DAYTONA BEACH, FL. — Daniel Dye will join Kaulig Racing to compete full-time in the NASCAR Xfinity Series in 2025, the team announced Friday at Daytona International Speedway.
Dye, currently a contender in the Craftsman Truck Series Playoffs, will drive the No. 10 Chevrolet in 2025. The 20-year-old has made nine starts for Kaulig in Xfinity competition, dating back to his series debut at Texas in 2023. Dye has made seven starts in the No. 10 car this year, recording top-10 finishes at both Iowa Speedway (10th) and Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where he posted a career-best seventh-place result.
A native of DeLand, Florida, roughly 20 miles southwest of the 2.5-mile superspeedway in Daytona, Dye is in the midst of his second full season in the Truck Series. After posting just one top-10 finish in 2023 with GMS Racing, Dye and the No. 43 McAnally-Hilgemann Racing team have combined for one top five and six top 10s through 16 races, enough for Dye to charge into the postseason through the regular-season finale at Richmond Raceway on Aug. 10. Dye enters as the 10th and final seed in the playoffs.
Kaulig Racing announced in January that Dye would compete in 10 Xfinity races for the team in 2024. Upcoming Xfinity appearances on Dye’s calendar include Sept. 28 at Kansas Speedway, Oct. 19 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Nov. 9 at Phoenix Raceway.
Throughout the 2024 NASCAR season, Ken Martin, director of historical content for the sanctioning body, will offer his suggestions on which historical races fans should watch from the NASCAR Classics library in preparation for each race weekend.
Martin has worked exclusively for NASCAR since 2008 but has been involved with the sport since 1982, overseeing various projects. He has worked in the broadcast booth for hundreds of races, assisting the broadcast team with different tasks. This includes calculating the “points as they run” for the historic 1992 finale, the Hooters 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
The following suggestions are Ken’s picks to watch before this Saturday’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway.
The third annual July 4th race at the newly opened Daytona International Speedway was the 32nd race on the 52-race schedule.
The 30-car field was full of names transcendent through time. Junior Johnson, Buck Baker, Joe Weatherly, Fred Lorenzen, Ned Jarrett, Ralph Earnhardt, Tiny Lund and defending series champion Rex White were just some of the bigger names filling the field.
Another of those names, Fireball Roberts, started the race on the pole alongside a younger driver who was in the middle of his second Cup Series campaign.
That driver was Spartanburg, South Carolina’s David Pearson, who was just 26 years old.
Pearson was racing a partial schedule in 1961 and was just a handful of starts removed from winning the World 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. That was the first victory of his young career, finishing one spot ahead of Roberts.
History was made at Daytona that weekend as it marked the first nationally televised NASCAR event that was presented in a tape-delay format. Bill France Sr. was in the booth for the event, while Chris Economaki worked the pits for his first TV broadcast.
Roberts and Weatherly traded the lead back and forth a handful of times through the race’s first 20 laps before Roberts took control.
In the end, Pearson held off a hard-charging Lorenzen at the start/finish line for the second victory of his Cup Series career.
Every once in a while, a small moment can turn out to be something that can alter the future. The summer race at Daytona in 1966 proved to be just that.
Sam McQuagg showed up to Daytona with an inch-and-a-half spoiler attached to the rear deck lid of his Dodge Charger. McQuagg and his team developed the spoiler over a few weeks in the middle of June after struggling mightily to show speed.
The Columbus, Georgia native was not necessarily someone who was looked at for being a threat to win heading into Daytona, even with the new spoiler. Daytona was set to be the 30th start of his career, with a career-best finish of third coming at Bristol Motor Speedway in 1965. More noticeably, McQuagg had 18 DNFs over that span, including his previous four starts due to mechanical issues.
The new spoiler seemingly paid off for the Ray Nichels-powered team in qualifying as McQuagg put the No. 98 Dodge in fourth. He sat behind a trio of fast cars, including pole-winner LeeRoy Yarbrough, Richard Petty and Curtis Turner.
Attrition proved to be one of the toughest battles under the July sky that day. Seventeen of the 40 starters finished the race in the garage, including the polesitter, who only made it 126 laps.
