Posted on by Terrin Waack

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Ryan Blaney can thrive at faster speeds and survive on longer distances.

Three of Blaney’s seven career Cup Series wins have come at a superspeedway. Half, if excluding road courses. And the 2022 season will kick off Sunday on that beast of a track type with the Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway (2:30 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM).

“I don’t really ever think, and I don’t sit around and be like, ‘Man, I’m a race favorite,’” Blaney said Wednesday during Media Day for the Daytona 500. “But you have confidence in yourself. It builds confidence when you are successful at speedways. We won the August race here, so you build confidence and I think I have a decent idea of what to do to try to get to Victory Lane, so I don’t know. I think a lot of people can be favorites.”

DAYTONA 500: Weekend schedule | Betting odds | All-time winners

Blaney conquered the 2.66 miles of Talladega Superspeedway twice before breaking through at its 2.5-mile sister track, Daytona. He won the fall event in 2019, leading 35 of the 188 laps, and the summer race in 2020 with 63 of the 191 circuits spent out front. The Daytona win came last year in the regular-season finale, where he led just seven of the 165 laps.

Aad500 74
Alejandro Alvarez | NASCAR Digital Media

That first superspeedway victory saw Jeremy Bullins atop Blaney’s No. 12 pit box as crew chief. The next two, Todd Gordon wore the Ford’s connecting headset. Now, Jonathan Hassler will be calling the shots.

Hassler was added to Team Penske after Gordon’s retirement with the conclusion of the 2021 season. Hassler was previously with Wood Brothers Racing, which is an organizational affiliate.

“He and Todd have kind of the same demeanor and personality, and he and I have the same pretty much personality, too,” Blaney said. “It’s been nice to get some testing in with Jonathan in the offseason to just kind of learn each other and talk to each other on the radio and see how we both go about things. That just gives you such a better jump-start to the season, but I’m looking forward to working with him. He’s very smart and well deserving, and I’m lucky to have him.”

SPEEDWEEKS: Entry lists, qualifying procedure and more | Tuesday’s practice recap

The duo did top Daytona’s leaderboard in second practice Tuesday, turning in a 46.732-second and 192.588-mph run. They were 39th in the opening round (49.848 seconds, 180.549 mph).

“It’s kind of hard to look at speeds in practice,” Blaney said. “We just had a big draft in that second practice and put a big lap up there.”

OK, but Blaney also produced the third-fastest lap time back in January during the second day of Next Gen testing at Daytona. He did not participate in the first day. And then, at the Phoenix Raceway test weeks later, he was sixth Day 1 and first Day 2.

The No. 12 crew has found speed in the new car.

BetMGM has placed Blaney at 12-1 betting odds to win the Daytona 500. Blaney has two runner-up finishes and three top-10 results in seven career Great American Race starts. He recorded laps led in four of those openers, including 118 in 2018 before ending up seventh, but he has also failed to reach the checkered flag in three.

“It’s nice they say I’m a race favorite,” Blaney said. “But you’ve just got to make it to the end and anyone can be.”

Posted on by Staff Report

Joe Gibbs Racing announced Wednesday that Ty Gibbs will drive the No. 54 Toyota full-time in the NASCAR Xfinity Series this season.

Gibbs’ widely expected promotion became official with the announcement and veteran Chris Gayle will be his crew chief. Monster Energy, Interstate Batteries and Sport Clips will divide the primary sponsorship through the season, with Monster featured on the car for the season-opening Beef. It’s What’s For Dinner 300 (Feb. 19, 5 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

RELATED: Changes to know for 2022 | Tracking the Xfinity Series rides | Daytona entry list

The 19-year-old phenom won four times while driving in a partial Xfinity Series schedule last year. That list included a breakthrough triumph in his series debut on the Daytona International Speedway road course, followed by wins at Charlotte, Watkins Glen and Kansas in an 18-race slate. 

“I’m excited to get going on the 2022 season,” Gibbs said in a team release. “Chris Gayle and the crew guys from the 54 were great last year and hopefully we can have even more success this year. Of course, I can’t thank everyone at Toyota and TRD enough for all their support as well. I’m just ready to get going in the No. 54 Toyota GR Supra.”

