Kyle Larson is 16/1 to win on Daytona Road Course

No. 5 NationsGuard Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE


Kyle Larson, driver of the No. 5 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE, on his first DAYTONA Road Course race: “It’ll be a challenge since I haven’t turned a lap on the road course at Daytona in a Cup car yet, although I have run a couple sports car races there. Those are two very different type cars, but at least I have some laps on the track. (Crew chief) Cliff (Daniels) has some experience with Jimmie (Johnson) there last year and they had a good run, so that gives me confidence. I was able to watch last year’s race, watch some onboard footage to get an idea of shifting and braking points and look at some data. Last week during the Clash, Cliff and I were able to watch it together and discuss some things. I think we’ll have a good starting spot, too, but it’ll be a challenge definitely.”

Larson on his DAYTONA 500 finish: “I wish we could have finished a little bit better in the DAYTONA 500, but we were able to score some points in the Duel, score points in each stage and come out with a top-10 finish even after being collected in the last-lap crash. I hope we can build on that this weekend.”

Cliff Daniels, crew chief of the No. 5 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE, on his approach to DAYTONA Road Course race: “We’re going with a realistic approach. I know the success of our (Hendrick Motorsports) cars and I know how our cars are built. Chase has won the ROVAL (at Charlotte Motor Speedway) a couple times, he won the DAYTONA Road Course event last year and we ran up front with the 48 (car driven by Jimmie Johnson). We have decent idea of how race strategy will play out and we have covered a lot of different scenarios – although every situation is unique. But we are taking a very realistic approach of how to put ourselves in position. There are calls you can make that are too conservative and calls that are too aggressive. We have discussed a lot of scenarios in our strategy meetings to prepare us to make the right call when needed.”


DEBUT PERFORMANCE: In his first start for Hendrick Motorsports, Kyle Larson drove the No. 5 NationsGuard Chevrolet to a 10th-place finish in the season-opening DAYTONA 500. Larson led one lap during the 500-mile event and battled for a top-five finish on the final lap before being collected in a multi-car incident in turn three.

ALL FOUR: Larson had four opportunities to score championship points at Daytona International Speedway last week, and he collected each time – one of only four drivers to do so. On Thursday in the Duel qualifying races, points were awarded for the top-10 finishers in each, and he crossed under the checkered flag in seventh in his race. Points are also awarded to the top-10 finishers in each stage during the NASCAR Cup Series season, and the Elk Grove, California, native posted results of fourth and eighth in the two DAYTONA 500 stages, respectively. With his top-10 finish at the end of the 500-mile race, Larson now sits seventh in the point standings.

NEW BUT KNOWN: Larson did not compete in last year’s inaugural NASCAR Cup Series race on the DAYTONA Road Course, but he has experience driving on the similar sports car layout at the Florida track. The 28-year-old driver competed in the Rolex 24 at DAYTONA for Chip Ganassi Racing from 2014 through 2016 and was victorious in 2015. The NASCAR layout has a chicane approaching the start/finish line that is not utilized during sports car events.

RC RACING: Larson, the driver of the No. 5 Camaro ZL1 1LE, has 14 starts on road courses in the Cup Series, posting one top-five finish – fourth at Watkins Glen International in 2014 – and four top-10s. Larson has three pole positions – all at Sonoma Raceway – and two stage victories in those starts.

DAYTONA TOP-FIVE: Crew chief Cliff Daniels was atop the pit box for Jimmie Johnson during the seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion’s final season of full-time NASCAR competition in 2020. While Hendrick Motorsports teammate Chase Elliott led 34 laps en route to victory in the inaugural DAYTONA Road Course event, the Daniels-led No. 48 Chevrolet finished a strong fourth.

NOTABLE START: Sunday’s event will mark Larson’s 225th start in NASCAR’s premier series. He has six wins, 56 top-five finishes and 102 top-10s since entering the Cup Series in 2013. Larson earned rookie of the year honors in 2014.

