This Is How To Watch NASCAR's Iconic Daytona 500 This Weekend

To put it pretty simply, the Daytona 500 is easily NASCAR’s biggest race of the year, on a similar level of series importance as the Rolex 24 is for IMSA, the 24 Hours of Le Mans for the World Endurance Championship, or the Indianapolis 500 for IndyCar. It’s the first official race of the year, and the race week is bolstered by qualifying, Duels, and lower-tier races. It’s one of those races that traditionally features a larger field than the rest of the year thanks to the prestige of the event.

The Daytona 500 takes place at the Daytona International Speedway in Florida, and it lasts 500 miles.

Daytona has been the unofficial home of NASCAR for years; stock cars have been competing at Daytona Beach for ages, and it was at Daytona that NASCAR as an organization was formed. The race has been the season opener for the Cup Series since 1982, and it’s one of the best season openers in all of racing.

While the Daytona 500 is important every year — a win at this track will guarantee a driver a spot in both the history of motorsport and in the ultimate Playoffs at the end of the year — 2022 is a little more special.

This is the first actual race of the season with the new Next-Gen cars, which means this is the first time drivers are trying their hand at really battling for a win. With rumors of supply chain woes preventing teams from having plenty of spare vehicles and parts ready to start the season, the chaos of Daytona will resonate throughout the rest of the season.

If you’re only vaguely familiar with NASCAR, you’re going to be hearing about a lot of races taking place this weekend, and it can get confusing if you’re not a hardcore NASCAR fan. (Trust me, when I first started really getting into NASCAR, I kept seeing people tweeting “green flag at Daytona” while I panicked because I thought the one and only race took place on Sunday.)

This is what you can look forward to:

• NASCAR Camping World Truck Series NextEra Energy 250: The first race of the weekend takes place on Friday evening, and it’s the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race. Out of all three series that carry the “NASCAR” name, the Truck Series would be the very bottom of the ladder. It’s both a feeder series for Cup and also a great series to watch in and of itself.
• ARCA Menards Series Lucas Oil 200 Driven by General Tire: The second race of the weekend takes place on Saturday afternoon, and it’s for the ARCA series. If the Truck Series is the bottom rung of the feeder category, ARCA is the feeder series to Trucks. It’s a great place for young drivers to prove themselves in a stock car.
• NASCAR Xfinity Series Beef. It’s What’s For Dinner. 300: On Saturday evening, you can watch the delightfully named Xfinity Series race. This is the series that serves as the step just below the Cup Series.
  
• NASCAR Cup Series Daytona 500: If you only want to watch the “big race,” this is the one.
  

I would be remiss not to mention the Duels at the Daytona. These are qualifying races, but it’s worth really diving into the structure of qualifying, since there are two kinds of qualifying for the Daytona 500:

• On Wednesday evening, time trial qualifying took place. These two qualifying sessions are single-car sessions, which means one car hits the track at a time. The first session sees every single driver from every team take a lap. The second session sees the 10 fastest drivers set a lap to determine pole position and second position for the Daytona 500. Time trial qualifying also sets the grid for the duels.
• The Bluegreen Vacation Duels are two 60-lap, 150-mile races that take place on Thursday. Its finishing order determines the lineup for the Daytona 500. Drivers who finished Wednesday’s qualifying in odd-numbered positions will make up one race, where drivers who finished in even-numbered positions make up the second.
• First and second position on Wednesday are guaranteed those positions on the starting grid of the Daytona 500. The Duels then set grid positions from third place and back.
• The Duels also determine who will not qualify for the Daytona 500, as there are two more drivers entered than there are available starting slots.

Practice and qualifying have both yielded very different results. Ford cars dominated first and second practice while the Chevrolets swept the top three positions in qualifying.

Of course, qualifying and practice don’t directly correlate to race pace, and even the Duels tonight will be a little misleading, since many people are speculating that, with 36 drivers guaranteed a starting spot in the race, few drivers are going to want to damage their vehicles.

This year, NASCAR Cup Series machines look drastically different from their predecessors thanks to the introduction of the Next Gen regulations. Though we’ve already seen the cars make laps at the Los Angeles Coliseum for an exhibition race, the Daytona 500 will be the first time we see these cars in heavy competition for the first time.

Kyle Larson, defending Cup Series Champion, has taken pole position for both his Duel race and for the Daytona 500. After his dominant form in 2021, fans weren’t shocked to see Larson get off to such a good start in the new season — but will he be able to maintain that dominance in a new generation?

Alex Bowman qualified second for the Daytona 500 yet again, making this his fifth consecutive front-row start for the 500. The 28-year-old has yet to convert those starts into a winning position, though, which means he’ll likely be hungry to make things happen this year.

Both Larson and Bowman are part of Hendrick Motorsports, which was the dominant team in qualifying on Wednesday. William Byron qualified third while Chase Elliott took fifth position — a promising start to the year for the Chevrolet team.

Thursday, Feb. 17

• 7 p.m. ET: NASCAR Cup Series Bluegreen Vacation Duel at Daytona (FS1)

Friday, Feb. 18

• 7:30 p.m. ET: NASCAR Camping World Truck Series NextEra Energy 250 (FS1)

Saturday, Feb. 19

• 11:30 a.m. ET: NASCAR Xfinity Series Qualifying (FS1)
• 1:30 p.m. ET: ARCA Menards Series Lucas Oil 200 Driven by General Tire (FS1)
• 5 p.m. ET: NASCAR Xfinity Series Beef. It’s What’s For Dinner. 300 (FS1)

Sunday, Feb. 20

• 2:30 p.m. NASACR Cup Series Daytona 500 (FOX)