DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY (2.5-MILE OVAL)
LOCATION: DAYTONA BEACH, FLORIDA
EVENT: NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES (RACE 1 OF 36)
TUNE IN: 1 P.M. ET, SUNDAY, FEB. 22 (FOX/MRN RADIO)
No. 5 Farmers Insurance Chevrolet SS / Kasey Kahne
Driver Kasey Kahne Hometown Enumclaw, Washington
Age 34 Resides Mooresville, North Carolina
Career
396 starts
17 wins
26 pole positions
83 top-five finishes
146 top-10 finishes
4,541 laps led
Daytona Career
22 starts
0 wins
0 pole positions
2 top-five finishes
7 top-10 finishes
30 laps led
DAYTONA LOOP DATA: In the last 20 races at Daytona, Kasey Kahne ranks third in green-flag passes (4,093), ninth in average running position (16.951), ninth in quality passes (2,446), 10th in laps in top 15 (1,818) and tied for 10th in fastest laps run (71).
SUPERSPEEDWAY STATS: Kahne has a combined five top-five finishes and 12 top-10s in 42 starts at the restrictor-plate tracks of Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway. Four of Kahne’s 17 career wins happened on tracks two miles or longer — the Fontana, California, oval, Michigan International Speedway and Pocono Raceway.
DAYTONA CHASSIS: Crew chief Keith Rodden has selected Hendrick Motorsports Chassis No. 5-856 for Sunday’s Daytona 500. Notably, Kahne drove the car to finishes of eighth place and 12th place in two races at Talladega in 2014. He also piloted the chassis at Daytona in July 2014.
USAF THUNDERBIRDS: On Feb. 18, Kahne will ride with the United States Air Force Thunderbirds in Daytona Beach, Florida, and be available to members of the media after his flight.
No. 24 Drive to End Hunger Chevrolet SS / Jeff Gordon
Driver Jeff Gordon Hometown Pittsboro, Indiana
Age 43 Resides Charlotte, North Carolina
2015 Season
1 pole position
Career
761 starts
92 wins
78 pole positions
320 top-five finishes
454 top-10 finishes
24,664 laps led
Daytona Career
44 starts
6 wins
4 pole positions
13 top-five finishes
20 top-10 finishes
623 laps led
DAYTONA POLE-SITTER: With Jeff Gordon taking the top starting spot in the Daytona 500, he has grabbed at least one pole position in all 23 of his full-time Sprint Cup Series seasons. His Daytona 500 pole was the 201st for Hendrick Motorsports in the Sprint Cup Series. Gordon also recorded the organization’s milestone 200th pole last November at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
DAYTONA 500 WINS: Gordon is a three-time winner of the Daytona 500, with victories in 1997, 1999 and 2005. Most recently, he garnered a fourth-place finish in the Great American Race in 2014.
RESTRICTOR-PLATE WINS LEADER: Gordon is the all-time leader in Sprint Cup restrictor-plate victories with 12. Dale Earnhardt Sr. ranks second with 11 while Hendrick Motorsports teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr. is third with eight.
DAYTONA CHASSIS: Crew chief Alan Gustafson, a native of nearby Ormond Beach, Florida, has selected Hendrick Motorsports Chassis No. 24-887 for Sunday’s race. The chassis has been raced twice, with Gordon piloting it at Talladega in October 2014 and at Daytona in July 2014.
No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet SS / Jimmie Johnson
Driver Jimmie Johnson Hometown El Cajon, California
Age 39 Resides Charlotte, North Carolina
Career
471 starts
70 wins
33 pole positions
193 top-five finishes
292 top-10 finishes
17,151 laps led
Daytona Career
26 starts
3 wins
2 pole positions
9 top-five finishes
12 top-10 finishes
186 laps led
FRONT ROW FOR 500: Jimmie Johnson qualified on the front row for the Daytona 500 for the fourth time in his career (2002, 2005, 2008). Starting second, he will be joined by pole-sitter Gordon to form an all-Hendrick Motorsports front row for the Great American Race.
NEW PAINT SCHEME: For the first time since 2012, the No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet SS will not have stripes incorporated into the paint scheme. The new scheme, designed by primary sponsor Lowe’s, hit the track for the first time in the Sprint Unlimited.
FOURTEEN-YEAR ANNIVERSARY: Johnson, crew chief Chad Knaus, car chief Ron Malec and sponsor Lowe’s will celebrate their 14th full season together as a team. Lowe’s is currently the longest-running primary sponsor in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. The sponsor-driver-team combination came together for Johnson’s rookie year in 2002.
DAYTONA CHASSIS: For the Daytona 500, Knaus selected Hendrick Motorsports Chassis No. 48-871, which is the Chevrolet SS Johnson raced at Talladega for both events in 2014 and in the 400-mile event last July at Daytona.
