The Sun rises over Daytona and hope for the Daytona 500 contenders permeates the Cup Series Garage. It’s everywhere, from two-time defending champion William Byron to series champion Kyle Larson to the furthest end of the garage where Jimmie Johnson, Casey Mears and B.J. McCloud’s crews prepare for final inspection.
The New Championship Format Doesn’t Reward Gambling
NASCAR’s championship now depends entirely on points. Regular points, because there are no playoff points anymore. There’s no “win and you’re in”, either. That makes the almost-certain precipitation a critical factor in who takes home the Harley J. Earl trophy.
Under the old playoff formats, it made sense for teams to gamble for a win. Staying out when everyone else pits, for example. But the change in format means that a ‘checkers or wreckers’ strategy has serious implications for the rest of the season.
The most obvious penalty, of course, is the points. In the old format, winning a race compensated for a bunch of poor finishes. Now that the championship is cumulative, drivers can’t afford too many poor finishes. Putting your foot down and hoping for the best can misfire in new ways now. The hope of winning next week won’t cover the points deficit from this week.
But that’s not the only negative consequence of a poor Daytona 500 finish.
NASCAR’s metric-score-ranked qualifying order survived the format makeover. A finish toward the rear of the field places a driver among the first to qualify the next week. At most tracks, that’s a definite disadvantage. A bad start in the first race of the year can force a driver into a downward spiral of having to qualify early, qualifying poorly, and thus having to qualify early the next week.
The Non-Championship Competitors
Five drivers in this year’s race are not running for the Cup Series Championship: Jimmie Johnson, Justin Allgaier, Casey Mears, B.J. McLeod and Corey Heim.
I wrote earlier about why non-championship-competing drivers flock to the Daytona 500. In short, it’s the money and the fact that the possibility of winning here is so much higher than the possibility of winning at a traditional oval or a road course.
Jimmie Johnson (who is using a provisional and thus won’t earn any money) echoed the second of those points.
“I think as a driver that moonlights, the restrictor plate-tracks or that style of tracks is where you can be the most competitive. This car is so different than any generation of car I’ve driven before. To show up at Kansas and think that you’re going have a shot to win, even when I ran a 9-race schedule. It’s just not a truth.”
— Jimmie Johnson
The inclement weather gives these drivers even more of an advantage because a poor finish might dash a few dreams, but has no impact on the rest of their year. These are the drivers who can risk staying out and trying to anticipate when the race will be called. The every-week drivers don’t have that advantage.
Hope may spring eternal, but hope for the Daytona 500 contenders only lasts until the end of the race
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