DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – An athlete’s career can change in a single moment. Whether an injury or a new contract, the emotional waves make the way of life intriguing.
But what if that moment was as big as winning the Super Bowl or the World Series?
In NASCAR, that moment is the Daytona 500.
“We hear it so often and there’s nothing like the aroma (of) a Daytona 500 champion,” said Fox Sports broadcaster Chris Myers.
It’s the one story during the off-season that builds up over three months of preparation, focus and dedication. As teams evaluated performance from the prior season, the hype, the presuppositions, the heartbreaks and break-throughs, all honing in on a single checkered flag.
“Every team is the most prepared that they’re going to be all year,” stated Kevin Harvick, 2007 Daytona 500 champion. “They have three months to work on the car. It’s the best it’s going to look, the hauler is going to look the best it’s going to look. You’ve got all this build up around the first race of the year. You’ve got media day, you’ve got qualifying, you’ve have qualifying races and everything that leads up into the 500.”
And as preparing and writing this story, I’ve noticed something as well. People in the garage don’t say a Daytona 500 ‘winner.’ We say champion.
We mean champion.
“When you look at that trophy and you look at the names on it, you realize many of them are the who’s who of NASCAR racing,” continued Harvick, eyeing the Harley J. Earl Trophy that was on display on stage. “Everything that was built around Daytona International Speedway making it our marquee event of the year, there’s no way you can build anymore hype because you’ve had the whole offseason and there’s no way you can really be more prepared with the amount of time that you have.”
Even nearly 20 years after his win, it still leaves Harvick speechless that he won in a dramatic finish with legend Mark Martin to his inside. But maybe that’s the reason this is truly a marquee event. The history of this race is not only significant but also defining for the season.
In 1979, the Daytona 500 put NASCAR on an international level as the first full length race to be entirely broadcast live on television.
On the final lap, race leaders Cale Yarborough and Donnie Allison slammed into each other down the backstretch, eventually losing control, skidding across the banking of Turn 3 and came to rest in the infield grass. They were less than a mile short of the checkered flag.
Then, the fight.
Not just any fight. It was deemed as “The Fight” in NASCAR as broadcasters described the chaos from pure emotion:
“They know they have lost the race.”
Again, not just any race. The Daytona 500.
“I remember winning the race,” Harvick reflected. “The first thing that Dale Jarrett told me, he said, ‘Well, you’re now going to understand why this is the biggest race in the sport and what that means.’”
On the Harley J. Earl Trophy are nameplates of all the past winners of the Daytona 500. No matter if you are a history buff or a new follower, the history of the race will follow the winner wherever they go.
And their name will follow for generations to come.
“(When you see) the names on that trophy that you’re associated with, it makes you understand that you truly are a part of one of the more historic events of Daytona history.” Harvick explained. “So every year that happens and somebody new puts their puts their name on that trophy, you understand what that trophy means.”
Mike Joy, Fox Sports broadcaster and NASCAR broadcaster for the last few decades, explained why the history was so important.
“Since 1959, that’s the way this sport has been run,” Joy elaborated. “Prior to that, the Southern 500 was the sport’s biggest race in ’59. Daytona opened in ’60, (along with) Atlanta and Charlotte, but once Bill France built this Speedway, this became the one crown jewel of NASCAR and the way NASCAR has been run ever since. It’s always been this as the tentpole event. That’s never changed.”
Speaking of history, William Byron captured his first career Daytona 500 victory on the 40th anniversary of Hendrick Motorsports, adding even more to the significance of his crowning achievement.
“I feel like this one has its own meaning,” Byron said, giving his perspective of being crowned as the most recent 500 champion. “It’s very intense out there. You can’t ever underestimate what it takes to win here.”
It will most likely settle in his racing career in a few months that he has accomplished what even past champions of this sport have not. Kyle Busch, Martin Truex Jr, Kyle Larson, even defending NASCAR Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney all have yet to win the biggest event of stock car racing.
Veteran broadcaster Jamie Little makes the play-by-play calls for the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, and works as a pit road analyst for Fox Sports. That direct access gives her all the storylines that develop over the course of 500 miles.
“(It’s) the Great American race, as you guys all know, and the storylines are aplenty,” she voiced. “We saw and heard a lot of those last night (with) Jimmy Johnson racing his way in. But the storylines that I always like to look at are who are the guys who have tried over and over and over again — who’ve never been able to get this trophy. That’s Kyle Bush, the Kyle Larsons, Martin Truex Jr, and Ryan Blaney, our defending series champion. (Can they) finally get it done? I like those stories.
“And I also like the one-off stories. The guys who come in here like the Austin Cindric’s and Michael McDowell’s, that come out and win this race. And when I get to stand out there on the start-finish line and interview them, there’s nothing like that emotion.
“That’s what keeps me coming back and doing this job and staying in the pits. I love being in the middle of that action and those emotions that are so raw. It’s why I’ve been here for 25 years, covering Motorsports, because there’s just nothing else like it.”
It’s not just the Jamie Little’s or the Mike Joy’s or the Kevin Harvick’s. It’s the fans too.
The 2024 Daytona 500 sold out the earliest in recent history, months before the scheduled green flag and just a couple weeks after the 2023 season ended in Phoenix. A few years after the COVID-19 pandemic, NASCAR is starting to get back into regularly filled grandstands, an era the sport hasn’t seen in a long time.
Maybe it’s the show. Considering Little’s comments, it took Dale Earnhardt 20 years before he won his iconic Daytona 500 in 1998. Then, there was the birthday gift for Trevor Bayne in 2011 for the legendary Wood Brothers Racing. It’s true that anyone can win the Great American Race, and as a broadcast partner, Fox Sports is ready for whatever fate may decide.
“I think the main thing that Fox does is we try not to produce the show before we do it,” said Chuck McDonald, producer for NASCAR on FOX. “We’re very good at covering the event as it happens. And then with this group, there’s a bunch of stories going on and just figuring out the ones that are the most compelling and the ones that have to make air and the chemistry of this team makes it a lot easier.”
Overall, it’s the buildup. Unlike football or baseball where the stories build up across the entire season leading to the big game, NASCAR has three months of silence wondering who will surge as the newest Daytona 500 champion. It’s why we’re all here.