Posted on by Holly Cain

Ben Rhodes wrapped up a perfect pair of race outings at Daytona International Speedway, answering his NASCAR Camping World Truck Series victory on the oval last week with a dramatic win Friday night on the infield road course.

It took three overtime starts to secure the victory over 2020 series champion Sheldon Creed, but Rhodes’ work in the No. 99 ThorSport Racing Toyota marked only the third time in series history a driver had opened the season with back-to-back wins. And it marked the 200th victory for Toyota in the series.

RELATED: Official results | At-track photos: Daytona

Rhodes, 23, of Louisville, Kentucky, crossed the finish line .320-seconds ahead of Creed — the running order froze, however, when a caution (one of 10 on the night) came out with a half-lap remaining in overtime.

John Hunter Nemechek, who won Stage 1 and led 14 laps on the night, finished third. Todd Gilliland, who started 31st, rallied to a fourth-place finish and Riley Herbst rounded out the top five.

Matt Crafton, Derek Kraus, Kaz Grala, Timmy Hill and Christian Eckes completed the top 10. Rookie Hailie Deegan was running in the top 10 until a spin on the final lap of overtime. She finished 28th.

“Unbelievable, I don’t even have words for it,” Rhodes said after climbing out of this truck just below the flagstand on the frontstretch. “I don’t even know what to say, this is so cool.

“I just have to thank my team. The Bombardier Tundra was fast all day. ThorSport Racing gave me a truck that handled this year and we were fast. Rich (Lushes) is a really good crew chief. It’s good to be paired up with him and all of the guys on my team. I’m just thrilled. I don’t know what to say. I’ve been on cloud nine all week, so it’s above that. I’m just so happy.”

Certainly, Rhodes was in a celebratory mood following the race, but it was a tense finish. He was about 50 yards shy of the flagstand on the first overtime period when a caution came out, extending the race instead of earning him the trophy then.

He and Creed — who led a race-best 17 laps — dueled for the lead multiple times in the closing laps, often exchanging the point during the infield series of turns of the road course.

“Never fun being the first loser,” Creed said. “But my guys brought a fast truck and I felt like we were on top of the strategy there going to slicks early. Man, got hit by a lapper there leading and I don’t think that did us any favors — and got to the lead, saving fuel and then worked my way back to the lead and got pushed out the way on the restart, just doing everything I could there. Wished it could have stayed green.”

The race started under wet conditions with teams having to decide when the track was dry enough to switch from rain tires to slicks or “dry” tires. Nemechek was the early leader — pacing the field for the opening 14 laps until his No. 4 Toyota suffered an oil-pressure and fuel-pickup problem, leaving the Tundra on track and necessitating a caution. Later he ran out of gas and at one point was a lap down to the leaders before racing back to the front in the closing laps.

Rhodes had to deal with Creed and then ultimately Nemechek’s comeback in order to earn his fifth career victory.

“It was the most stressful race of my life for sure,” Rhodes said. “There’s been stressful races, but this was really stressful. I thought it was going to be taken away from us for sure.

“I’m not sure if they showed me throwing my hands up, I hope they didn’t. Hope they didn’t listen to the radio either. I was a little frustrated. Gosh, it all worked out now. So stressful, so stressful. I don’t think I’ve had one that stressful before.”

The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series next race is March 5 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (9 p.m. ET on FS1, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Note: Inspection in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series garage revealed no issues, verifying Ben Rhodes’ victory.

Posted on by Terrin Waack

Alvin Kamara hesitated.

The 5-foot-10, 215-pound NFL running back wasn’t sure whether he belonged at a NASCAR race. His interest in stock-car racing only recently piqued due to the COVID-19 shutdown, as it was the first professional sport to return to action. But old reservations kicked in when he arrived at Homestead-Miami Speedway as an invited guest.

“I was kind of like, let me stay on my side, I’ll introduce myself,” Kamara said Friday on his first NASCAR teleconference. “But everyone was so welcoming. They’re like, ‘Man, we love that you’re here. Are you really interested?’ I’m like yeah, and we had conversations going and flowing. I’m meeting fans and interacting with people. I’m like oh, this is a safe space. It’s not what I thought it was. I was pleasantly surprised.”

