The large number of people who turn up at the first race of the NASCAR season is due to two things: One is that the money makes even coming in last a decent propositio financially. Second, Daytona really is a different animal.
Three of those ‘interlopers’ echoed that sentiment Thursday in the DIS Media Center.
“Restrictor plate racing, in general, takes a lot of the skill set that separates the drivers. It takes it away,” Pastrana said, “but there’s a whole ‘nother skill set.”
That, of course, is how to draft. While some drivers seem to have an an intuitive understanding of drafting, Pastrana actually had ” a couple-hundred-page booklet when I was racing the Daytona, 500 on where to be and how to slow people down, how to speed yourself up, you know, how to get the bump just right, how to work with even the differences between, you know, the Toyotas and the Chevys and, you know, everything that’s out there.”
Someone asked him later who was responsible for that book.
Pastrana’s response?
“Physics.”
He went on to note that the teams compiled the information, but he was right the first time.
How Do One-Off Drivers Prepare for Daytona?
That book was how he prepared years ago. How does someone prepare for a one-off run in a series with no testing allowed today?
“The guys that are the most prepared, he said, “the guys that have done it the most, the guys honestly nowadays, the guys that are doing the most iRacing.”
Tony Stewart endorsed that prep strategy moments. He’ll also be running in Friday night’s truck race. His preparation was
“About a month and a half off and on of iRacing, literally.” He has a group of friends across the country that likes to race with. When he started negotiating for the truck race, Stewart started replacing a couple of the dirt races they normally ran with Truck races. He had to wait to tell the group why he was straying from their usual set of tracks until the deal was announced.
That iRacing practice was especially important for Stewart. Kaulig Racing, who is shepherding RAM’s return to the Truck series, pulled out all the stops just to have five trucks ready to go.
“So, you know, this 50 minute practice we’re getting,”, Stewart said, “we’re not going to be doing any drafting practice because… like we said, our colleagues had to work so hard to just get trucks down here, they don’t have enough backup trucks for everybody.”
Stewart and his wife, NHRA’s Leah Pruett even did a social media activation on Facebook documenting his iRacing journey.
The fact that Daytona is so distinct makes it much easier for Stewart and Pastrana to come back after 10 (or more) years awayl.
“I guarantee if this was anywhere but Daytona Talladega, there’s even more variables that are in play,” Stewart said. “But there’s one thing when you come to Daytona and Talladega that hasn’t changed, and that’s the air… no matter how much technology has changed, that air hasn’t changed.”
That, he says, reduces the challenge to learning how the truck responds to the air.
“It’s learning how, how it sucks up or doesn’t suck up, how, what happens when you pull out the draft, how much does it fall on its face?” Stewart added. “And what happens when somebody tucks down on the door? …but I guarantee if we went anywhere but here, there’s a lot of variables we would have to relearn, and we would be way further off base than what we might be here.”
It’s a Different Animal for Rookies, Too.
Cleetus McFarland, Pastrana’s teammate for the truck race, also sees differential between Daytona and other tracks he might run.
“So the big tracks, the restrictor plate tracks, a lot of fun. It’s easy for me to be competitive. You mentioned the intermediate and the short tracks, very challenging. I mean, I was racing at Rockingham earlier this week. Wow, is that fast? Wow, was Bristol hard too. I mean, extremely challenging.”
Unlike Pastrana and Stewart, McFarland is just starting his NASCAR career. He represents a new approach. What we might think of as more traditional drivers start at short tracks and work their way up to superspeedways. McFarland is entering at the superspeedways and will work his way to short-tracks.
Whether a grizzled veteran or a young up-and-comer, this weekend offers unique opportunities because Daytona really is a different animal.
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