It is very difficult to try and figure out how the season is going to go based on one race. When that one race is at Daytona, the task becomes even more difficult. Yet, there were a few things that really stood out during this year’s opening trip to Daytona. In this article, I will focus on a few major Daytona takeaways.
RFK and SHR Closing the Gap on Penske in the Ford Camp:
While both RFK and SHR won races during the 2022 season, Penske was the only Ford team that really seemed to have a chance. One thing I noticed during the Daytona 500 was that both RFK and SHR seemed to have caught up with Penske. Furthermore, while Logano won the title in 2022 in the #22 Penske Ford Mustang, Ford seemed to be lagging behind the other manufacturers. If this year’s Daytona 500 is any indicator, Ford seems to have caught up.
Average Running Position Daytona 500:
Shelton Herald reports that Ford had six of the top ten average running positions for the Daytona 500. Even more impressive, Ford had four of the top five average running positions. Stewart-Haas Racing’s Aric Almirola had the highest average running position with 8.467. This was followed with RFK drivers Brad Keselowski and Chris Buescher. Keselowski had an average running position of 8.575. Buescher’s average running position was 9.212.
Penske did well in this statistical category as well. Austin Cindric, driver of the #2 Penske Ford, had the fourth best average running position at 9.528. Joey Logano, driver of the #22 Penske Ford, had the 6th best average running position at 11.33. The other Ford driver in the top ten average running positions was Kevin Harvick, driver of the #4 SHR Ford. Harvick had the ninth best running position at 13.736.
While the Daytona 500 is a difficult race to try and measure which teams have improved over others, the average running position is probably the best quantitative measure to utilize. There will always be accidents at Daytona that take out or severely injure a car. Qualitatively speaking, these numbers seem to match rather well with the impression I received when watching the 500. The #4 car looked really strong until getting dumped in the draft by the #2 and the #41, which of course led to getting wrapped up in an accident. The SHR #41 of Ryan Preece also looked great, but was also taken out by an accident.
Kevin Harvick’s 0FG Final Season Tour Begins:
Speaking of Kevin Harvick, another Daytona takeaway is that his final season/0FG tour got off to a decent start. Over the off-season, Harvick announced that this would be his last year competing in NASCAR. Many have speculated that this would both intensify his focus and somewhat free him up to drive more aggressively.
Harvick was definitely doing his best to run up front to try and avoid the big wrecks to try and get his second Daytona 500 victory, which would have been his first with SHR and crew chief Rodney Childers. During the broadcast, Fox reported that Childers felt they had one of their best chances to win the 500 this year. The 4 team was clearly prepared to do whatever it took, whether that meant pitting off the sequence from the rest of the Fords or aggressively bump drafting in the turns.
It was the aggressive bump drafting in the turns that led to a wreck that took out a few other cars. Harvick was bump drafting with Reddick shortly after a green flag pit stop and right before one of the many commercial breaks. Reddick ended up getting loose and into the wall while Fox was doing their side by side commercial break. While it would be sensationalism to look at this as anything other than something which happens at Daytona and Talladega, it does show that Harvick is going for it this year. The Closer wants to close this year. While an accident took him out of contention for the win, he managed to claw his way back up to 12th and is 8th in points after race 1.
Kyle Busch is still Kyle Busch:
Switching over to the Chevrolet side of things, the first key takeaway from Daytona is simple. Kyle Busch is still Kyle Busch. He is ultra-competitive and often upset, especially when things don’t go his way.
There was some debate on whether or not his move to RCR was a step down from JGR prior to the race. We may need a few more races to settle that debate. RCR has traditionally performed well at Daytona and Talladega. Kyle Busch was there at the end and had a chance to win his first 500. Who knows? Maybe if Austin Dillon had lined up behind him on the restart rather than beside him, things could have turned out differently.
We will never know. What we do know is that Busch is still going to be a driving force behind RCR this season. He certainly hasn’t changed his approach, and that’s a good thing.
Conclusions (Daytona is still Daytona):
The final takeaway from Daytona is that this 500 was still very much a Daytona race. Much of the strategy was still focused on avoiding “the big one.” One race just isn’t going to tell one much about the upcoming season, especially when that race is the Daytona 500. Ford looked really good. Stewart-Haas and RFK Racing both looked like they had caught up to Team Penske within the Ford camp. Kevin Harvick drove like we expected him to drive in his final 500 appearance. Kyle Busch was disappointed the way we expected he would be had he not won.
In the end, it had “big ones”, tons of lead changes (and commercials), and luck ultimately had a huge part in who won. I’m sure NASCAR is quite satisfied.