Kamara’s first in-person race happened in June 2020. On Wednesday, Kamara announced his Louisiana-based juice bar, The Big Squeezy, will sponsor Ryan Vargas’ No. 6 JD Motorsports Chevrolet in the NASCAR Xfinity Series next Saturday at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

RELATED: Alvin Kamara partners with JD Motorsports

The three-time Pro Bowler went from brand-new fan to financially invested partner in less than a year.

“It means the world to me,” said Vargas, one of NASCAR’s few Hispanic drivers. “This is one of those opportunities that doesn’t come along often, and that’s kind of been my whole career. I was a part of the Drive for Diversity program in 2018, and they opened the door for me to get into the sport. One thing I will always say is this sport has welcomed me with open arms. I’ve always had great experiences.”

In the past, certain stereotypes surrounded NASCAR. That’s why both Kamara and Vargas clarify that the league does feel more welcoming now.

Last year the sanctioning body prohibited Confederate flags from all NASCAR venues, and as Kamara acknowledged: better late than never. In that same year, the industry backed Bubba Wallace — the only Black driver at the Cup Series level — as he spoke out about social-injustice issues the nation continues to battle. Conversations on how to further improve were brought into 2021, too.

Steps have clearly been made toward a better, more inclusive future.

“There are people in the African American community that are obviously interested,” Kamara said. “I think it’s more so on our radar now because of what’s been happening over the past, I guess, nine or 10 months. Bubba, the news of him has been everywhere. Obviously with NASCAR making the move to ban the flag from their events and from basically their culture and their footprint, that was one huge thing. I probably couldn’t bring myself to a race if that was something I felt like they were supporting. With that being gone, I think that there will be more African American fans and people that are interested.”

Kamara isn’t the only big name outside of the NASCAR realm seeing and supporting its push for change. NBA legend Michael Jordan and Grammy-winning superstar Armando Perez, a.k.a. Pitbull, are both team co-owners at the top level. Jordan helps field 23XI Racing with Wallace as its driver. Pitbull is with the Trackhouse Racing Team and its pilot, Daniel Suarez, the first Mexican-born driver to win a NASCAR national-series event.

This goes beyond brand promotion.

“We’ve been hitting it on the head: It’s about diversity,” Kamara said. “Just opening the gates to welcome in new fans and new people that may have had interest but didn’t feel comfortable or people that don’t even understand the sport and may be indifferent about it but willing to give it a chance. I think there’s a whole new set of possibilities that can come with what’s going on right now.”

Posted on by Jason Christley

The world of Super Late Models is undoubtedly centered in the South, with drivers like Bubba Pollard and Stephen Nasse gobbling up the big prizes.

But for the last two years, it’s been New Englander Derek Griffith who’s been on top of the division at the World Series of Asphalt at New Smyrna.

After locking up his second straight SLM title at the World Series, Griffith joined a very select group of drivers to win at least two straight championships at New Smyrna in that division since New Smyrna began hosting the event in 1968 (Pete Hamilton, Junior Hanley, Dick Trickle, Pete Orr).

The week was a dominant one for Griffith. He picked up three wins and finished no worse than ninth in seven races, winning the title by 28 points over Ryan Moore.

From racing at Hudson Speedway in his hometown of Hudson, New Hampshire, Griffith has made it to the top over some of the best Late Model competition in the country.

“If you told me when I was 12 years old, when I was first starting off, that I even would be racing a Super Late Model, I’d have been like ‘Yeah, right. Whatever. Get out of here…’ I would never have projected myself to be in this position when I first started,” Griffith said.

In fact, Griffith’s career has gone nowhere but up the last couple of years. Driving the ARCA Menards Series in a part-time role with Chad Bryant Racing in 2020, Griffith picked up a pair of top fives and seven top-10 finishes in eight starts.

RELATED: Derek Griffith Career Stats | Watch: All 9 Nights of 2021 New Smyrna World Series

Only 24, Griffith’s stock has risen to the point where he’s one of the most sought-after Super Late Model drivers in the country. This past week, Griffith was being asked for advice on finding speed by young local drivers.

“It’s funny. I’m considered, like, an old guy now,” he said. “I’ve had some of the kids [in Florida] asking me questions, talking to me about stuff.”

Something Griffith has always been proud of has been that he’s very much a part of doing work on his cars. “The hard way,” as he calls it, began when he was a teenager, racing at his hometown track and it adds a bit more satisfaction each time he gets to Victory Lane.

