Bowl, better than the World Series, and better than any seven-game series in the NHL or NBA.
I like it better than those because the winner gets to be just as elated as the champion of those other events … and then the season keeps going. Beginnings are always better than endings.
The Daytona 500 is my favorite sports event of the year because the happiest I have ever seen anybody in my entire life was Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the moments after he won in 2004. He jumped out of his car and into the arms of his crew, which had stormed to him from pit road. The look on his face of elation and the exuberant way he hugged the neck of the first man who got to him represent unbridled joy. Someone will get to feel that way today.“You do anything in the world just to get in the Daytona 500,” Junior says. “It’s an incredible feeling. There’s no way to describe it. It’s impossible to answer the question on what it’s like to win the Daytona 500.”
The Daytona 500 is my favorite sports event of the year because I could go to every single one and still learn something new about racing at the next one.
The Daytona 500 is my favorite sports event of the year because it is wildly unpredictable. Your fast car handles great. Your crew makes great calls and executes great strategy. You run up front forever — and in the last lap you get shuffled back and finish 15th. Or your car isn’t much all day and somebody pushes you to the front on the last lap and you win.To win the Daytona 500, the greatest, most prestigious race in the land, the most sought after racing trophy in the whole U-S-of-A, the enchilada of enchiladas, the checkered flag of checkered flags … comes down to one thing.
“Winning it is just potluck mainly,” Junior says. “You’ve got to have a fast car, but circumstances and variables throughout the race dictate who’s going to be around at the end with a shot to win.”
And this comes from a guy who won the thing!
Jack Roush will enter five cars in Sunday’s race, and he has been coming to the Daytona 500 for decades. The Daytona 500 is most definitely not his favorite sports event of the year. He has never won the thing, and it’s clear he simply doesn’t care for restrictor plate racing.
“The key characteristic is missing the wreck,” Roush says. “The rest of it is just so much minutiae to get you there.”
The Daytona 500 is my favorite sports event of the year because it is chock-full of history. Only legends win here. And if you weren’t a legend before winning, you automatically become one.
Who’s going to make history today?
On Feb. 19, 1989, it was Darrell Waltrip. He tried for years to win the Daytona 500 before breaking through. Afterward, he did the Icky Shuffle, bouncing from leg to leg and then slamming his helmet to the ground. The madcap way he grabbed Mike Joy, now Fox’s play by play man, during his winner’s interview gives Junior’s celebration a run for its money.
“It took me 17 years to win the Daytona 500,” he told reporters this week. “I always had a real battle with (Dale Earnhardt Sr). I was hoping to win it before he did, so I could kind of hold it over his head for a little while. So I had the advantage there for a little while.
“We used to kid each other, I’ve done this and I’ve done that, and by the way, you’ve never won the Daytona 500. When he won the 1998 race, I was excited for him, but I also said, there goes my advantage.”
Who’s going to make history today?
On Feb. 15, 1998, it was Earnhardt Sr., the sport’s biggest star finally winning the sport’s biggest race.
On Feb. 18, 1979, it was Richard Petty, winning the first race broadcast live in its entirety. As he celebrated, Donnie Allison, Bobby Allison and Cale Yarborough fought in the infield. Petty won the Daytona 500 six other times, too.
But he had a less than auspicious start. On the first day stock cars were on the track — which must’ve looked to all the drivers like hundreds of blank pages looked to Herman Melville — an official told drivers to run four or five laps around the apron before daring to drive on the banking.
“I ran though the first and second corner, and through the third and fourth corner, and said, ‘OK,’ so I went up on the bank,” Petty says. “When I came around again, he’s got the black flag out. So officially, I’m the first black-flagged guy at this place.”
On Feb. 22, 1959 Richard’s father, Lee Petty, won the first Daytona 500 — but that did not become official until a few days after that because the finish was so close. There is some speculation NASCAR knew all along who won and waited to milk the decision for attention.
That’s a measure of how much the sport has changed, as it’s inconceivable that NASCAR would do anything for attention these days.
The Daytona 500 is my favorite sports event of the year because it combines the atmospheres of opening day, the Super Bowl, a carnival freak show, a rock concert and a county fair, all in one crazy, wacked-out day.