Gibbs also scored 10 victories in 20 races in the ARCA Menards Series in 2021, leading more than half the laps to power to that tour’s championship.

Gayle came back to the NASCAR Xfinity Series last season after a four-year stint in the Cup Series paired with Erik Jones. His return was a successful one as he led the No. 54 Toyota team to 10 victories, split among four drivers. Gibbs and Kyle Busch each won four times in the No. 54 in 2021, while Christopher Bell and John Hunter Nemechek added one each.

Posted on by Staff Report

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — The differences of opinion between Erik Jones and Ryan Blaney still persist, nearly a week and a half after their run-in at the Busch Light Clash. During Daytona 500 Media Day, both confirmed that they haven’t spoken since the incident at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, but that they’ve also tried to turn the page.

In the moment, Blaney showed his displeasure for their on-track contact by throwing his HANS device at Jones’ No. 43 Chevrolet from the track’s infield. Jones drove on to a fourth-place result, but Blaney wound up 17th, three laps off the pace in his No. 12 Ford.

“No, he hasn’t reached out to me, so I guess it’s resolved,” Jones said Wednesday from Daytona International Speedway. “I don’t know. You know, I guess if I had a problem with someone, I would talk to ’em. So I guess it’s over.”

RELATED: At-track photos | Daytona weekend schedule

Like Jones, Blaney said he had also put the incident in his rearview, but that no communication to potentially mend any hard feelings had taken place.

“No, I haven’t talked to Erik. I don’t really have anything to talk to him about,” Blaney said. “I’m over it. I don’t know. It’s funny he thought I was supposed to apologize after I got fenced. But just, two people are gonna think differently. But no, I haven’t talked to him, but I’m over it. It’s in the past and move on from it.”

After Blaney’s display of anger in LA, he questioned Jones’ tactics in a televised interview, wondering why he was racing full-bore in a low-reward contest for seventh place. FOX Sports’ Jamie Little noted that Blaney’s outburst seemed out of character. Jones said Wednesday he wasn’t entirely surprised by the reaction.

“The way I look at it, if I’m racing somebody and I brake-checked them, I guess I’d expect to get wrecked,” Jones said. “It’s not like I meant to take the guy out of the race. You know, I didn’t just intentionally right-rear him in the wall, move him up the track. He got in the wall and broke a piece, and unfortunately that took him farther out of the race. So yeah, he’s probably upset about that, for sure. He was having a solid run there, obviously. We’re kind of moving forward together. But yeah, I mean, frustrated. I don’t know. I wasn’t I guess shocked to see it at all. I knew he’d probably be mad about it, so just kinda waiting on it.”

Posted on by Scott Bernberg

From diecast miniature cars to vintage T-shirts, collecting is in the DNA of every NASCAR fan.

And while traditional collectibles such as cards and figurines remain popular with racing fans and general sports lovers alike, even after all these years, there’s a new kind of collectible emerging on the scene that could be the thing that pushes sports collecting into the future – Digital Collectibles.

But if it’s Digital, what do I own?

It can be hard to wrap your head around the idea at first, but when you get right down to it, Digital Collectibles aren’t that different from the physical items you’ve likely been collecting your entire life.

Sometimes the psychological hurdle can be a generational thing. Many of us equated our music collection with that bookshelf of CDs we kept in the corner of the living room (or even that technology favored by the ancients, a record collection). That was ownership.

But the young music fans of the current generation don’t need those shiny discs to signify their music collection. They are satisfied with a few fave Spotify playlists — digital representation of the music. It’s a way of thinking that has come with all the technology we have at our fingertips — and is why digital items can carry the same importance as something printed on paper.

Digital Collectibles are big and getting bigger

Digital Collectibles, especially those commemorating attendance at a major sporting event, are becoming a big deal all around the world. How big? Even the NFL, an organization notoriously slow to adapt to new technology, gave every fan who attended this month’s Super Bowl a complementary digital version of their ticket to the big game in Inglewood. (Given the game’s average ticket price of $6,116, they should have thrown in a ride home from MVP Cooper Kupp).