“It’s a fulfillment level I can’t put into words,” Griffith says. “We’re just some little team from New Hampshire. It’s crazy to think that just because we’ve hustled, and put our time in, that it’s earned us the spot that we’re at right now.”

This year, Griffith has plans to run more ARCA races, along with short track events across the Northeast. Despite all the success and all the accolades that have gone his way to this point in his career, Griffith makes sure not to let the winning go to his head.

“I like to try to stay as humble as I possibly can,” Griffith says. “It’s so important for me to kind of keep my head in check and make sure I’m not overstepping where I think I need to be.”

“I’m always going to remember myself as that kid at Hudson Speedway that ran a Volkswagen Golf GTI for some fun on the weekends.”

With that in mind, Griffith continues winning—hopefully, with plenty more to come in 2021.

20210206224734 D24a0294
Derek Griffith won three times en route to the Super Late Model championship at New Smyrna’s World Series of Asphalt Stock Car Racing. (Jim Dupont/NASCAR)
Posted on by Terrin Waack

As of Friday morning, Team Penske teammates Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski have not discussed the last-lap crash in the Daytona 500 that ended both of their chances at winning the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series season opener.

But they’re going to talk before Sunday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 253 on the Daytona International Speedway Road Course (3 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). And Logano expects everything is going to be OK.

“The analogy I used on Sirius a minute ago: It’s a marriage,” Logano said Friday on a Zoom teleconference. “When you’re married to somebody, you have to figure it out. You’re married. You don’t just leave. You get married, it’s supposed to be forever. So when you have conflict or you have a difference of opinion or whatever, you have to talk about it. You’re forced to. You can’t just roll it up under the rug, right? It’s just not going to work. It’s not healthy. People do that, it’s just not healthy to do.

“So that’s kind of the situation here, where I will be forced and he will be forced to work with me. We’re still teammates. We will have to figure this out. We may not have to agree on everything, but we at least have to find a way to move forward. And that is going to be the approach for me to do because going back to the 400 men and women that work at Team Penske, we owe it o them to figure this out. And we will fix it.”

RELATED: Joey Logano-Brad Keselowski crash ends Team Penske’s Daytona 500 bid

Keselowski has not made a public comment since the incident, other than his post-race interview.

Logano took the white flag last Sunday night at the World Center of Racing. Keselowski ran right behind him, followed by Michael McDowell in the No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford. With less than half a lap left to go around the 2.5-mile oval, Keselowski’s No. 2 Ford bumped the left rear of Logano’s No. 22 Ford after a push from behind by McDowell. Logano and Keselowski both went spinning and collected multiple cars in the process, all while McDowell went on to win his first career Cup race in 358 starts.

“Honestly, I’m happy for McDowell,” Logano said. “The guy’s a grinder, man. He’s been grinding his whole career, and he finally won one and it’s the biggest race ever. I’m ecstatic for him, and he should be over the moon. And yes, we’ve talked to each other quite a bit here in the last few days, texting back and forth. He brought it up. He was concerned, like, ‘Did I do something wrong? Is everything OK?’ Yeah, go for the win, I get it.”

RELATED: Where do Team Penske’s odds stack up for Sunday (3 p.m. ET, FOX)?

Logano was hoping to score his second win in The Great American Race. Keselowski was looking for his first. Instead, Logano finished 12th and Keselowski was 13th.

“The goal is to move on and not say, ‘You raced me hard, so I’m going to race you hard,’ and now we’re beating the doors off each other every week, and it grows and grows and grows and grows,” Logano said. “That’s the goal, that you can’t seek revenge or seek, well, you made my life hard so I’m going to make your life hard. That’s childish. We’re adults. We’re not doing that. I’m not going to do that for multiple reasons. For one, like I’ve been saying over and over again, if you do this, that’s the most selfish thing you can do because you’re not just hurting yourself or hurting him, you’re hurting all the people that work on that car. What’d they do to you? And they’re the same people that work on my car, by the way.”

Logano and Keselowski – both former champions – are just one race into the 36-race 2021 season, their ninth as teammates. Logano joined Team Penske in 2013. Keselowski has been with the organization since his full-time Cup Series career began in 2010.

This isn’t their first on-track-turned-off-track feud – see last year’s Busch Clash – and everything turned out just fine.