UNITED NATIONS: NationsGuard, a program that gives car dealers control of their F&I products and customer experience, will adorn the No. 5 Chevrolet again this weekend at Daytona. It will also appear as the primary sponsor at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Feb. 28. For more information about NationsGuard, click here.

2021 NASCAR Cup Series Season embraces road racing

For the first time in a NASCAR Cup Series season (1949-2021) the schedule calls for the series to visit seven different road course tracks – Daytona International Speedway Road Course, Circuit of The Americas (COTA), Watkins Glen International, Sonoma Raceway, Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course, Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course (ROVAL) and Road America. The previous most the NASCAR Cup Series competed on in one season was four back in 1964 and 1957.

 

Series	Track	Track Type	Winner	Date	Season
Cup	Augusta (RC)	Road Course	Fireball Roberts	11/17/1963	1964
Cup	Bridgehampton	Road Course	Billy Wade	7/12/1964	1964
Cup	Riverside	Road Course	Dan Gurney	1/19/1964	1964
Cup	Watkins Glen	Road Course	Billy Wade	7/19/1964	1964
Cup	Kitsap	Road Course	Parnelli Jones	8/4/1957	1957
Cup	Lancaster	Road Course	Marvin Panch	11/11/1956	1957
Cup	Titusville-Cocoa	Road Course	Fireball Roberts	12/30/1956	1957
Cup	Watkins Glen	Road Course	Buck Baker	8/4/1957	1957

 

The first of the seven road courses on the 2021 schedule is this weekend’s Daytona International Speedway Road Course. The series made its debut at the Daytona Road Course last season with the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series champion taking the checkered flag. This weekend’s race, the O’Reilly Auto Parts 253 At DAYTONA is scheduled for 70 laps or 252.7 miles (3 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

The starting lineups for this weekend’s race was determined by Metric Qualifying and as a result Hendrick Motorsports’ Chase Elliott will start from the pole and 2021 Daytona 500 champion Michael McDowell will start on the outside front row (second).

Kyle Busch is 16/1 to win 2021 O'Reilly Auto Parts 253 at Daytona

 

KYLE BUSCH Going for the Sweep   HUNTERSVILLE, North Carolina (Feb. 17, 2021) – It’s only the second week of the NASCAR Cup Series season, but Kyle Busch is already going for his first sweep of the season.   Busch, driver of the No. 18 Interstate Batteries Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR), started off the season last Tuesday night with a win in the season-opening Busch Clash exhibition. How the two-time Cup Series champion ended up in victory lane was interesting, as leaders Ryan Blaney and Chase Elliott collided in the last corner and Busch snuck by from third place to bring home the checkered flag.   Busch has become a virtual veteran of the 14-turn, 3.61-mile road course that the Cup Series raced on for the first time only last August. The Las Vegas native has now competed on the Daytona circuit three times in the past 13 months. His first came in a completely different kind of car and race as he drove a GTD-class Lexus RC F GT3 sportscar for AIM Vasser Sullivan in the January 2020 Rolex 24. His next appearance was in the Cup Series race Aug. 20, when Busch ran up front but developed brake issues and a subsequent accident forced him out of the race early. And the third, of course, was last week’s victorious run in the non-points Busch Clash.   With Interstate Batteries slated for six primary sponsorships of Busch’s No. 18 Toyota in 2021, JGR’s founding partner gets to mark an important milestone as the team celebrates its 30th anniversary of Interstate Batteries being along for the ride every step of the way. Busch would like nothing more than to get Interstate Batteries into victory lane this weekend to kick off the 30th anniversary festivities.   Sunday’s forecast at Daytona calls for sunny skies and temperatures in the 60s, but the weather in most of the rest of the country this week hasn’t been nearly as pleasant as it’s been in Florida. In fact, extremely rare winter weather even struck the Dallas-based headquarters of Interstate Batteries and the entire state of Texas. With Interstate Batteries returning to the No. 18 Toyota this weekend, Busch is encouraging fans living in areas of frigid temperatures to stop by a local Interstate dealer to get their vehicle batteries checked, as cold weather and snow have covered more than 70 percent of the country this week and can adversely affect your car battery.   While Busch added the non-points win last week at Daytona to his resume, the Las Vegas native will look to add another points-paying road-course win this weekend, which would put him in elite company as a road-racing ace in NASCAR’s top series. The Interstate Batteries driver’s four career road-course wins tie him with retired drivers David Pearson and Mark Martin on the all-time Cup Series road-course wins list. That’s some pretty good company, already. But with a fifth road-course win, Busch could tie Darrell Waltrip, Tim Richmond and Dan Gurney on the list. There is a bit of distance to the top two spots on the all-time road-course wins list, of course, when it comes to catching Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart, who have nine and eight career road-course wins, respectively.   Busch scored his fourth career Cup Series road-course win in June 2015 at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway, and he heads to Daytona with 11 top-five finishes and 19-top-10s at the traditional road-course stops on the schedule with 34 combined starts at Sonoma, Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International, the Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway Roval, and the addition last summer of the Daytona road course.”   So as Busch prepares for some road racing this weekend, he would like to accomplish a few things, including another tally in the win column for Interstate Batteries colors in the company’s 30th season with JGR, climbing the ladder in the record books as one of NASCAR’s best road-course racers and, of course, the Daytona road-course sweep of 2021.

