‘Absolute Chaos’: NASCAR’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 Brings Playoff Drama to Daytona
DAYTONA BEACH – The NASCAR Cup Series heads to Daytona International Speedway Saturday night with three Chase spots up for grabs and a new superspeedway package that leaves uncertainty surrounding the regular-season finale.
For drivers around the Chase cutline, 400 miles at one of the circuit’s most unpredictable tracks will determine whether or not they will race into the postseason. The Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway starts at 7 p.m. on NBC and the green flag will wave at 7:30.
Bubba Wallace, Austin Cindric and Shane Van Gisbergen occupy the last three spots in the Chase. Wallace sits 75 points above the first man out in Ryan Preece, so barring a maximum points day from Preece and a disastrous one-point day from Wallace, the 23 team and Bubba Wallace should fight for a championship after Saturday.
Austin Cindric sits 44 points above the 60 car of Ryan Preece, and while it is a possible gap to overcome, the 31 points between Shane Van Gisbergen and Ryan Preece is the main storyline to watch at Daytona.
Preece knows the stakes going into Saturday’s finale and believes this fight for the last Chase spot will make for great entertainment for fans.
“I’m going to race the hell out of it. I mean, [SVG’s] the one that is in right now and I’m not,” Preece said. “Usually when things are different and not predictable, I excel and so does Shane. It’s going to be a heavyweight match.”
Van Gisbergen, however, seems to be taking a more relaxed approach in protecting his point cushion over his competition.
“We plan to be pretty conservative,” Van Gisbergen said, “and then yeah, see how his race is going and react to that.”
Even beyond the drivers fighting for their postseason lives, many drivers that have locked themselves into the Chase still have an opportunity to move up or down in the standings. A group of five drivers are separated by just 36 points going into Saturday night.
The ever-polarizing Carson Hocevar enters positioned 11th in the standings and at the tail end of that group of five, but to his advantage, Hocevar owns the best average finish in the past three drafting-style tracks of Daytona, Atlanta and Talladega, and led at the white flag at Daytona in February before being sent hard into the wall.
Hocevar, a 23-year-old Portage, Michigan native, is no stranger to ruffling the feathers of his Cup Series peers and making the moves that some deem “too aggressive.” When asked what the unknown of the cars will do for him, he put it pretty simply.
“I think it’ll help if anything,” Hocevar said, before adding a witty comment about being “pumped we had less meetings and less data to go off of.”
Aside from the uncertainty within the Chase standings, every driver in the field enters the race weekend with mystery surrounding their cars and the new superspeedway package implemented by NASCAR.
NASCAR unveiled its new superspeedway package July 15 in hopes to allow for more passing, while limiting the fuel-saving strategies that have plagued recent races at tracks like Daytona and Talladega.
The new package includes a shortened rear spoiler from seven inches to four inches that will reduce drag, along with a reduction in horsepower from 510 to 465 to account for the reduction in downforce. These changes were made in hopes of allowing cars to pull out of line and make aggressive moves when it matters most.
A major voice for this change was Cup Series veteran and regular season champion Denny Hamlin. Hamlin worked with a larger group within NASCAR to bring the change and he believes it could be cause for chaos during Saturday’s race, but doesn’t know exactly how the race will change as the drivers get an understanding of their machines.
“It’s tough to say how it would change, I don’t think it’s going to change a lot from a normal speedway race,” Hamlin said. “Typically at the beginning there’s a transition of it’s aggressive, people are trying to get track position, it settles in and then it gets really aggressive at the last part. I think that the intensity level of the actual race is going to be dependent of that comfort level.”
Without any practice sessions, drivers will not get a real understanding of their car until the green flag drops at Daytona International Speedway. For Hamlin, the mix of that uncertainty with the already unpredictable Daytona International Speedway could be a recipe for disaster.
“This weekend has potential to be absolute [expletive] chaos,” Hamlin said.
Category: Motor Sports, NASCAR