The Super Bowl’s got nothing on the World Center of Racing

NASCAR chose its biggest event of the year as the setting for the introduction of the first official NASCAR Digital Collectible — a commemorative digital ticket celebrating this year’s running of The Great American Race.

And to sweeten the pot, NASCAR created five different editions of the Daytona 500 Digital Collectible Tickets, each series with a very limited run of 100.

Everyone with a ticket for the 2022 Daytona 500 was eligible to win, but only 500 ticket holders would be chosen to receive the limited edition Digital Collectible.

Even those lucky enough to snag a ticket to the race, and then be chosen to receive one of the 500 collectibles were going to need even more good fortune if they were to get their hands on one of the five special edition commemorative driver helmets created specifically for the 2022 Daytona 500. These special items will be given to five lucky people who were selected to receive the commemorative ticket.

Whether you’re a new racing fan or a seasoned vet, you know that the bond between NASCAR and its fans is strong — which is why NASCAR chose to give these Digital Collectibles away for free. So that everyone had a chance to start a collection and share with other race fans.

MORE: Sign up for future drops here

Why WAX? (And while we’re at it, what’s WAX?)

NASCAR wanted to ensure that as many people as possible could take part in the fun of this history-making event. That’s why it selected WAX as its platform/marketplace. In addition to understanding the fun-factor of collecting, WAX also allows fans who may just be getting started with Digital Collectibles an easy way to dive in and get started.

WAX is also certified carbon neutral by ClimateCare and uses 220,000x less energy than its competitors.

In case you missed it … this time

And for those who weren’t selected for this inaugural program, don’t worry. NASCAR will be releasing additional collectibles as a thank you to fans throughout the season. Keep checking NASCAR.com for the latest information about upcoming drops.

Posted on by Bozi Tatarevic

Editor’s note: Bozi Tatarevic is a professional racing mechanic and pit crew member. He will provide technical analysis for NASCAR.com throughout the 2022 season.

Teams have been hard at work to find ways to make the Next Gen car faster, and one of the most notable things we saw in the two practice sessions Wednesday was that some teams appeared to implement reverse skew in an attempt to make their cars faster.

One of the goals of the Next Gen car is to make use of the symmetric body and to have cars look more like what we see on the street, so a rule change was implemented late Tuesday night to reduce that reverse skew. As a result, we will see teams making suspension changes Wednesday.

RELATED: How teams will prepare for Duels

Reverse skew is most apparent when cars are traveling down the straightaways as it visually looks like the rear of the body is shifted left while the chassis is pointing straight. The benefit of this configuration, where the car is yawed in a clockwise direction from the top, is that it hides the spoiler from the right rear of the car, which in turn creates the lowest drag configuration. This is an optimal configuration for tracks such as Daytona and Talladega, where drag is one of the main performance differentiators.

All of the changes outlined below will require a rework on the rear suspension geometries and setups of the cars that were outside of these new allowable tolerances and will result in seeing cars that visibly show less reverse skew once they hit the track later Wednesday.

Due to the number of required changes, the garage opened at 11 a.m. ET Wednesday as opposed to the original 2 p.m. ET schedule so that teams have plenty of time to make these adjustments before qualifying (8:05 p.m. ET, FS1).

Rear suspension

Inset1 Rearsuspension

 

Teams likely achieved this reverse skew by performing adjustments on the rear suspension, where they have options to adjust rear toe and wheel offset by adding or removing shims. Rear toe is the position of the front of the wheel relative to the centerline of the chassis. Toe can be adjusted in multiple methods as there are also slugs that change the position of those toe links relative to the suspension uprights to which the wheels mount.

New2 Rearsuspensiondetail

 

If we take a closer look at the components that bolt up to that rear suspension upright we can see how shims can be added or removed behind the toe link clevis in order to move that suspension upright in or out. We can also see the toe link slug and how the position of where the toe link connects to the clevis using the slug can affect the position of the upright.

