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| Cup Series has a different race package from February's Daytona 500. |
Next Race: Coke Zero Sugar 400
The Place: Daytona International Speedway
The Date: Saturday, July 6
The Time: 7:30 p.m. ET
TV: NBC, 7:00 p.m. ET
Radio: MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
Distance: 400 miles (160 laps); Stage 1 (Ends on Lap 50),
Stage 2 (Ends on Lap 100), Final Stage (Ends on Lap 160)
2018 Race Winner: Erik Jones
Logano looking good atop the points standings
Joey Logano rallied to a third-place finish in Sunday night at Chicagoland Speedway and that effort was good enough to keep the Team Penske driver atop the points standings as the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series arrives in Daytona Beach for Saturday’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 (7:30 p.m. ET on NBC, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
It was inspired driving by the reigning Monster Energy Series champion, who had not earned any stage points on the day but still managed to collect his ninth top five of the season and third top-three run in the last five races. He’s won twice on the year (at Las Vegas and Michigan) and his work at Chicago was good enough to extend his championship lead to 18 points over Kyle Busch.
Daytona International Speedway has been hit-or-miss for the driver of the No. 22 Team Penske Ford. He won the Daytona 500 in 2015 and led 11 laps and finished fourth in the season opener this year.
The Daytona summer race, however, has been more challenging for the team of late. Logano has crashed out of the last two 400-milers but finished fourth in the last two Daytona 500s. He has six top-10 finishes in the last nine races at the track, but only led 74 laps (in 21 starts) and posted an average finish of 17.0 in his career there.
Back to defend for the first time
For the first time in his brief Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series career, Joe Gibbs Racing driver Erik Jones returns to Daytona International Speedway as a defending race winner. The driver of the No. 20 JGR Toyota earned the win in only his fifth Cup start at the track.
And while the 2.5-mile Daytona high banks have typically proven tough for many competitors, the 23-year old Jones seems to have taken to the style of fast, tight competition rather well. He has three top-10 and a pair of top-five finishes in five starts, including a third place in this season’s Daytona 500 as an impressive follow-up to last year’s summer victory.
He has only two Coke Zero Sugar 400 Cup starts, but his 5.00 average finish in the race is still tops statistically.
Jones has been strong especially as of late. He has three top-10 finishes in the last four races and five in the last seven. He’s scored a season-best third place, three times – at Daytona, Texas and Pocono. He comes to Daytona ranked 17th in the championship hunt, only 15 points behind 16th place Clint Bowyer in the Playoff cutoff position.
“I’m looking forward to getting back to Daytona,’’ Jones said. “It’s always cool coming back to a track where you are the defending race winner. Looking forward to the race and defending our win from last year.
“It’s always fun to get down there on the 4th of July. It’s usually a great crowd, a great turnout and great atmosphere for the race. Looking forward to getting out there and hopefully we’ll be able to get another win to lock ourselves in the Playoffs and have a lot fun at the same time.”
Blaney on the verge of driving into Victory Lane
Team Penske driver Ryan Blaney has watched both his teammates – Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski – celebrate in Victory Lane multiple times this season. But the popular 25-year old driver of the team’s No. 12 Ford should feel plenty optimistic heading into Daytona.
The 2.5-mile track has been a positive entry on the resume of his four-year fulltime career with multiple close-calls in scoring that first win on the iconic track.
He finished runner-up in the 2017 Daytona 500 – by a mere blink-of-the-eye .228-seconds to Kurt Busch. And after winning one of the two Daytona 500 Duel qualifying races, he answered the effort leading a race best 118 laps in 2018 - only to finish seventh after being collected in an accident in the final laps.
This year, he was again involved an accident – only 10 laps from the scheduled checkered flag – and finished 31st. So Blaney arrives at the beach, hoping to extend some of his better luck 2019 showings.
He is on a run of three straight top-10 finishes, including a sixth place at Chicago. He has finished a season-best third, three times including two weeks ago at Sonoma, Calif., and is ranked 10th in the championship standings, only 10 points behind ninth place Alex Bowman, last week’s Chicago winner.
The new technical package – a tapered spacer as opposed to the traditional restrictor plate – will be used for the first time since 1988 at the track. But Blaney, who started seventh and finished 15th at Talladega using the new package earlier this season, seemed optimistic that teams will be in better shape this go-round.
“Obviously, they are different kind of race tracks a little bit in their own ways and I think teams will go to Daytona with a little different mindset of what they had at Talladega,’’ Blaney said. “Just trying to figure it out. I think it will be a good race. I thought Talladega was a pretty good race and I think it will get better as teams start to understand the package.’’