“To me, the biggest heartbreak of this whole thing is that there are 400 people at Team Penske asking where their Daytona 500 bonus is,” Logano said, “and it’s up in a ball of flames up in Turn 3 right now.”

Posted on by Holly Cain

Michael McDowell always goes into a NASCAR Cup Series road-course event feeling confident and prepared to win, and for the first time in his career, he’ll bring a huge trophy with him.

McDowell earned his first Cup career victory in the Daytona 500 last weekend, and the road-course specialist arrives for Sunday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 253 (3 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) on the Daytona International Speedway Road Course absolutely ready to make it two-in-a-row.

DAYTONA ROAD COURSE: Weekend schedule | Starting lineup

Should he pull off the back-to-back wins, McDowell would be only the sixth driver in history to win the season’s opening two races. The last to do so was Matt Kenseth in 2009. But McDowell has good reason to be optimistic. He is a former IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Series road-course race winner and has a best finish of third in seven Rolex 24 races on the Daytona Road Course.

“We feel really optimistic and confident,” said McDowell, who finished 10th in the No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford at the Daytona Road Course last summer. “We had a top-five car most of the day last year. (Crew chief) Drew (Blickensderfer) and I went for it near the end with taking tires, but we didn’t get a late race caution so the strategy didn’t work like we wanted.”

McDowell acknowledged he and his team carry high expectations into the upcoming road-course affair.

“Even without the Daytona 500 win, we would still feel confident coming back this weekend,” McDowell said. “We have really worked hard on our road-course program this offseason and we are getting better. It’s another good opportunity for us.”

Of course, McDowell will have to beat the same driver he edged in the Daytona 500. Reigning Cup champion Chase Elliott has won the last four road-course races dating back to 2019. Five of Elliott’s 11 career series wins have come on road-course venues, including the 2020 race on the 3.61-mile, 14-turn Daytona Road Course.

PHOTOS: Top road-course winners in NASCAR

Elliott’s 8.92 career average finish on road courses in the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet is best among active drivers. His crew chief, Alan Gustafson, a Daytona Beach, Florida, native, is the winningest active crew chief on road courses with five wins.

Last summer, Elliott held off Denny Hamlin by .202 seconds to earn the series’ inaugural race victory on the Daytona course – leading a race-best 34 of the 65 laps. Elliott won both road courses last season (at Daytona and Charlotte Motor Speedway’s Roval) and was leading on the Daytona infield in the non-points Busch Clash event last week before contact with Ryan Blaney on the final turn of the final lap. He recovered to finish second.

DAYTONA ROAD COURSE: Paint schemes | Betting odds

“Road courses have been good to us the past few trips, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to go good every time,” Elliott said. “There has not been one part of me that watched the schedule change, saw seven road courses and thought, ‘Yeah, we’ve got it now.’ That’s just not how I am. At the end of the day, you have to be good everywhere and I want to be good everywhere. We as a team want to get to the point where we can win on any given week; road course, circle track, intermediate, dirt … whatever it is, we want to be able to win at any time. The great teams and the great drivers are capable of doing that and I think we are capable of doing that. So that’s where my head’s at – trying to be good everywhere.”

Elliott and McDowell will start on the front row Sunday, just ahead of Austin Dillon, who leads the NASCAR Cup Series championship standings for the first time in his career. He finished just behind McDowell and Elliott in the Daytona 500. With two top-five finishes in the race’s opening stages plus his third-place at the checkered and his win in the second Bluegreen Vacations Duel at Daytona, Dillon holds a six-point advantage over Denny Hamlin in the championship standings.

Posted on by Staff Report

The NASCAR Cup Series O’Reilly Auto Parts 253 at the Daytona Road Course begins Sunday at 3 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. Ahead of this weekend’s road racing, take a look at some important highlights and information you need to know.

SCHEDULE

The exciting pre-race coverage starts this Sunday at 11 a.m. ET with an all-new NASCAR Race Hub: Best of Radioactive on FS1 — featuring behind-the-scenes highlights from previous road course races. Setting the stage for the showdown, NASCAR RaceDay airs on FS1 at 1:30 p.m. ET and switches over to FOX at 2:30 p.m. ET.

Driver introductions begin at 2:45 p.m. ET followed by the national anthem and Netflix’s ‘The Crew’ star Kevin James giving the command to start engines at 3:08 p.m. ET.