Petty was involved in a mid-race crash, while Mario Andretti, Buck Baker, Buddy Baker and Paul Goldsmith were among other names not to make it to the finish.
McQuagg surprised everyone, leading seven times for a race-high 126 laps en route to the first and only Cup Series victory of his career. Second-place finisher Darel Dieringer coasted across the line for a second-place finish as his No. 16 car ran out of gas.
Sometimes, everything just seems to fall into place to create a memorable day.
Ronald Reagan, the President of the United States, kicked off the July 4 celebration in Daytona with the command to start engines before eventually making his way to the MRN radio booth.
One of the biggest story lines was that of Richard Petty, who had just picked up his 199th career victory less than two months earlier at Dover Motor Speedway. Petty was in sole command of the most victories in series history but found tough luck after his Delaware triumph.
Petty’s 13th-place finish at Pocono Raceway was his only finish in between the two events where he finished above 23rd. His cold streak dropped him from sixth to ninth in the series points standings.
He was always strong at Daytona and qualified sixth for the Firecracker 400. Petty would have a hoard of strong cars to beat if he wanted that 200th victory to come at Daytona as Cale Yarborough, Dale Earnhardt, Bill Elliott, Terry Labonte and David Pearson all qualified in front of him. All of those drivers have since been enshrined in the NASCAR Hall of Fame.
Yarborough was driving a partial schedule in 1984 but was just as fast as ever. He kicked off the season with a victory in the Daytona 500 while also winning at Talladega Superspeedway and Pocono. Over his first eight starts of the season, he finished fourth or better in five of them. It was no surprise he put his No. 28 Chevrolet on the pole at Daytona for the second time that season.
Yarborough led 79 of the race’s first 124 laps, but it was Petty who was in command of the race as the final laps passed by.
The race came down to Petty and Yarborough battling for the win in a thrilling race back to the start/finish line after a crash involving Doug Heveron brought out the yellow flag with two laps remaining. With the race ending under yellow, whoever made it back to the line first would most certainly be able to make the final two laps behind the pace car on the way to victory.
Petty and his No. 43 car beat Yarborough to the line by inches for the 200th victory of his career.
Surprisingly, Yarborough pulled off the track one lap early by accident and was credited with a third-place finish behind Petty and Harry Gant.
Editor’s Note: Racing Insights’ playoff projections use a combination of current standings and historical performance at upcoming tracks to determine the probability of each driver winning or making the playoffs on points.
With the Cup Series Playoffs on the mind throughout the season, what if there was a way to project how the 16-driver field could look before each race weekend?
It now exists via Racing Insights. From now until the start of the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, “The Field of 16” will give fans a weekly look at where their favorite drivers could potentially land in the postseason field — and the likelihood of having a shot at the Bill France Cup.
Here’s this week’s update on the projections heading into Daytona International Speedway.
NOTABLE PROBABILITY SHIFTS POST-MICHIGAN
DRIVER
AT MICHIGAN
ENTERING DAYTONA
DIFFERENCE
Ty Gibbs
62.63%
80.19%
+17.56
Ross Chastain
56.39%
56.85%
+0.46
Chris Buescher
71.90%
70.15%
-1.75
Bubba Wallace
71.12%
63.26%
-7.86
PROBABILITY CALCULATED BY RACING INSIGHTS AHEAD OF COKE ZERO SUGAR 400, AUGUST 24, 2024
DRIVERS SOLIDLY IN PLAYOFF PICTURE
After winning last week’s race at Michigan, Tyler Reddick has now jumped into first place in the Cup Series standings by 10 points over Chase Elliott. Reddick, driver of the No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota, has been the hottest driver in NASCAR this summer and on one of the most impressive runs in recent memory. Going back to the Coca-Cola 600, he’s finished inside the top 10 in every race except for Iowa.
Elliott (-10) and Kyle Larson (-32) remain in the mix for the coveted Regular Season Championship but all three had respective issues in Michigan. Larson took the biggest hit out of the bunch after starting a multicar wreck in Stage 2.