“It’s a race I look forward to every year,’’ Blaney added.
Back On Track
Four-time race winner Kyle Busch has displayed a dominant start to the 2019 season – tying a Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series record with 11 consecutive top-10 finishes to start the year. And he won three races (at Fontana, Calif., Bristol, Tenn. and Pocono, Pa.) in that time.
His top-10 streak ended with a season worst 30th place at Kansas Speedway, however, he has rebounded solidly. Busch has four top-five finishes in the last five races in the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, including a fourth win at Pocono, Pa. and a runner-up at the Sonoma, Calif. road course two weeks ago.
Busch remains ranked second in the Monster Energy Series points standings – trailing leader Joey Logano by 18 points – despite a 22nd place finish at Chicago on Sunday. Looking to Daytona, he has run the most laps in the top 15 (63.8 percent) and made the most Quality Passes (4,093) since 2005. Only his JGR teammate Denny Hamlin has led more laps (437 vs. 420) in that time
He enters the Coke Zero Sugar 400 as one of the top ranked drivers in the event – his only win at the track coming in the summer of 2008. He has nine top-10 finishes – eight of them top-five finishes – in 28 starts at Daytona. He led 37 laps in this year’s Daytona 500 and finished runner-up to Hamlin.
Will Denny double up at Daytona?
Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin returns to Daytona International Speedway as the most recent race winner, having taken the season-opening Daytona 500 victory – his second in the Great American Race.
He has 10 top-10 finishes through the first 17 races in the No. 11 JGR Toyota Camry with wins at Daytona and Texas and average finish of 10.4 on the season. He’s led laps at the five previous races coming to Daytona, a place where he is tops in laps led (437) among the current drivers.
Hamlin has eight top-five and nine top-10 finishes in 27 Daytona starts – famously winning the exhibition Clash race in his very first Cup start at the track.
“We had a great race earlier this year in Daytona, but this weekend will be entirely different,’’ Hamlin said. “Just like all the other teams, we have learned a lot about ourselves in the weeks since the Daytona 500 and we will be fighting for a repeat win, but we are ready and preparing for the challenge that is coming our way.’’
Hendrick Resurgence
Alex Bowman’s maiden Monster Energy Series victory Sunday night in Chicago coupled with the good showings from his three Hendrick Motorsports teammates – Jimmie Johnson, William Byron and Chase Elliott – was certainly an encouraging sign for the championship organization as it heads into Daytona Beach.
The four drivers have combined for 12 top-five finishes and 25 top-10s. Elliott, the driver of the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet leads the team with six top-five finishes. Elliott and the seven-time Cup champion Johnson each have seven top 10s while Bowman has tallied six. All by Bowman has won at least one pole position. Bowman (Chicago) and Elliott (Talladega, Ala.) have race wins.
Elliott’s victory at Talladega in May is encouraging for the team, as that marked the first time the series has used a tapered spacer in place of a restrictor plate at one of the two “big tracks.” This week will feature the same tapered spacer at Daytona.
Even though Elliott, Bowman and Byron have won pole positions at Daytona International Speedway, the famed high banks haven’t been the most productive of venues for the three youngest members of the Hendrick team. Bowman is the only member of that trio with a top-10 finish (10th place in this summer race last year) in 16 combined starts among them. The veteran champion Johnson, however, has three victories at Daytona – two Daytona 500 wins (2006 and 2013) and scored a Daytona victory sweep in 2013 while also claiming the 400-mile race win.
He’s crashed out in four of the last six Daytona races, but paced the team this February with a ninth-place finish in the Daytona 500.
By the numbers
Chicagoland Speedway continued an upward trend statistically for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup season.
The average number of lead changes (18.94) is the most through a season’s opening 17 races since 2017 (19.65). The average number of leaders (9.29) per race is the most since 2014 (11.0) and Alex Bowman’s win at Chicago marked the 10th time in 17 races the Margin of Victory was less than 1-second.
Green flag passing is up this year – 602 green flag passes for the lead is the most since 2015 through the opening 17 races. Twelve of the 17 races have exceeded the five-year average, including all five races at 1.5-mile venues to date. Overall and specifically, this season’s green flag passes for the lead are up 30.9 percent from last year.
Nine drivers from five teams have won pole positions. Hendrick Motorsports has earned the most – William Byron (three), Chase Elliott (two) and Jimmie Johnson (one). And while Joe Gibbs Racing leads the season with the most race wins (10), it has yet to win a pole position.
JGR teammates Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr. have the most wins (four) on the year.