No. 88 Nationwide Chevrolet SS / Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. Hometown Kannapolis, North Carolina
Age 40 Resides Mooresville, North Carolina
Career
541 starts
23 wins
13 pole positions
127 top-five finishes
224 top-10 finishes
7,847 laps led
Daytona Career
30 starts
3 wins
1 pole position
11 top-five finishes
17 top-10 finishes
450 laps led
Dale Earnhardt Jr. will be available to members of the media on Wednesday, Feb. 18, at 1:15 p.m. ET in the media center at Daytona International Speedway.
DEFENDING CHAMPION: Earnhardt is the defending winner of the Daytona 500. He went to Victory Lane in 2014 after starting ninth and leading 54 laps in the rain-delayed event. It was his second career victory in the Great American Race, which he won for the first time in 2004 after starting third and leading 58 laps.
DAYTONA DOUBLE: Earnhardt will drive the No. 88 JR Motorsports Chevrolet during the 300-mile NASCAR XFINITY Series event on Feb. 21 at Daytona. The 1998 and 1999 XFINITY Series champion has scored six wins, one pole position, 11 top-five finishes and 13 top-10s in 23 XFINITY starts at the 2.5-mile superspeedway.
WINNING WAYS: Earnhardt has 14 NASCAR wins at Daytona — three in the Sprint Cup Series, six in the XFINITY Series, three during qualifying events and two during exhibition events. He won the 2004 and 2014 Daytona 500s, the 2001 Pepsi 400, plus two Sprint Unlimited races (2003 and 2008) and three Duel 150 qualifiers (2003, 2004 and 2008). Earnhardt won the four straight XFINITY events he entered at Daytona between 2002 and 2004.
DAYTONA CHASSIS: For the Daytona 500, crew chief Greg Ives has selected Chassis No. 88-872. Earnhardt most recently raced the chassis to a 14th-place finish at Daytona last July.
Hendrick Motorsports
HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS AT DAYTONA: Hendrick Motorsports has earned eight Daytona 500 wins with five different drivers. The front row for the 2015 Great American Race represents five of the victories, with pole-winner Gordon having three and outside pole-sitter Johnson owning two. Car owner Rick Hendrick’s first Daytona 500 win came with driver Geoffrey Bodine in 1986. Darrell Waltrip (1989) and defending race winner Earnhardt (2014) also have posted Daytona 500 wins for Hendrick Motorsports. The organization has a total of 13 points-paying NASCAR Sprint Cup Series victories at Daytona International Speedway.
DAYTONA 500 POLES: Gordon’s 2015 pole position is the ninth for Hendrick Motorsports in the Daytona 500. In addition to Gordon’s two career Daytona 500 poles, Ken Schrader went back-to-back-to-back from 1988-1990, followed by Johnson in 2002 and 2008, Mark Martin in 2010 and Earnhardt in 2011.
FRONT-ROW SWEEP: Sunday’s front-row sweep by Gordon and Johnson marked the fourth time Hendrick Motorsports has earned the top two starting spots in the Daytona 500. It happened for the first time in 1989 with Schrader and Waltrip starting first and second, respectively. Martin, Earnhardt and Johnson went off one-two-three in 2010, with Earnhardt and Gordon starting one-two in 2011.
ORGANIZATION STATS: Going into the 2015 season, Hendrick Motorsports has totals of 231 victories, 943 top-five finishes and 1,562 top-10s in Sprint Cup competition. Its teams have led 63,841 laps since 1984.
NEW WEBSITE LAUNCHED: In time for the new NASCAR season, Hendrick Motorsports has re-launched its official website. HendrickMotorsports.com, which has presenting sponsorship from Bank of America, includes fresh team pages, an updated schedule area, responsive design and a completely revamped content platform. The organization has invested heavily in its digital programs in recent years. In 2013, the team opened a new studio to bolster its in-house video production capabilities and launched the Digital Dashboard social media command center. It also has added dedicated personnel and forged partnerships that support digital efforts with state-of-the-art equipment and advanced analytics.
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“I am looking forward to getting started this year to see where things are and how much different they are. We had a great offseason with the team guys, and we focused on building the leadership part of it within our group. I think all that stuff will help, and we will learn that pretty quickly into the season.”
Kasey Kahne on a new season
“This is one of the most gratifying poles here at Daytona that I have ever had. Not just because it’s my final Daytona 500, but because you have to try to plan it out and you have to try to play that chess match and we played it really well.”
“We’ll enjoy the week. More so on an emotional level this sends a big thank you back to all our folks back at Hendrick Motorsports at all the different shops and departments. They’ve been working hard to get our cars ready for the season. To get a front row sweep says a lot.
“The only way the drivers can really thank everybody for their hard work is to go out and stand on it. We did a nice job working the qualifying sessions like we needed to to advance and locked down that front row.”
“I feel confident about what we did last year and that we can come in and be competitive, and we should be competitive with the equipment we’ve got, so that shouldn’t be any issue. I’ll just get out there and make all the good decisions that I can in the draft and put myself up toward the front and try to work hard to stay there and really be mentally disciplined to fend off the challenges and all that stuff that we did in the race last year.”
