Modern superspeedway racing is a bit different than what it once was in NASCAR. Early in these races at Daytona and Talladega, the field is often three-wide, ten rows deep. And while it looks spectacular, the truth is that everything is fairly under control as the pack is fuel-saving. Sometimes, they slow so much that a car running by itself is actually faster than a large group of cars drafting.
And when the field does decide to go wide-open, it becomes very hard to cut a path to the front, and drivers trying to form a third lane usually get shuffled to the back. Track position is more important than it was with the previous generation of car, and the easiest way to jump to the front is via a quick pit stop -- not driving through the pack. Kyle Larson touched on this during a media scrum at Daytona on Friday, claiming, "there's less crazy stuff that happens these days just because you get so gridlocked. You kind of just get two-by-two and you can't go anywhere. It's less crazy than it used to be."
However, one common theme throughout interviews on Friday was that we should expect desperation and chaos as a result of that desperation. Michael McDowell, who crashed while leading this race last summer, predicts that it is "going to be a mess."
In the series' last visit to Daytona for the 2025 season-opener, the 67th running of the Daytona 500 ended in chaos as the front two rows all wrecked on the last lap, opening the door for William Byron to squeeze by and go back-to-back in NASCAR's crown jewel event.
While it's certainly changed a lot in the last few years, Daytona remains a volatile and unpredictable race, especially as the regular season finale, with 20 drivers whose only chance of making the playoffs is by winning the race.
