In July of 2015, Dale Earnhardt Jr. led a huge pack of Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series cars across the finish line on the last lap at Daytona International Speedway. Nearly every car behind him was wrecking, and one tore across the speedway’s catch fence—spewing debris into the stands and onto the track.
The NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Daytona International Speedway has been kind of like a two-day marathon, but not in the Rolex 24 Hours way. Rain just keeps washing out the race, so much so that you get psychologically conditioned to think that every caution is for a damp track. But this one wasn’t, for once.
On Sunday, Jalopnik posted a guide on how to understand NASCAR and the Daytona 500 under the sanctioning body’s new, complicated rules. The views on that post shot up and down in an almost unprecedented way during the race, plotting an astonishing graph of exactly when and how confused people were.
Leading a single-file line of Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race cars across the finish line after a wild amount of lead changes in the final laps, Kurt Busch won the 2017 Daytona 500 for Stewart-Haas Racing. He then proceeded to do a celebratory burnout across the infield grass, tearing it right up.
After more than a stage and a half of racing in the Daytona 500—that’s 105 laps in new-NASCAR talk—a tire went down on Kyle Busch’s car and spun the No. 18 around, collecting bunch of cars and tearing them up. Afterward, Busch blamed and served a major burn to NASCAR’s “official” tire. That’ll be a nice fine.
The day is here: glorious, high-speed American stock-car racing is back for a new season. But that new season comes with a lot of changes, from a major rules overhaul to alarming driver swaps over the offseason. Let’s get you caught up on everything you need to know before the Daytona 500.
The biggest day in American stock-car racing is here, and you may have noticed that it’s going to look a whole lot different—and more complicated—this time around. Luckily, we’ve got your back. Here’s a breakdown of everything you need to know about the Daytona 500 and the 2017 NASCAR season.
Just a few laps after the green flag came back out following the first major wreck of the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Daytona International Speedway on Saturday, it, well, it happened again. According to the Fox Sports 1 broadcast, only 13 drivers have not wrecked so far. It’s only lap 30 of 120.
Just 23 laps into the NASCAR Xfinity Series’ season-opening race at Daytona International Speedway, a massive wreck collected nearly half of the field. That isn’t anything new at Daytona, but what is new is that NASCAR changed repair rules for the season—meaning a lot of those cars could be out of the race.
The Daytona 500 isn’t until Sunday, but Denny Hamlin and pole-sitter Chase Elliott already lead the points standings in the the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. That may sound odd, because this is the first time since 1971 that drivers have received points in qualifying races prior to the show on Sunday.
For the second year in a row, Chase Elliott is on pole for the Daytona 500. Elliott became the youngest pole-sitter in Daytona 500 history in 2016 at 20 years old, and he’ll start first again on Feb. 26. Dale Earnhardt Jr. locked in the second spot, and the other cars will race for starting positions on Thursday.
What a day this has been. When the leaders wrecked out on the final lap of the rain-postponed Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series’ Advance Auto Parts Clash at Daytona International Speedway on Sunday, NASCAR let the other cars race to the line rather than ending under caution. Watch the wild finish below.
Well, that’s a strange omen. At just 17 laps into the unofficial start of the newly renamed Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season, the first caution of the year was an ugly wreck by, oddly, the Monster Energy-sponsored race car of Kurt Busch.
In case you missed it on Saturday night, rain decided that it wasn’t quite time to start the NASCAR season. The Advance Auto Parts Clash exhibition race for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series had to be moved to Sunday at 11:30 a.m. ET on Fox Sports 1. They’ll qualify for the Daytona 500 afterward.
Welcome to the ARCA Racing Series season, and racing season in general for stock cars in America. A massive wreck at Daytona International Speedway just collected nearly a dozen cars, leaving a handful on fire and others completely clobbered from contact.
You know how it feels to think about life and the universe, how small you are in comparison, and where life starts and ends? How it feels to realize that it’s quite hard to comprehend everything? That’s what it’s like to watch about 1,000 Ferraris make a lap around Daytona International Speedway.
Hurricane Matthew hit Daytona Beach, Florida hard, flooding streets and pulverizing structures with wind. The hurricane killed six in Florida after causing hundreds of deaths in Haiti, per ABC News. Daytona International Speedway was right where Matthew made landfall in Florida, and it received moderate damage in the…
Following a NASCAR pileup that sent driver Austin Dillon scaling the catch fence as his car shred behind him last year, a fan allegedly injured in the incident filed a lawsuit against both the track and NASCAR. The fan alleges that debris hit him in the head and shoulder, and that he has yet to fully recover.
Fans at Daytona International Speedway’s Bike Week had a rude awakening this weekend when a black Toyota pickup ran into four people and six motor homes in the infield campground. The Orlando Sentinel reports that the accused driver admitted to drinking before getting behind the wheel.
From 2007 to 2012, a Georgia man rolled through various events at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida and stole from team trailers and motorhomes. This week, his conquest culminated in a 10-year jail sentence.