Rear steer

Inset Rearwheelsteer

All of these changes result in the change of the rear wheel steer, which basically turns the rear wheels at an angle opposing the body. The specification for the angle of that rear wheel steer has been 0 degrees, but there was previously an allowable tolerance of -0.30 -> 0.30 degrees on the left side and an allowable tolerance of -0.30° -> 0.00° on the right side as measured in pre-qualifying and pre-race inspection. This has now been changed to 0.00° -> 0.30° for both sides in the rear in an attempt to reduce that rear steer angle and visible reverse skew.

Post-qualifying and post-race inspection measurements have also been updated as the previous left side tolerance of -0.55 -> 0.55 degrees and the previous right side tolerance of -0.55° -> 0.25° have now been updated to an allowable tolerance of -0.25 -> 0.55 degrees. While these angles might seem minimal, it is important to note they are measured statically in the inspection station and they grow and become exaggerated when the cars are at speed on track.

In addition to the allowable tolerances being adjusted to reduce the amount of rear wheel steer that teams may attempt, the position of the toe link slugs has also been prescribed for this race weekend. The left rear toe link slug must be set to center or below center while the right rear toe link slug must now be set to center or above center out of the three positions that are available on the slugs, which set the lateral position of the toe link relative to the control arm.

Posted on by Terrin Waack

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Now a two-car household, the room is split at 23XI Racing when it comes to postseason experience.

Kurt Busch, the brand-new driver of the No. 45 Toyota, is a former Cup Series champion, inking his name in 2004. Bubba Wallace, meanwhile, scored his first career win just last year in his continued No. 23 entry.

“A goal for us is to have both cars in the playoffs,” team owner Denny Hamlin said Wednesday during Media Day for the Daytona 500. “I think Bubba isn’t far off from that. I mean, it’s one DNF away when you look at the standing for who’s a contender to beat.”

DAYTONA 500: Weekend schedule | Betting odds | All-time winners

Wallace finished last year’s standings a career-best 21st. He did not make the 16-driver playoff field in his fourth full-time season. His victory came at Talladega Superspeedway in Race 31 of 36 — five events too late for an automatic postseason ticket.

Busch raced for Chip Ganassi Racing last season and qualified for his eighth playoff run. He placed 11th in the final standings, having been eliminated in the Round of 16. His berth was clinched, opposite of Wallace, five races before the regular-season finale in Race 21 at Atlanta Motor Speedway — his 33rd career win in 21 full-time seasons.

“As a teammate, he’s a listener and he’s eager to learn,” Busch said. “I mean that’s what any young driver should be doing. But it’s funny on how the information’s being thrown at him, and he goes, ‘Hey, man, is this something that’s serious that I need to look at or is this something that Denny is going overload on for data information?’ And I said it’s a perfect question. Because Denny is such an analytical numbers guy; he will eat, sleep and chew on them until it turns into a pulp. Bubba and his level, my level — we’re all working together to find that right stream.”

SPEEDWEEKS: Entry lists, qualifying procedure and more

Their first opportunity is Sunday in the season-opening Daytona 500 (2:30 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM), an event Busch has previously won (2017).

The 2.5-mile Daytona International Speedway track is, of course, a superspeedway, which matches the same track type Wallace won on last year. He also has a runner-up Daytona 500 result on his resume from 2018, along with another second-place showing from 2021 in the summer race.

“We want to make the playoffs and compete for a championship, that’s a given,” Wallace said. “That’s what any driver is going to say. For us, it’s just become consistent. … Be more competitive, be more consistent. Get that speed up there, figure out this new car. Everybody’s figuring out this new car, but making sure we’re on that upper tier of the people who figure it out so we can have that advantage.”

RELATED: Wallace on relationship with Busch | Next Gen car completes first day of work at Daytona

The Next Gen car could very well make a difference in what teams make the playoffs. It’s an unknown, as this Speedweeks is really the first competitive opportunity.

Wallace had the seventh-fastest speed in Tuesday’s opening practice (47.081 seconds, 191.16 mph). Busch was ninth (47.085 seconds, 191.144 mph). Both worked in a five Toyota pack. In the second session, Busch and Wallace were 29th and 31st, respectively.