The green flag for the O’Reilly Auto Parts 253 is scheduled to wave at 3:20 p.m. ET. Stage 1 is set to end at Lap 16, Stage 2 at Lap 34 and the checkered flag waved at the conclusion of Lap 70.

RELATED: Daytona Road Course weekend schedule 

ODDS

It’s no surprise seeing reigning Cup Series champion Chase Elliott opening as favorite to win at the first road course race of the season, closing in on the weekend with 2-1 odds.

Martin Truex Jr. trails just behind at 4-1, followed by Denny Hamlin at 10-1 and Kevin Harvick, Ryan Blaney and Kyle Busch each breaking in at 12-1 to round out the top six.

Where does your favorite driver land? Check out the full list of BetMGM odds.

BUY TICKETS

COVID-19 restrictions remain in place for this weekend, therefore limited seating options will be available to fans who wish to attend. Tickets for seating on the frontstretch can be purchased at the Daytona International Speedway event site.

WHO’S ON THE POLE THIS SUNDAY?

Elliott has won the Busch Pole Award, landing the No. 9 crew at the front of the pack to start Sunday’s race where he will be joined by Daytona 500 champion Michael McDowell. Austin Dillon, Denny Hamlin and Kevin Harvick all start inside the top-five starting positions in Sunday’s 40-car field.

DAYTONA ROAD COURSE 2020 — INAUGURAL RACE

Elliott dominated the inaugural Cup Series race on the Daytona Road Course, leading a race-high 34 laps and fending off a hard-charging Hamlin after a late restart in the final stage. The No. 9 wheelman has starred at road courses throughout his career and has won at each of the last four road circuits dating back to the Charlotte Roval in September 2019.

RULES PACKAGE

This weekend’s race will feature a reduced-downforce aero package combined with a 750-horsepower engine and 2.75-inch rear spoiler (down from the 8-inch height used at tracks over one mile). This change came into effect during the 2020 season and is scheduled to be used at all road courses and short tracks. 

GOODYEAR TIRES

Each Cup team will receive seven sets of Goodyear Eagle Road Course Radials for the race. For race setup, the minimum recommended tire inflation is 28 psi for the left front, 30 psi for right front and 22 psi for each rear tire. In case of inclement weather, Goodyear will bring the Wet Weather Radials — last used at the Charlotte Roval in October 2020 — should NASCAR decide that the conditions warrant the change.

STATS AND STREAKS

— The Daytona Road Course is the first of seven road courses on the Cup Series schedule, the most ever in a single season.

— Jeff Gordon holds the longest streak of road course wins with six, spanning from August 1997 to June 2000. He also holds the all-time total wins record with nine.

— Either Martin Truex Jr. or Chase Elliott has visited Victory Lane at eight of the last nine road courses. Truex picked up his most recent road course win in 2019 at Sonoma Raceway.

— Four active drivers finished in the top 10 in both road course races in 2020: Chase Elliott, Martin Truex Jr., Joey Logano and William Byron.

Stats provided by Racing Insights

FANTASY LIVE

It’s not too late to join in on the fun! NASCAR Fantasy Live is your chance to manage a team, take risks and earn bragging rights. Learn how to play at fantasygames.nascar.com.

2021 fantasy points leaders: Denny Hamlin (52), Austin Dillon (48), Michael McDowell (44). 

ALSO ON NASCAR.COM

Get additional camera views by logging on to NASCAR Drive, where each week a select number of in-car cameras will be available – as well as a battle cam and an overhead look.

New for this season, NASCAR has partnered with LiveLike to add fan engagement in the NASCAR Mobile App. Log in to the mobile app during the race for polls, quizzes, the cheer meter and more — and see instant results from NASCAR fans like you.

Posted on by Holly Cain

A typically action-packed season-opening NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race on the Daytona International Speedway oval last week takes a new turn – 14 turns actually – when the series races on the 3.61-mile infield road course in Friday night’s BrakeBest Brake Pads 159 (7:30 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Reigning champion Sheldon Creed won the Daytona Road Course event last year, taking a comfortable .743-second win over veteran Brett Moffitt – the two drivers leading 32 of the 46 laps with Creed leading the last 12. Raphael Lessard, Matt Crafton and Austin Hill rounded out the top five in order.