KYLE BUSCH, Driver of the No. 18 Interstate Batteries Toyota Camry for Joe Gibbs Racing:

What does it mean to come back to the Daytona road course for the second time with a Cup Series car and the third time for you in a little more than a year after your run in the 2020 Rolex 24?   “I think the whole allure of that place – getting up on the high-banked turns of Daytona in (turns) one and two and then the chicane and bus stop through the backstretch and getting back on the high banks in (turns) three and four – is unlike any other road course ever, anywhere. No other road course we can race on has banking like that. The allure of the speedway, I felt like, was always the main banking in one and two and three and four, and the tri-oval back to the turn one entrance. The speed you carried from the bus stop to the turn one entrance really lended itself to drafting and making moves with the draft and air. We certainly started the season off right last week by getting the win there. We are celebrating 30 years of JGR and Interstate Batteries together, so we would really like to get these guys to victory lane there and get the Daytona road-course sweep.”   The cars seemed noticeably faster to the naked eye without restrictor plates on the road course last weekend. What part of this course is the fastest for you?   “I think it’s into the frontstretch chicane, I’m not exactly sure, but I’m going to guess it’s right around 200 (mph), 203, something like that. We have the backstretch chicane we have to check up for and slow down, but we’re still carrying momentum through there. Then we’re getting back up into high gear. That is as far and long as we run high gear. So I assume that’s how fast we’re going. The biggest thing about the cars being faster last week is they had less drag on ’em. From last year’s package when we ran here on the road course race, more downforce, more drag, the cars took a little bit longer to get up to speed versus last week. I don’t know if lap times were necessarily faster or not.”   As a driver, is it better from your seat on the road course compared to the oval, where there’s a lot less in your control?   “I feel like there’s a lot more in your control. When you’re in a superspeedway race, a restrictor-plate race, there’s a lot less in your control. About anybody can win in those types of races. But when you have races like on the road course, it lends itself a little bit more to driver and car and setup and stuff like that. I think we kind of saw a little bit of that last week. There were a lot of comers and goers with tires and tire strategies that kind of got guys in the mix and out of the mix. Typically when you have a Daytona plate race, it’s anybody’s race, really. There’s a little bit of luck involved. Hoping we can come back this weekend and be on the right side of the strategy and bring home the win in our Interstate Batteries Camry.”   How do you rate yourself as a road-course racer?   “I think I’m pretty decent. I didn’t start out as good. A couple of other guys picked it up quicker than I did in my career. Like Chase Elliott, for instance, he’s a really good road racer right out of the gate. It took me a couple of years to kind of get going with it. I enjoy it. I like road racing. But it’s very hit or miss for me, sometimes. I can go to Watkins Glen and run top-three every single time, no problem. But when we go to Sonoma, it’s very hit or miss for us, for some reason. I can run top-three there one year and go back next year and be 10th. Same with the Roval, we just haven’t figured it out as a team and for me as a driver like the other places.”   Is road-course racing something that comes naturally to you, or is it something you had to work on?   “It’s definitely something you have to work on. With rule changes and tire changes, it’s something you work on every year. There’s always change that you have to work on to be competitive. When I was a kid back in Las Vegas in Legends cars, that’s where I was able to learn about shifting and turning left and turning right. I had the natural instincts for it and won a couple of championships in the winter series we had out there. We actually went to Sonoma back then and ran the national championship races two years in a row and finished third both times, so I had a little bit of experience on road courses as I came up through the ranks.”

