Photo: The rear spoiler on Todd Gilliland’s Ford is only four inches tall and made of plexiglass so he can see the traffic behind him.
By Don Coble, Florida Sports Wires
DAYTONA BEACH (www.jaxsportsnews.com) – The NASCAR Cup Series will be racing into the great unknown Saturday night at the Daytona International Speedway.
When 40 cars take the green flag at 7:30 p.m. (NBC) for the Coke Zero Sugar 400, they will be aboard cars fitted with a new aerodynamic package designed to break up the large packs of traffic and allow for more passes.
The only problem is, other than a warm up lap in pole qualifying on Friday, followed by one fast lap for time and a cool down lap, the dramatic rule changes will be both untested and unknown.
Most said they will play nice early in the race to see how reducing the rear spoiler from seven inches to four, and reducing the maximum amount of horsepower from 520 to 465, will affect their cars on Daytona’s high banks.
The rear spoiler creates downforce for traction, while a reduction of power will put more of the car’s success in the hands of the drivers.
But like most strategies on the superspeedways, where traffic traditionally is in tight packs of nose-to-tail, side-by-side packs, things usually change quickly.
“No, we’re idiots,” A.J. Allmendinger said. “There’s a couple of guys that have to race hard, and I guarantee that they’re going to be up front, especially now with the new stage rules that when a crash comes out with 10 to go, that ends the stage.
So, you’re going to have a couple of guys that are going to be super aggressive. I think it’s one of those things that I think if you’re confident in your car, if it feels good early on, you’re going to be aggressive. If not, you’re just going to try to get to that first pit stop.”
Drivers and fans complained about earlier races at Daytona and its sister track, the Talladega Superspeedway, were more about strategies than speed. While nobody is sure what to expect when the field storms through the first turn at full speed, drivers were happy NASCAR tried something new.
“Man, we’re going to have 40 cars deep into this thing and have no idea how it’s going to drive and how the draft is going to work, nothing’s scienced out,” Joey Logano said. “It’s kind of fun. It’s just kind of old school, like go figure it out. I like it.”
“I think the biggest thing that we’re trying to accomplish with this is more lanes to pull out, like make a move, not hit a big wall there with a big spoiler on it,” Ryan Blaney said. “You just would stall super easy. Hopefully making a little bit of more gaps in the cars to where we’re not just on top of each other the whole time. It just would get two by two. There’s no holes to get in. The third lane was tough to kind of get going.”
The first person to feel the effects of less downforce will be Ross Chastain. He drove his Chevrolet to the pole position on Friday at 184.396 mph. Chris Buescher will start second at 184.204, while Austin Hill will roll off third at 184.188.
The rest of the top 10 will be Ryan Preece in fourth, Riley Herbst in fifth, Shane Van Gisbergen in sixth, Connor Zilisch in seventh, Austin Cindric in eighth, Logano in ninth and Kyle Larson in 10th.
With less downforce, speeds in time trials were quicker than in the past. Qualifying was rained out last year, but in 2024, Michael McDowell’s pole-winning speed was 183.165 mph. The 400 is also the final race of stock car’s regular season. The top-16-ranked drivers will qualify for the 10-race Chase for the Championship. Van Gisbergen is currently in 16th with a 31-point lead over Preece. Bubba Wallace is 14th and Cindric is 15th.
Allmendinger said he understands why car owners approached NASCAR about having no practice with the new package. But like most, he would have liked the opportunity to feel less downforce and how the car handles when the air becomes turbulent in heavy traffic.
“The problem is you go out and practice, you’re afraid of tearing your stuff up,” he said. “We’re professionals, we’ll figure it out when we get out there.”
“I’m very glad to have the new package,” Christopher Bell said. “I probably would have welcomed a little bit of practice, but I understand the car owner’s not wanting to do it and save on the expenses of the backup cars.”
Daytona’s 2.5-mile trioval always presents big challenges. Since cars have been in a tight group, one small mistake can trigger a massive pileup.
In last year’s summer race at Daytona, there was a 12-car crash. There were 14- and 17-car crashes in 2024, a 12-car crash in 2023, a 13-car pileup in 2022 and a nine- and 11-car collisions in 2021.
Drivers are eager to see if the new package will create enough space to avoid a big crash.
“I think just taking the drag out is what we all talked about for multiple reasons from making moves and not being just all over each other the whole time,” Blaney said. “Hopefully we achieved that. We’ll see.”