DAYTONA ROAD COURSE: Weekend schedule | Starting lineup | Paint schemes

It was the only road-course Truck race of the 2020 COVID-19 affected schedule. Typically, the series races at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park in Bowmanville, Ontario. Among those full-time drivers entered this weekend, only John Hunter Nemechek (2016) and Moffitt (2019) have recent road-course wins there.

Ben Rhodes, a championship contender in 2020, earned the season-opening win at Daytona last weekend, edging Jordan Anderson by .036 seconds. Chandler Smith led the most laps. Rhodes holds a slim four-point edge on the defending champ Creed and Nemechek coming into this weekend’s race.

Hailie Deegan, driver of the No. 1 Team DGR, will be making only her second start in the series as a full-time championship contender. She ran briefly among the top five last weekend on the Daytona oval but was caught in a crash and finished 24th.

Deegan, who was encouraged with her work Sunday, told the media this week she has really benefitted from having former NASCAR Cup Series driver David Ragan as a “tutor” of sorts for the 2021 season.

“He has been crucial for my development,” Deegan said. “Just the level of experience he has and all the knowledge he has that he has been able to feed to me has been so great.

“Ford saw how much he was helping me and the information he was giving me. I think going into the Truck Series this year, Ford stuck him with me with the mindset of working together and doing the best we can together.”

Deegan said the former Cup winner has been able to help the learning curve with all the new tracks she’s encountering. She does have some experience on the Daytona Road Course, finishing sixth in an ARCA Menard Series race there last year.

“His experience and knowledge,” Deegan said. “Everything he knows about every single track. I think going to all these tracks, I am very new to them. A lot of them I haven’t raced at before. Him having experience there and a lot of notes that he can give me is crucial.”

Rhodes will start from the pole this weekend, and Ryan Truex, who finished fourth in last week’s season-opener, will start on the outside front row for Friday’s race.

Posted on by Staff Report

NASCAR has tweaked the Daytona International Speedway Road Course’s bus stop chicane before this weekend’s national series tripleheader, following driver feedback from the season-opening Busch Clash.

The sanctioning body added rumble strips to the Turn 9 and Turn 10 chicane on the backstretch to prevent cars from getting into the grass and spraying dirt onto the racing surface and other cars.

RELATED: Daytona Road Course schedule | Turn-by-turn look at Daytona Road Course

The rumble strips will be the same as the front chicane. The one to the driver’s right on entry is approximately 36 feet long, and the other is approximately 30 feet long.

Chicane Daytona 2

Such as several drivers broached the idea to NASCAR leadership, with Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin, Martin Truex Jr., Joey Logano, Kyle Larson and Chase Briscoe among the group contributing specific ideas. Among the ideas was the addition of a temporary Musco lighting tower to help with visibility, which NASCAR added in advance of this weekend.

“It looked like a good fix to me in short order,” said Alan Gustafson, crew chief for Chase Elliott. “Should be good. I don’t really have any issues with guys straightening that bus stop. That’s their job. That’s what they’re supposed to do. Just the dirt was a problem.”

Elliott will attempt to win his fifth straight NASCAR Cup Series road-course race in Sunday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 253 at Daytona (3 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). He will start on the pole with Daytona 500 champion Michael McDowell next to him on the front row.

Elliott won last year’s inaugural NASCAR Cup Series race on the course layout, and he nearly won the Busch Clash event, too. An aggressive move for the win resulted in both Elliott and race leader Ryan Blaney spinning out of contention, allowing Busch to drive by for the win.

Posted on by Terrin Waack

It’s fair to be both optimistic and realistic.

Corey LaJoie is well aware of his circumstances with Spire Motorsports in the NASCAR Cup Series. It’s not the richest team in the NASCAR Cup Series garage, but it can be competitive. The No. 7 Chevrolet finished ninth in the season-opening Daytona 500 last Sunday at Daytona International Speedway — one of the 22 cars still running at the end of the 40-car race.

“I get Daytona is Daytona,” LaJoie said Thursday on a Zoom teleconference. “With certain circumstances, you can pop off a fast lap like we did there. But you don’t luck into two top-10 finishes in the 500 just because you’re out there riding around.”