Ryan Blaney, Christopher Bell and William Byron have all won multiple races this season, and while a regular-season title isn’t within grasp for the trio, they can still continue to rack up playoff points to position themselves well for the start of the postseason.
Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano, Alex Bowman, Daniel Suárez and Austin Cindric each own a win and have locked in spots in the postseason. Both Suárez and Cindric return to the playoffs after missing out in 2023.
LAST 4 IN
With 16 unique winners not possible this year, Martin Truex Jr.’s 2022 nightmare will not repeat itself this season. However, a 77-point cushion is anything but safe, especially with Truex’s luck at superspeedways in his Cup career. He’s completed every lap at drafting tracks this season but only has six top 10s in 38 starts at the “World Center of Racing.”
Ty Gibbs had one of his most complete outings of 2024 at Michigan. A third-place finish moved him 39 points above the elimination line but experience is limited at Daytona for the Cup sophomore and he will need to rely on his Joe Gibbs Racing team to help get to the checkered flag with a clean race car.
Daytona may be best suited for the likes of Chris Buescher and Bubba Wallace. Both have produced results and won at drafting tracks in their Cup career, with Buescher being the defending Daytona summer race winner. Buescher was involved in the late Stage 2 crash with Larson and Wallace but the damage to the No. 17 RFK Racing Ford didn’t stop Buescher from finishing inside the top 10.
However, the damage to Wallace’s No. 23 Toyota kept him from finding speed the rest of the day at Michigan, and all he could was watch his teammate take the checkered flag while Gibbs finished not too far behind. Now, just one point below Ross Chastain for the final playoff spot, Wallace will have to manage, balance stage points and go for the win Saturday night.
FIRST 4 OUT
It appeared Chastain was on his way to a solid top-10 outing at Michigan until a spin in overtime parachuted him to a 25th-place finish. Now, Chastain only holds a single-point gap over Wallace entering Saturday night’s showdown. The driver of the No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet has been in the mix late in Daytona races but he’s been on the short end of calamity more times than not with a 42% DNF rate at the 2.5-mile superspeedway.
Kyle Busch has had fast Chevrolets at Daytona since joining Richard Childress Racing in 2023. He nearly won his first Daytona 500 in Feb. 2023 and had a rocket in the season-opening race this year but couldn’t get to the front late and finished 12th. Busch and teammate Austin Dillon will have speed Saturday night, if they can put a complete race together, one of them could find their way into the postseason.
WHO CAN SHAKE UP PLAYOFF PICTURE AT DAYTONA?
Anybody.
That’s the beauty of the Daytona summer race taking place just before the postseason kicks off. If you are looking for specific drivers outside the playoff picture that have momentum heading into Saturday night, look no further than a pair of Spire Motorsports drivers Zane Smith and Carson Hocevar. Smith’s summer has been bountiful in the No. 71 Chevrolet, with two top 10s highlighted by a runner-up at Nashville. Hocevar enters Saturday night’s affair with back-to-back top 10s at Richmond and Michigan.
The No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team and driver Denny Hamlin were issued an L2-level penalty for violating NASCAR’s engine inspection requirements, the sanctioning body announced Thursday.
The team was found in violation of Sections 14.7.1.E&F and 14.7.1.1.B&E of the NASCAR Rule Book. As a result, Hamlin and team owner Joe Gibbs were each docked 75 points and 10 playoff points, while crew chief Chris Gabehart was fined $100,000.
Section 14.7.1.E states all race-winning engines “will be long block sealed by NASCAR and must be completely inspected by NASCAR before the engine may be disassembled by the team. If the team chooses to use the long block sealed race winning engine again before being inspected, the engine must be used in the same vehicle number the next time it is used.” Section 14.7.1.F states the long block engine assembly seals of a long block sealed engine must not be altered, removed or replaced.
Additionally, the team violated 14.7.1.1.B&E, which respectively states, “seals must not be removed without prior approval by NASCAR,” and “if a race winning engine is sealed and presented for post-race inspection at a later date with damaged, altered or missing seals, an L2 Penalty will be assessed.”
