After failing to secure a victory last week at Watkins Glen, all eyes will once again be on NASCAR’s Most Popular Driver, Chase Elliott. He, only with about sixteen other drivers, can sneak into the Playoffs by simply winning the race tonight. Easy enough, right? RIGHT?!
Here’s what to look for:
–Chase Briscoe (and the rest of the Stewart-Haas guys) was fastest in Qualifying. Some analysis reveals that when setting up a car for a race at Daytona, your have a choice between Handling and Speed. Sounds like the SHR guys went with the “Speed” option — how will their Handling be?
–Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was the winner at this year’s DAYTONA 500, and he’ll once again be in the running tonight. It’s a tough thing to back up your 500 victory with a 400 Win, but anything can happen, right?
–Austin Dillon is a guy who won last year’s Coke Zero Sugar 400, and he actually won the 2018 DAYTONA 500, too. Not really the same thing that we’re talking about up above, but it goes to show that if you win one of the Daytona races, you most certainly can win the other.
–AJ Allmendinger isn’t someone that you think of as a Daytona guy — doing better on road courses — but he’s actually got the best average finish of any active Cup driver. He carries a 4.5 average finish on NASCAR’s most popular track, finishing 6th back in February, and 3rd at this race in 2018. He had a great result at The Glen last week, can he keep it going en route to a Playoff berth tonight?
–Austin Cindric won the 2022 DAYTONA 500, and then finished 3rd in the August race. Things didn’t go so well back in February, but he finished 23rd then. These (and a 15th in 2021) equate to the second best average finish among active Cup drivers, a 10.5 at Daytona. That is a pretty stout number, and he’ll be in the hunt again tonight.
Coverage of the race starts on NBC at 7:00pm, green flag scheduled for 7:46pm.
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