DAYTONA ROAD COURSE: Sunday at 3 p.m. ET on FOX

LaJoie placed eighth in the crown-jewel event last season. He also has a sixth-place finish at Daytona in the 2019 summer race. Daytona is home to three of his four career top 10s. The fourth came at its sister track, Talladega Superspeedway — seventh, also in 2019.

Superspeedways do tend to open the door for non-frontrunners to make their move, as the racing is more unpredictable and the playing field is rather even. BetMGM had last weekend’s winner, Michael McDowell, at 66-1 odds entering 2021’s first event. The victory marked McDowell’s first in 14 years and 358 starts.

Nothing is really impossible. The right car at the right track can make for a happy surprise. At the same time, being successful among those in the same financial ballpark alone is an internal victory. And LaJoie is in a new ride this year, so he’s having to learn where he stacks up against his competition now compared to previous seasons.

“I’m ready to get to Phoenix and Vegas — some intermediates — to just see where we stack up speed wise and figure out those group of four, five cars we can race consistently and how to beat them,” LaJoie said. “I’m looking at cars like even RCR and JTG, I feel like we can compete against those guys each and every week. Wherever that stacks up in points — should be somewhere between 19th and 22nd — I feel like that’s where we should be running and getting better.”

DAYTONA ROAD COURSE: Betting odds | Paint schemes | TV schedule

He’ll have to wait two weeks for the series’ first time on an intermediate track. The 1.5-mile Homestead-Miami Speedway is slated for Feb. 28.

First, the No. 7 team will have to take on the Daytona Road Course, a 14-turn, 3.61-mile layout that includes portions of the World Center of Racing’s oval and infield. The O’Reilly Auto Parts 253 is Sunday at 3 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

“I forget where it was, whether it was the first media Zoom here before the 500, when people asked if they can take Spire seriously, I was like, ‘Check back here in six months and we’ll see if they’re taking us seriously,’” LaJoie said. “I would say people should start taking us serious.”

Posted on by Terrin Waack

The spotlight is on Chase Elliott this weekend, and understandably so.

As the NASCAR Cup Series takes on Daytona International Speedway’s road course, the reigning champion rides a four-race win streak on the track type, which is good for the second longest streak all time and includes Daytona’s 14-turn, 3.61-mile debut in 2020. The No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet driver also finished second last week in the exhibition Busch Clash event on the oval-road layout, after both taking and losing the lead on the last lap. Makes sense why Elliott is Sunday’s favorite, according to BetMGM, by 2-1 odds.

RELATED: Chase Elliott on pole for road race | Daytona Road Course weekend schedule 

Dim that light, though. Shine it on someone else for a moment.

Martin Truex Jr., the 2017 title holder, boasts a second-best 4-1 odds. He’s tied for second-most road wins among active drivers with four; Elliott has just one more. Truex has consistently been in the contention to win at road courses over the past decade, too.

En route to his championship, Truex split the road-course slate. He led a race-high 25 laps at Sonoma Raceway, only to lose his engine and finish 37th. He later won at Watkins Glen International, leading a race-high 24 laps.

Truex rebounded at Sonoma in 2018 to win by more than 10 seconds and lead a whopping 62 of the 110 circuits. At Watkins Glen, he was on his way to cross the finish line first but ran out of the gas and sputtered across in second. The Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval was also introduced this season as a third road-course show, and while battling for the lead in the final corner, Truex was spun by Jimmie Johnson and ultimately placed 14th.

In 2019, the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota repeated at Sonoma after leading a race-high 59 of 90 laps. Truex once again was runner-up at Watkins Glen. And at the Roval, he navigated his way up to seventh after an engine change and two in-race penalties.

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And then there’s last season. Sonoma and Watkins Glen were taken off the schedule due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Roval remained, and the Daytona Road Course was added. Truex finished seventh and third, respectively, after overcoming speeding penalties in both events.

That’s three wins out of 10 opportunities. Truex could have won each race, but saying could have is different than promoting should have. The reasons he didn’t are valid – and a part of racing.

Elliott won five of the seven Truex did not. Kevin Harvick (2017 Sonoma) and Ryan Blaney (2018 Roval) round out the 10 total otherwise.

The wins may be skewed toward Elliott, but Truex and Elliott match in top fives (six) and 10s (eight).

So, as the hype points toward Elliott, eyes can drift toward Truex with the expectation they may be side-by-side at the finish.