“Each race-winning engine must be inspected by NASCAR once the race team determines that its life cycle is complete,” a NASCAR statement read. “In this instance, prior to presenting the engine to NASCAR for inspection, Toyota Racing Development disassembled and rebuilt the No. 11’s Bristol-winning race engine. Per the NASCAR Rule Book, this violation results in an L2 penalty to the race team and driver. Toyota Racing Development self-reported this violation.”
The penalties levied against Hamlin and the No. 11 team are the lowest L2-level penalties permissible, according to the rule book.
Additionally, Hamlin’s Bristol win will no longer count toward eligibility for the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, advancement in the playoffs or eligibility for non-points events and tiebreakers. Hamlin is a three-time race winner in 2024, including his Bristol triumph and is still locked into the postseason.
The penalty drops Hamlin from third in the regular-season standings to sixth, effectively eliminating him from contention to win the Regular Season Championship.
“As the engine builder for our partner NASCAR Cup Series teams, TRD (Toyota Racing Development) is solely responsible for the handling and disposition of all our engines pre- and post-race,” David Wilson, president of TRD USA, said in a statement. “Despite procedures being in place, Denny’s race-winning engine from Bristol was mistakenly returned to our Costa Mesa facility, disassembled and rebuilt instead of being torn down and inspected by NASCAR per the rule book. Although we know with absolute certainty that the engine was legal and would have passed inspection, we left NASCAR in an impossible position because they were not given the opportunity to properly inspect our engine. We have reviewed our processes and have implemented several additional steps to ensure that this never happens again. TRD takes full responsibility for this grievous mistake, and we apologize to Denny, Chris, Coach Gibbs, the entire JGR organization, NASCAR and our fans.”
Hamlin still has the opportunity to gain playoff points, of course, in the final two regular-season races at Daytona International Speedway and Darlington Raceway.
A 54-time winner at the Cup level, Hamlin is a three-time champion of the Daytona 500, and the series will race at Daytona in the Coke Zero Sugar 400 on Saturday (7:30 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, Peacock). He also is a four-time winner at Darlington, where the Cup Series’ regular season will come to an end Sept. 1.
As the fight for the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs reaches its frenzied conclusion, two races remain for at least five drivers to fight over no more than four postseason spots. So if you haven’t locked in your playoff status yet, things are starting to feel mighty precarious right now.
That is especially the case considering the first of those two races, Saturday night’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 (7:30 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCA Radio, NBC Sports App), comes at Daytona International Speedway.
Daytona is a fascinating subject because it’s the sport’s flagship track — home of the most famous race in America, the Daytona 500 — but it also carries a reputation for being one of the most chaotic. That duality was represented in the career of the late, great Dale Earnhardt, who hated the type of pack racing that emerged at Daytona in the restrictor-plate era, even as he became the greatest plate-racer in history. (So remarkable was Earnhardt’s ability to manipulate the draft that legend held he could “see the air” as he maneuvered through the field.)
Pack racing means one mistake or miscommunication, by any of dozens of different cars, can create the “Big One” at any moment. So, it’s natural that drivers would be anxious to cast their fate to the Daytona winds with the playoffs on the line. And the numbers support that feeling.
There are a few ways to measure just how random Daytona races can be. Back when William Byron won the 500 in February, I wrote about how surprisingly rare it was for the best driver in the Cup Series to win the Super Bowl of Stock Car Racing — with Daytona winners performing worse on average in the previous season (according to my Adjusted Points+ index metric) than the winners at any other track since the early 1970s. But let’s expand on that further by retroactively calculating my rolling driver rankings going into each race, tracking how well the top driver did — as well as where the eventual winner was ranked going into the race.
In the average Cup Series race (at all tracks) since 1975, the No. 1 driver in the pre-race rankings wins 15.7% of the time, with an average finish of 10.8; meanwhile, the eventual winner of any given race had an average ranking of 6.6 going in. And those numbers get more predictable at short tracks, for instance, where the No. 1 driver wins 21.1% of the time with an average finish of 9.1, while the average winner had a pre-race ranking of 5.5.