Denny Hamlin is 12/1 to win on Daytona Road Course

Denny Hamlin

#11 FedEx Express Toyota
Joe Gibbs Racing

Race Info:
Race: O’Reilly Auto Parts 253 At Daytona
Date/Time: Feb. 21/3:00 p.m. ET
Distance: 70 laps/253 miles
Track Length: 3.61 miles (14 Turns)
Track Shape: Road Course-Oval Hybrid
Banking: 31 degrees
2020 Winner: Chase Elliot

Express Notes:

Press Kit: Download the 2021 FedEx Racing press materials at www.fedexracing.com/presskit, including bios for Denny Hamlin, Chris Gabehart and Joe Gibbs Racing leadership, program highlights and statistics.

Daytona 500 Recap: Hamlin and his FedEx “Where Now Meets Next” Toyota won Stages 1 and 2, while leading 98 of the event’s 200 laps. When he wasn’t out front, he was actively weaving his way back up there, and it appeared he could be on his way to earning his fourth career – and third straight – Harley J. Earl trophy. With one last green-flag pit stop needed, Hamlin and the other Toyota drivers ducked down pit road together on Lap 173. But Hamlin and his teammates were too detached exiting pit road to blend back into traffic in the lead. Hamlin found himself in 13th with about 20 laps remaining, with the field staying single file until the white flag. The lead-lap group of cars then spread out for a dash to the finish, and contact between a pair of Team Penske cars triggered a last-lap wreck. Michael McDowell squeaked through for the win, while Hamlin crossed the line in fifth.

Daytona Road Course Outlook: The 2021 NASCAR series moves on, but is not going anywhere as the teams stay in Daytona Beach this week with the running of the O’Reilly Auto Parts 253 at the Daytona Road Course. Hamlin will look to secure his first career win in the 253-mile, 14-turn road course race. Hamlin and the FedEx Racing team are coming off a strong performance in the Daytona 500 and will look to use this momentum in order to end up in Victory Lane.

Hamlin Statistics:

Track: Daytona International Speedway – Road Course
Races: 1
Wins: 0
Top-5: 1
Top-10: 1
Laps Led: 16
Avg. Start: 2
Avg. Finish: 2

Hamlin Conversation – Daytona Road Course:

The rain delay during the Daytona 500 didn’t seem to affect your performance on the track. In Florida, do you almost have to expect weather to play a part in the race weekend?

“That was quite a long delay we had, but our team just maintained focus. You never have control over the weather or if a race will be delayed so you always have to stay ready. You never know when you’re going to hear, OK it’s race time.”

You led a solid amount of the laps in the Clash on the Daytona Road Course. How will you use that to your advantage?

“Yeah, we had a fast car during the Clash, and I’m sure this weekend won’t be any different. We’ll take that data and learn from it, and it will certainly help us as we return to the same course. It’s going to be a tough race like all road courses are, but I’m confident in our team to put us in a position to win.”

FedEx Express Along for the Ride at Daytona Road Course: FedEx Express recognizes the employees at the MLBA station in Melbourne, Fla., for their dedication to People Service Profit and commitment to the Purple Promise by featuring the letters MLBA on the B-post of the #11 FedEx Express Toyota at the O’Reilly Auto Parts 253 at Daytona. The MLBA team prides itself on operational excellence and is dedicated to making every FedEx experience outstanding.