Parade Laps: Insights ahead of this week’s driver media rotations
Seven drivers from the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series – JTG Daugherty Racing’s Ryan Preece, Stewart-Haas Racing’s Daniel Suarez, Hendrick Motorsports’ William Byron and Jimmie Johnson, Front Row Motorsports’ Michael McDowell, Team Penske’s Brad Keselowski and Leavine Family Racing’s Matt DiBenedetto will be participating in this week’s media rotations at Daytona International Speedway in advance of Saturday’s Monster Energy NASCAR Coke Zero Sugar 400 (7:30 p.m. ET on NBC, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Ryan Preece, 28, of Berlin, Conn., has turned in the best showings of his Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series rookie year at the superspeedways. He was eighth in the season-opening Daytona 500 and answered with a third place at Talladega Superspeedway. The driver of the No. 47 JTG Daugherty Racing Chevrolet is still looking to lead his first laps of the season and is coming off a 28th place finish at Chicago last weekend.
Daniel Suarez, 27, of Monterrey, Mexico, would love to turn around his superspeedway program and he’s in the midst of a high-achieving first season driving the No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford. He has six top-10 finishes in 2019 – half of his previous best entire season total (12 in 2017). His top-five efforts were at Texas and Michigan. He crashed out of the 2019 Daytona 500 and has failed to finish in four of the previous five Daytona races, but did have a good day at the series’ other superspeedway in Talladega, Ala., finishing 12th this spring.
William Byron, 21, of Charlotte, North Carolina, seems on an inevitable track to his first career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup victory. The former NASCAR Xfinity Series champion has been improving weekly in the Cup side – leading laps in the last seven consecutive races and in 11 of the 17 races to date on the season. He has three top-10 finishes in the last five races in the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet and is coming off an eighth place run at Chicago on Sunday night. He won the Busch Pole position when the series last raced at Daytona for the season-opening Daytona 500 and led a season high 44 laps in that race. Unfortunately, he was collected in a crash only two laps before the scheduled checkered flag and finished 21st. And there is good precedent for him there. He won a 2017 Xfinity Series summer race at the big track.
Jimmie Johnson, 43, of El Cajon, Calif., is among the most successful racers at Daytona International Speedway. The seven-time Cup champion has a pair of Daytona 500 victories (2006 and 2013) and swept the 2013 season races at the track, earning his only summer Daytona win that year. He won the pole position in his very first start at Daytona (2002). Johnson won this year’s Clash season-opening exhibition at the track and answered with a ninth place run in the Daytona 500. The driver of the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet is coming off a season-best fourth place finish at Chicagoland Speedway last weekend and led 10 laps. He has three top-10 finishes in the last six races of the season and his top 10 at Chicago moved him from 17th to 14th in the points standings.
Michael McDowell, 34, of Phoenix, Arizona, is enthusiastic about the series return to Daytona International Speedway – site of his best 2019 season result, a fifth-place finish in the Daytona 500. The track has consistently provided highlight reel material for McDowell. He has six top-10 finishes including a career best fourth place in the 2017 summer race. Last year he led 20 laps in the Coke Zero Sugar 400 – the only time he’s led laps in his 16 starts at the track. The driver of the No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford finished 20th at Chicago on Sunday night – his fourth top-20 of the season. And his seventh-place start marked the best qualifying effort of 2019.
Brad Keselowski, 35, of Rochester Hills, Mich., continues his steady and consistent work toward a second championship and returns to Daytona International Speedway a former Coke Zero Sugar 400 winner. He won the summer race in 2016 leading a dominating 115 of the 161 laps in his No. 2 Penske Racing Ford. He’s had four DNFs in the five races since but did rally with a 12th-place finish in the Daytona 500 this February. The 2012 Monster Energy Series champion has turned in an impressive three-win season to date (Atlanta, Martinsville, Va. and Kansas) and his fifth-place finish at Chicago on Sunday was his seventh top-five of the season, ninth top-10. He’s led an impressive 775 laps on the year.
Matt DiBenedetto, 27, of Grass Valley, Calif., returns to Daytona International Speedway looking for redemption after an impressive effort at the big track in the Daytona 500 this February. He led a race best 49 laps, but while running at the front of the field was caught up in a crash with 10 laps to go in the scheduled distance and instead finished 28th. He has two other top-10 runs at the superspeedway – including a career best seventh place in last year’s summer 400-miler. The driver of the No. 95 Leavine Family Racing Toyota recorded a career best fourth place finish at Sonoma, Calif. two weeks ago, has five top-20 finishes on the year and is ranked 25th in the Cup standings.
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