However, we see how much more chaotic things can be at restrictor-plate tracks like Daytona and Talladega. Across all plate tracks, the No. 1 driver wins just 8.9% of races with an average finish of 15.8, while the average winner went into the race with a ranking of 9.0. And Daytona is even more unpredictable. While the No. 1 driver has historically won 9.1% of the time — about on par with Talladega — they’ve also posted an average finish of 15.9, with the winner going into the race with an average rank of 9.8. Both of those latter figures are the highest for any track on the current Cup Series schedule with at least 10 races run since 1975.
And the midseason Daytona race, which has been run at night under the lights since 1998, is the most helter-skelter of all. It sees the No. 1 ranked driver win just 8.2% of the time with an average finish of 17.1, and the average winner has gone in with a ranking of 9.8. For every time this race was won by the top driver, as happened with Earnhardt (in 1990 and 1993), Jeff Gordon (1998) and Jimmie Johnson (2013), it was just as often won by comparatively less-heralded drivers like Greg Sacks (No. 28 in 1985), John Andretti (No. 31 in 1997), Greg Biffle (No. 29 in 2003), David Ragan (No. 25 in 2011) and Justin Haley (No. 32 in 2019).
And all of this is from the perspective of the top driver before the race. How about the best driver in the race itself?
You might think the best driver and the race winner are one and the same — and for sure, there’s a certain school of thought that “if you ain’t first, you’re last.” But since we’re on the topic of randomness, it’s worth looking at how often the statistical best driver of the race, as measured by Driver Rating, actually wins at Daytona (and other tracks), and how often their day is spoiled by unforeseen circumstances.
Since 2005, the earliest season of loop data at Racing-Reference.info, the driver with the highest rating in the race wins at a surprisingly low clip of 56.2% overall, which underscores just how much stands between the car with the best pure speed and Victory Lane each week, regardless of the track. But that number falls to 43.6% at Daytona — the third-lowest success rate at any current track with at least 10 races in that span, trailing only Talladega (41.0%) and Indianapolis (41.2%).
Moreover, the driver with the best driver rating in Daytona races has an average finish of just 5.8, which is far worse than the overall Cup Series average of 3.0 since 2005, and easily the worst of any active qualified track:
This, perhaps more than anything else, speaks to the chaos sitting at the heart of Daytona. Because the Big One’s potential lurks around every turn, drivers can do everything right and still get sent to the back of the field by the end of the race, if they get caught up in a massive wreck. The top stars in the sport are far from immune to this — remember how mediocre the No. 1 ranked pre-race driver tends to do here — which in turn opens up chances for cars deeper in the field to rise to the front.
If you are one of the drivers on the cusp of the playoffs, you could look at this as something to fear: Everything you prepared for all season could be cruelly swept away at any moment. But it also represents an opportunity. Since a win can officially stamp your ticket to the postseason — and any high finish can help solidify your points position — Daytona could also be what makes a driver’s playoff hopes instead of breaking them. After all, somebody has to win, no matter how much chaos it takes to get there in the end.
With five races left to set the 12-driver NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoff field, Friday night’s Wawa 250 Powered by Coca-Cola at Daytona International Speedway (7:30 p.m. ET on USA Network, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) could produce a surprise winner and new playoff entrant on the historic high banks.
There are only three former Daytona race winners in this weekend’s field, led by three-time winner Austin Hill of Richard Childress Racing. Also with Daytona wins are Jeremy Clements Racing owner-driver Jeremy Clements and JR Motorsports’ Justin Allgaier — who is the defending winner of this Daytona summer 250-miler.
While those closer to the top of the standings have either solidified their positions with victories or good points days, drivers near the elimination line arrive in Daytona racing for their playoff lives.
Big Machine Racing’s Parker Kligerman is ranked 11th with a 16-point margin to the playoff good after being levied with a penalty post-Michigan. JR Motorsports’ Sammy Smith holds only a single-point lead on RSS Racing’s Ryan Sieg for that last playoff position.
Eight drivers have already earned playoff bids with victories, led by popular New Zealand driver Shane van Gisbergen, who has three race wins in his first full-time NASCAR season. Allgaier, Hill, Joe Gibbs Racing’s Chandler Smith and Allgaier’s teammate at JR Motorsports, Sam Mayer all have won twice.
