With me being a long-suffering, reluctant, and tragic NASCAR fan myself, having both watched this series and perfected the art of swearing at TV sets for at least a couple of decades now, the France Cartel’s constant monkeying with the cars themselves, rules and rule enforcement (or lack thereof if you happen to drive for a particular, four-car, and ridiculously-dominant Chevy team)
Daniel Suarez would dominate his second straight NASCAR K&N East Series event, as he took the victory in the UNOH Battle of the Beach for the second straight win in a row. Suarez won the season opener at New Smyrna Speedway on Sunday.
He may have only led three laps - but he led the three laps that counted the most. Doug Coby made the pass on the final restart to take the win in the UNOH Battle of the Beach Modified race at Daytona International Speedway.
I’ve often wondered about the first race of the season. It’s called Speedweeks for a reason. Of course, it really lasts only 11 days. I guess they count the 24 Hours of Daytona in that, and that’s alright.
Sunday afternoon most of us waited for one thing and one thing only and it wasn't about winning the pole for the Daytona 500. We waited with bated breath for the one thing fans have argued about for a while, the return of the No. 3.
The warm Floridian sun illuminated the Daytona International Speedway as cars were on track to complete the only single-car qualifying round of the season. Then there was Jimmie Johnson, once again struggling to get his car through inspection.
The long season, well it might have been just three months, of our winter discontent has come to a close. The engines are running, our hopes and dreams have been renewed, and NASCAR keeps trying its damndest to drive us to watching something else.
With all the rule changes, driver swaps, and format modifications, this has been one of the most hectic off-seasons in recent memory. But, a fresh season of NASCAR awaits as the Daytona 500 draws nearer. Plenty of questions are still buzzing around the head of many fans.
In what came as a shock to almost nobody, Austin Dillon drove his Earnhardt-Childress Racing powered No. 3 Chevrolet to the top of the leaderboard in qualifying. Dillon was very fast in both testing and practice for the Daytona 500, so him winning the pole was no surprise.
The 31-year-old Hill from Winston, Georgia, led a race-high 78 of 120 laps and persevered through a two-lap shootout to win the O'Reilly opener at Daytona for a fourth time in five years.
All six Toyota GR Supras from Joe Gibbs Racing and Sam Hunt Racing failed to finish an incident-filled NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race at Daytona International Speedway on Saturday evening.
Nick Sanchez finished eighth in Stage 1, despite being collected in a multi-car accident coming to the finish line. The damage, however, was enough to force him out of the race in 36th place.
In just his 13th career ARCA Menards National Series start, Truck Series regular Gio Ruggiero earned his first career win in the series at Daytona International Speedway on a late race restart.
The top five speeds in today’s final Daytona 500 practice session were all Ford Mustang Dark Horses, led by the RFK Racing trio of Ryan Preece, Chris Buescher and Brad Keselowski. Penske teammates Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano were fourth and fifth, respectively.