Qualifying is set for Wednesday night (8:05 p.m. ET on FS1). The two Bluegreen Vacations Duels are Thursday before two more practices Friday and Saturday. Sunday then marks the official start of the season.

“Right now, we’re tied for the lead in points,” Busch said. “And we intend to work our way all the way through the first couple months with a points-building frame of mind.”

Posted on by Tadd Haislop

In the closing laps of Tuesday night’s Race to Stop Suicide 200 presented by Place of Hope, the 2022 ARCA Menards Series East season-opener, it appeared as though last year’s wild New Smyrna Speedway finish between Sammy Smith, Taylor Gray and Max Gutiérrez was bound to repeat itself as they ran one-two-three.

But on a final restart with six laps to go, a sluggish restart by Gray allowed Smith to pull away for the win. It was sweet redemption for the 17-year-old from Johnston, Iowa, after he finished second to Gutiérrez in a three-wide photo finish to open last year’s East Series season at the same venue.

The East Series event on Tuesday kicked off Night 5 of New Smyrna’s World Series of Asphalt Stock Car racing, and the evening concluded with Tour-type Modifieds, Super Late Models and 602 Modifieds.

In the East Series race, Gray finished second behind Smith. Gutiérrez finished third ahead of Leland Honeyman in fourth and Donald Theetge in fifth.

RELATED: Sights and sounds from Night 5 at New Smyrna

Below are more highlights from Night 5 of the 2022 World Series of Stock Car Racing.

  • In the Tour-Type Modified feature, Ron Silk prevailed in a bit of a chess match against Matt Hirschman, the latter of whom won Saturday night’s NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour season-opener as part of the World Series. Jimmy Blewett, Teddy Hodgdon and Craig Lutz rounded out the top five in Tuesday night’s Tour-Type Modified race.
  • Jesse Love emerged victorious in Tuesday Night’s Super Late Model feature, beating out Derek Griffith for the win. Gabe Sommers, Jake Finch and Justin Mondeik completed the top five.
  • Carsten DiGiantomasso fell one position short of making it three-for-three in 602 Modified features at the World Series of Asphalt, as he finished second to Ricky Collins in Tuesday night’s race. Bryce Bailey finished third ahead of Adam LaCicero in fourth and Rob Schultz in fifth.

Wednesday’s Night 6 of the 2022 World Series of Asphalt Stock Car racing brings the John Blewett III Memorial Tour Modified 76.

Racing starts at 7:30 p.m. ET and can be viewed live on FloRacing.

Posted on by Zack Albert

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – When Kurt Busch was last at Daytona International Speedway for a race weekend, the announcement that he would join 23XI Racing this year was spliced into the anticipation for the NASCAR Cup Series’ regular-season finale. It would be the seventh stop in his two-decades-plus career.

That August weekend, Busch said he was already working the phones and fielding calls from crew and colleagues who wanted in. That No. 45 Toyota team is now built up, complete with a reunion at crew chief.

RELATED: Daytona weekend schedule | Daytona 500 odds

Busch will have the veteran voice of Billy Scott guiding him this year, the first campaign for 23XI as a two-car operation. The two had paired up in 2018 with Stewart-Haas Racing to solid success, but that partnership was short-lived. When the time came to put the band back together, Scott was high on the list.

“I feel like we have some unfinished business,” Busch said after last season. “I think that’s the best quote that I can give is unfinished business for me, Billy Scott, and a group of … not rebels, but a group of guys that were assembled as all-stars from different teams. We were like, ‘we like you, we like you,’ and everybody wanted to jump on board and be part of this 45 car.”

Scott first connected with Busch at SHR after longtime wrench Tony Gibson shifted away from full-time crew chief duties after the 2017 season. In came Scott, and the No. 41 team that they formed kept producing consistent results.

2022 Feb16 Kurt Busch Main Image
Zack Albert | NASCAR Digital Media

Busch has had seasons with more wins (four each in 2002 and 2003 as he burst onto the scene), a season with a Cup Series title (2004) and one with a Daytona 500 victory (2017). But his season with Scott established a high-water mark for top-10 finishes – 22 in 36 races – that’s still tops for Busch’s career.