Defending series champion Cole Custer, his Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Riley Herbst and RCR’s Jesse Love all have earned playoff berths with a win. Veteran Kaulig Racing driver AJ Allmendinger currently holds a 102-point advantage on the elimination line while JGR’s Sheldon Creed is a healthy 70 points up. Kligerman and Sammy Smith round out the current dozen in the playoff standings.
Hill won the season’s first two races and now aims for a rare Daytona double. A win Friday would give him the track season sweep, meaning he would join NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr. as the only competitors to sweep a season’s two NASCAR Xfinity Series events at Daytona.
Creed, who just set a record for most runner-up finishes (11) in the series without a win, has finished runner-up in the last two Daytona races.
Asked what it would take to hoist that elusive first trophy this weekend, Creed said, “A good push and even better luck. It’s been feast or famine at Daytona for me so far and that’s helped me realize the importance of making it to the end. If things go our way, I feel good about our ability to put ourselves in contention. From there we just have to hope that the cards fall in a way that give me a chance to execute in the final laps. If that happens, I like our chances.”
Allmendinger’s average finish of 10.7 in seven starts is the second-best average finish to Jordan Anderson Racing’s Parker Retzlaff (4.7 in three starts) among active drivers.
There’s no practice this week. Qualifying is set for Friday at 3 p.m. ET (USA Network).
The stats show that Saturday night’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway (7:30 ET, NBC, Peacock, MRN Radio, SiriusXM, NBC Sports App) is set to be a wide-open thriller.
Who knows what we’re in store for at the “World Center of Racing,” a driver’s luck could change at any time. In Daytona’s last seven races, the driver who won led for 10 laps or fewer in six of those events. On the flip side, the driver who led the most laps often fell short, finishing 22nd or worse in five of the past six races. Proving Daytona’s wild nature is a recipe for thrilling upsets and unexpected twists.
Additionally, in four of the last six summer Daytona races, the winner earned their first victory of the season, which is crucial given that Chris Buescher and Bubba Wallace are only separated by 16 points in the playoff standings. Not to mention former Daytona winners such as Kyle Busch, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Erik Jones and Justin Haley are in must-win scenarios for their playoff hopes.
While there’s still plenty to watch on the playoff bubble, the race for the Regular Season Championship is also leaving the top drivers with no margin for error as Tyler Reddick, Chase Elliott, Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson are separated by 32 points — second-closest battle ever at this point in a season. Currently, the early projections only have Elliott and Reddick landing top fives, while Hamlin rounds out the top 10 and Larson is a projected 14th.
The advanced metrics favor Ryan Blaney to win at Daytona. Given he has an 11.3 average finish on drafting tracks in the Next Gen era — best of all drivers — it’s easy to understand why Racing Insights is high on the No. 12 driver heading into the weekend. Blaney is tied with William Byron, Wallace and Elliott for the third-best betting odds to win. He has four wins in drafting-style races and finished in the top two in 33% of the last 24 races on drafting tracks. Still, at Daytona, it’s anyone’s game.
DRIVERS TO WATCH
TYLER REDDICK: Reddick took over the regular-season points lead after his Michigan win. When factoring in his Duel win before the season at Daytona and his triumph at Talladega, Reddick could extend his points lead and remain in control going to Darlington.
WILLIAM BYRON: Byron has four drafting track wins, with two of those coming at Daytona and three being in the Next Gen car. In his last seven drafting races, he’s tallied six top 10s and has an average finish of 6.14 — both a series-best over that stretch.
KYLE BUSCH: Busch rallied to a top-five finish at Michigan, and while it’s been hard for the No. 8 crew to string together solid weeks this year, Busch has the experience to navigate a wild superspeedway race.
TODD GILLILAND: Seventy-four of Gilliland’s 121 laps led this year have been on superspeedways. With the career year he’s having and the speed Front Row Motorsports has shown on superspeedways, Gilliland could shock the field.
JOHN HUNTER NEMECHEK: Nemechek holds a 9.67 average finish at Daytona — 10th-best all-time. He also has finished 11th or better in five of his last seven drafting track starts.
RACING INSIGHTS’ PROJECTIONS FOR THE COKE ZERO SUGAR 400
Racing Insights’ advanced statistical formula includes current track, current track type, recent performance, team data and pit-crew data to arrive at a projected winner and full race results.
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (Aug. 22, 2024) — Today marks a moment worth savoring, as America’s No. 1 motorsport and the nation’s No. 1 meat snack brand join forces to help race fans feed their wild side. NASCAR and Jack Link’s together announced that the U.S. meat snacks market leader has become an Official Partner of NASCAR through a multi-year agreement set to begin in 2025.
“Much like NASCAR, Jack Link’s built itself from a determined pioneer into a household brand committed to delivering quality to its customers while having some fun along the way,” said Michelle Byron, NASCAR executive vice president and chief partnership and licensing officer. “Jack Link’s fits perfectly as an Official Partner of NASCAR and we’re eager for everyone involved to enjoy the benefits of catering to the most passionate and loyal fans in all of sports.”
As the Official Meat Snack of NASCAR, Jack Link’s will activate across multiple areas of the NASCAR ecosystem including at-track, social and digital media, and radio and television. Jack Link’s will also leverage the NASCAR relationship at retail, as the company continues offering consumers a wide amount of real, high-quality protein snack options that span multiple flavors, formats, sizes and sub-brands.
“Jack Link’s is thrilled to partner with NASCAR, a true icon in American motorsport, and share our passion for quality snacks with their loyal fan base,” said Matt White, senior vice president of sales & commercial strategy at Jack Link’s. “This partnership allows us to bring our delicious meat snacks to life at the racetrack and in retail locations nationwide, fueling fans’ adventures with bold new flavors. We’re excited to satisfy cravings and enhance the fan experience both on and off the track.”
Before this delicious new partnership takes effect, the 2024 NASCAR season rolls on, with the penultimate race of the NASCAR Cup Series regular season taking place from the iconic Daytona International Speedway at 7:30 p.m. ET this Saturday, Aug. 24 (NBC, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Two weeks later, the 10-race NASCAR Playoffs get underway at Atlanta Motor Speedway at 3 p.m. ET on Sunday, Sept. 8 (USA Network, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
NASCAR will mandate a new right side rear-window air deflector beginning with Saturday’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway (7:30 p.m. ET, NBC, Peacock, NBC Sports App, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Following wind-tunnel testing this week, the added component to the Next Gen car increases the liftoff speed of the car in the early part of the spin, making it less likely get airborne.
The mandate comes in response to Corey LaJoie’s flip at Michigan International Speedway after the No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet went in the air and landed on its roof shortly after spinning down the backstretch.
NASCAR will supply teams with the part, and it will match what is currently run on the left side rear window.
1. What will Daytona have in store as the next-to-last regular-season bout?
With the regular season nearing its end, Daytona will act as the penultimate race before the 2024 NASCAR Playoffs begin.
A wild, weather-filled race weekend at Michigan International Speedway saw Tyler Reddick conquer his Irish Hills demons and jump 10 points clear of Chase Elliott in the points standings. Then, there was the playoff bubble, which saw several drivers tally double-digit totals that could be all the difference in clinching a coveted playoff berth.
Next up is Daytona. And when speaking about Daytona, it’s best to be frank: Reputations speak for themselves sometimes, and the “World Center of Racing” is no exception. But in the case of 2024, Daytona will not act as the regular-season finale. Instead, the 2.5-miler will be the next-to-last venue on the docket.
While momentum can certainly translate, it takes a certain kind of momentum to translate in full to Daytona, even if it is no longer the regular-season cutoff contest. From blistering speeds through the straightaways to the oh-so-daunting banking through the turns, racing skill can perhaps only take you so far.