The pairing didn’t last, however. Busch departed in 2019 to drive for team owner Chip Ganassi. Scott stayed on to work with Daniel Suarez for one last season at Stewart-Haas before picking up with Richard Childress Racing and its affiliates. Neither driver nor crew chief may have verbalized it at the time, but the lingering “what-ifs” remained after they parted ways.

“It’s funny because we didn’t really talk about that with each other until recently,” Scott told NASCAR.com. “It all came to an end real quick, something that neither one of us wanted or even fully expected leading up to that. So it was unfortunate. I think we would have continued to grow, being there. We were in a good situation. That team there had a lot of success across the board, and we would have loved to keep that up, but it wasn’t up to us and it didn’t work out. So yes, being back together now, it does have some sentimental value to it. We both were regretful that it ended and wished we could have just seen what we could’ve made if we’d progressed.”

With the 23XI Racing footprint growing under the vision of team co-owners Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin, Busch and Scott now have that chance. And the opportunity for growth isn’t limited to the team in general. 23XI competition director Mike Wheeler says that Scott’s potential extends beyond the pit box’s reach.

“Billy was touted as a very good and responsible teammate,” Wheeler says. “He’s an engineer that I worked around, but never really had dealings with, but during the interview process, I really liked a lot of the things he was thinking about and had experiences with. I think we aligned in a lot of the thought process to make the cars go faster, how to treat people. And honestly, we’re working on our structure here to make him a senior race engineer and leader of our company, not just the team manager for the 45 but growing the company together.

“He fits that role and believes in that process. Once that came out in light of him, it was a very easy decision to kind of chase him and to make sure he joined our team.”

MORE: At-track photos: Daytona

Scott’s last Cup Series appearance as a crew chief came two years ago, overseeing Justin Haley’s Daytona 500 bid with Kaulig Racing. COVID-19 altered plans for more part-time crew chief starts, and he transitioned to the race engineering group and helping with the development phase and systems testing of the Next Gen car.

The appointment to his 23XI Racing post came nine days after the 2021 season ended, and Scott has already settled in with Busch, saying that “it does feel like it was yesterday that we ran our last race together.” Since then, he’s also had time to get better acquainted with 23XI’s mission as it enters its second season of Cup Series competition.

“It’s an awesome atmosphere, super-excited to be a part of it from that standpoint and from the growth,” Scott says. “It’s neat to watch something and be a part of something building up. I’ve kind of done that before at MWR (Michael Waltrip Racing) as that place evolved and grew, and it feels very similar to that. It’s all one team approach. Everybody there has a great attitude and is working together really well right now. We want to keep that and keep growing with them.

“I know Denny and Michael have a great vision for that and want to do things a little bit different in some respects, so that part’s fun to be a part of and it’s neat to be back in a small team. When they started building for the second team, I think there was barely 20 employees and now they’re just probably around 50 or so. But it’s still small enough that you know everybody and it’s very personal, and it’s nice to get back to that.”

Posted on by Reid Spencer

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Greg Biffle was the last driver to take to the track for the first practice—with 15 minutes left in the session.

But Biffle, driving for the newly-formed NY Racing Team, teamed up in a two-car draft with another driver who isn’t guaranteed a spot in Sunday’s race. He and Noah Gragson were 17th and 18th, respectively, in the opening practice session.

RELATED: Biffle back with NY Racing Team | Daytona weekend schedule

Biffle and Gragson, both driving Chevrolets, are two of the six drivers fighting for four starting spots in The Great American Race. The other four occupied the following spots on the initial speed chart: Timmy Hill (27th), JJ Yeley (34th), Jacques Villeneuve (40th) and Kaz Grala (41st).

Hill, Yeley, Villeneuve and Grala confined their activity in practice to single-car runs.

Biffle hasn’t raced in the NASCAR Cup Series since 2016, but he ran—and won—a NASCAR Camping World Truck Series event for Kyle Busch Motorsports in 2019, one of two NASCAR starts for the 52-year-old driver since leaving full-time racing.