“You can’t make all your own luck there,” 2023 Daytona summer winner Chris Buescher said at Michigan when speaking about the Florida track. “There is a matter of being in the right place at the right time simply by circumstance. Mistakes get made. Everyone is a little bit more desperate as it comes down to it. That race definitely has the ability to get a lot more wild, especially as we get into the closing laps. We’ve had these conversations there through the years of how do you run hard, be smart in the stages, try and capture stage points, but ultimately know that with 10, 15 to go, it’s going to get wild.”
But Daytona’s sheer unpredictability might have a benefit for drivers with sound superspeedway packages, because they’ll have the opportunity to leave a potential race-winning mark.
“Yeah, I mean, it’s definitely more in your hands at Darlington, but Darlington was one of our really bad struggle races earlier this year where, you know, Daytona is kind of that crapshoot race,” Kyle Busch said earlier this season at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. “But we seem to be really fast at the two-and-a-half miles, two-mile tracks, and so you kind of honestly might have a better shot of winning at Daytona than you would at Darlington.”
Daytona hasn’t seen a back-to-back summer winner since 2005-06, when Tony Stewart accomplished the feat. And for drivers looking to go into the postseason on solid footing or perhaps even clinch their playoff berth outright, anything goes at Daytona, regular-season finale or not. If anything, just expect to be surprised.
Talk about a reputation.
2. Which winless driver has the best chance to hoist the Daytona crown?
Although the sport has already seen 13 different winners this season, Daytona’s summer race could produce another.
Make no mistake, the Kyle Larsons, Christopher Bells, Denny Hamlins or William Byrons of the world — among other drivers to already find Victory Lane this season — have just as good a shot as any to prevail at Daytona this weekend. But for the pilots yet to win this season — and thus still at the mercy of missing the playoffs — the incentive to race well is all the more apparent.
Of the four drivers currently without a win in 2024 but above the elimination line — Martin Truex Jr. (+77), Ty Gibbs (+39), Buescher (+16) and Ross Chastain (+1) — Buescher is the easy layup. He won last season’s summer race, and while a driver hasn’t gone back-to-back in the Daytona summer race in nearly 20 years, the benefit of the doubt should at least be considered. Truex, meanwhile, maintains a hearty points lead, and his experience at Daytona overall is nearly unmatched — the 44-year-old’s 38 total races at the Daytona track are tied with Kyle Busch for the most among all active drivers. Chastain has only garnered three top 10s in 12 total tries at the track, and none of those top-10 results came during the summer race.
There are, of course, other candidates to consider. There is Busch (-93), who utilized a two-tire gamble at Michigan to tally his first top five since Dover Motor Speedway in April. The Michigan finish additionally bumped the No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet up a spot in the playoff standings, and his +26 gain was the highest among all bubble drivers. Bubba Wallace (-1), who fell below the elimination line after a 26th-place finish at Michigan, has a knack for producing at superspeedways, as his five top fives at Daytona — including a runner-up during the 2021 summer running — can attest.
The likes of Michael McDowell (-157), Erik Jones (-245) and Justin Haley (-260) have all won at the facility, with the latter two winning summer races there (2018 and 2019, respectively). And while Chase Briscoe (-115), Todd Gilliland (-151), Carson Hocevar (-165) and Josh Berry (-179), among others, don’t have prior winning history at the track in Cup, it only takes being at the right place at the right time to be in a winning position at Daytona.
In other words, there are an abundance of options, and every option is more than capable.
MRN’s Todd Gordon and FOX’s Larry McReynolds dive into the data from Michigan and discuss how Tyler Reddick came out on top.
4. Just how good has Tyler Reddick’s points stretch been?
A victory at Michigan last weekend officially placed the No. 45 23XI pilot atop the regular-season standings. Check out Reddick’s point gains over the last eight contests, dating back to Iowa Speedway in June.
RACE
POINTS BEHIND
POINTS POSITION
FINISH AT TRACK
After Iowa
-64
6th
22nd
After New Hampshire
-60
5th
6th
After Nashville
-53
4th
3rd
After Chicago
-23
3rd
2nd
After Pocono
-15
3rd
6th
After Indianapolis
-15
3rd
2nd
After Richmond
-5
2nd
3rd
After Michigan
+10
1st
1st
5. Catch the pack — news and notes from around the garage