“I can’t forget about 2019—I ran a truck race—and that’s been luring me back,” Biffle said. “I’ve been talking to (team owner) John (Cohen) for a couple of years now, and I told him, ‘If you get a program put together, I’ll come help you,’ and here we are. So I’m glad to be back.”

In the day’s second practice session, Grala was the top car among the open teams in 22nd, followed by Gragson (32nd), Biffle (36th), Hill (40th), Villeneuve (41st) and Yeley (42nd).

Posted on by Terrin Waack

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Unloaded and unleashed.

NASCAR teams took out the Next Gen cars for their first official hot laps around Daytona International Speedway on Tuesday. There were two 50-minute practice sessions in preparation for Sunday’s season-opening Daytona 500 (2:30 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

The reigning Cup Series champion, Kyle Larson, welcomed in the new era as the first driver to roll out of the garage. And the defending Daytona 500 winner, Michael McDowell, closed out the day’s work with the fastest lap time overall.

DAYTONA 500: Weekend schedule | Betting odds | All-time winners

“These cars are definitely bouncing a little more,” McDowell said. “I don’t think they drive any harsher. Like last year, the cars were low to the ground as well and were pretty stiff. It’s just a different feel altogether. …

“I also think that there’s a lot of people that were trying things in those first two practices – see what they can get away with, how aggressive you can be. There’s a lot of cars with a lot of reverse skew, bouncing and moving around quite a bit. Some of them look very un-fun driving. But come race day, you’re going to need something that you can be aggressive with.”

McDowell posted the best lap time in the opening practice at 46.696 seconds and 192.736 mph. Ryan Blaney turned the quickest circuit during the second go-around at 46.732 seconds and 192.588 mph. Fords swept the top five slots in both portions, even going for all 10 in the latter.

For comparison from 2021: Bubba Wallace claimed top rank of Practice 1 at 45.057 seconds and 199.747 mph. Brad Keselowski topped the Practice 2 leaderboard at 45.826 seconds and 196.395 mph.

TUESDAY: Practice 1 results | Practice 2 results | Overall practice recap

Speedweeks has two more practices on tap, but they’re not until Friday and Saturday. Qualifying is Wednesday, and both of the Bluegreen Vacation Duels are Thursday.

“I’m just gonna say it: You’re going to minimize your risk,” McDowell said. “I mean, you’re not going to put yourself in a really bad situation on purpose. For me, I won’t. Just because of where we’re at from an inventory standpoint, how important all the races are. And yes, it does pay points, so if you can put yourself in position to score some stage points, you’re going to want to do that. But it’s really a risk. It’s probably not worth it on Thursday. It’s definitely worth it on Sunday.”

SPEEDWEEKS: Entry lists, qualifying procedure and more

Three teams made their NASCAR debut: Team Hezeberg with Jacques Villeneuve in the No. 27 Ford, NY Racing Team with Greg Biffle in the No. 44 Chevrolet and The Money Team Racing with Kaz Grala driving the No. 50 Chevy.

And then there were two remixed teams in Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing (Keselowski and Chris Buescher in the Nos. 6 and 17 Fords, respectively) and Petty GMS Motorsports (Ty Dillon and Erik Jones in the Nos. 42 and 43 Chevrolets, respectively).

Then – yes, there’s more – existing teams added new entries. Trackhouse Racing adopted Ross Chastain in the No. 1 Chevy, and 23XI Racing gained Kurt Busch in the No. 45 Toyota. Kaulig Racing upgraded to the Cup Series level, too, with Justin Haley in the No. 31 Chevrolet and Daniel Hemric (as a part-timer) in the No. 16 Chevy.

Other moves worth remembering: Austin Cindric (No. 2 Team Penske Ford) and Harrison Burton (No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford) have both moved up from the Xfinity Series.

SILLY SEASON: Track all of the Cup Series movement

Suffice to say, Tuesday involved more than blowing the dust off the garage.

“Coming to Daytona is special, it always is,” McDowell said. “Driving through the tunnel, you kind of get that feeling. I’m sure a lot of you do as well. When you come in, it’s kind of the kickoff to a new season, a fresh start and a lot of opportunities.”