In The Know – DAYTONA
It’s time for the regular season finale at the World Center of Racing. Get up-to-speed on race info, driver stats, our weekly wraps, and more as we look to wrap up the regular season with a Daytona dub.
The Details
NASCAR Cup Series Overview
● Event: Coke Zero Sugar 400 (Round 26 of 36)
● Time/Date: 7 p.m. EDT on Saturday, Aug. 27
● Location: Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway
● Layout: 2.5-mile oval
● Laps/Miles: 160 laps / 400 miles
● Stage Lengths: Stage 1: 35 laps / Stage 2: 60 laps / Final Stage: 65 laps
● TV/Radio: NBC / MRN Radio / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
SHR FAST FACTS
Kevin Harvick:
When Harvick takes the green flag for the Coke Zero Sugar 400, it will be his series-leading 43rd NASCAR Cup Series start at Daytona. Harvick made his Cup Series debut at the track on July 7, 2001, starting 10th and finishing 25th, one spot ahead of his SHR car owner, Tony Stewart. In his 42 starts at the 2.5-mile oval, Harvick has won twice – the 2007 Daytona 500 and the 2010 Coke Zero 400 – and scored 11 top-fives and 16 top-10s while leading 283 laps.
Harvick’s 11 top-fives are tied with Denny Hamlin for the second most among active Cup Series drivers. Harvick’s 16 top-10s are also the second most among active Cup Series drivers. Kurt Busch is the leader in top-fives (13) and top-10s (18) at Daytona.
Harvick’s first NASCAR Cup Series win at Daytona was one of the biggest of his career. Harvick won the 2007 Daytona 500 by edging Mark Martin for the victory by .02 of a second in a frantic, green-white-checkered finish. It remains the second-closest finish in Daytona 500 history, trailing only Hamlin’s .01-of-a-second margin over Martin Truex Jr., in 2016.
Harvick was efficient in his second win at Daytona. When he won the 2010 Coke Zero 400, Harvick started from the pole and led eight times for a race-high 28 laps to take the victory by .092 of a second over runner-up Kasey Kahne.
Harvick has proven prolific in the non-points NASCAR Cup Series races at Daytona. He is a three-time winner of the Busch Clash when it was held on the 2.5-mile oval (2009, 2010 and 2013) and he is a two-time winner of the Duel (2013 and 2019), twin 150-mile qualifying races that set the field for the Daytona 500.
Aric Almirola:
Almirola scored his first career Cup Series win in the rain-shortened July 2014 race at Daytona, when he led 14 laps. In the NASCAR Xfinity Series, he started on the pole in his first Daytona outing in July 2007, and he captured a win there while piloting the No. 98 Biagi-Den Beste Ford Mustang in July 2016. Last year, he won his Duel qualifying race for the Daytona 500 for the first time in his career. Almirola also has three Daytona starts in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series with a best finish of 12th in the 2010 season opener. Almirola finished fifth in this year’s season-opening Daytona 500.
In the 2018 Daytona 500, Almirola was a half lap away from becoming a Daytona 500 champion. As he was leading the field to the checkered flag, he made an aggressive block on the No. 3 car of Austin Dillon before he was turned into the outside wall, ending his bid. In last year’s Daytona 500, Almirola showed strength by running at the front of the field on occasion, but his day ended when he was caught in a multicar accident on lap 190.
Chase Briscoe:
Chase Briscoe, driver of the No. 14 Mahindra Tractors Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR), returns to the scene of his career-first top-five finish in the NASCAR Cup Series during Saturday night’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway. Briscoe finished third there in this year’s season-opening Daytona 500. It was his best finish in three points-paying starts at Daytona.
Three weeks later, on March 13 at Phoenix Raceway, Briscoe followed up his Daytona breakthrough with his first Cup Series victory. It secured the 27-year-old driver’s position in this year’s 16-driver playoff field. In his two fulltime NASCAR Xfinity Series seasons in 2019 and 202, Briscoe qualified for the playoffs both years and reach the Championship 4 at Phoenix in 2020. He will make his Cup Series playoff debut next weekend at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway.
Outside the Cup Series, Briscoe has made six previous starts at Daytona – four in the Xfinity Series and one apiece in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and in the ARCA Menards Series. He has started inside the top-10 for five of those races, with his best being a third-place qualifying effort in the 2016 ARCA season opener. His best finish is third, earned twice – August 2020 in the Xfinity Series and February 2017 in the Truck Series.
Cole Custer:
Saturday’s 160-lap race will be Custer’s 101st career Cup Series start and sixth on the Daytona oval. His 11th-place finish in last year’s season-opening Daytona 500 is his best result at the iconic track. He finished 20th in this year’s Daytona 500.
In NASCAR Xfinity Series competition at Daytona, Custer made six starts from 2017 through 2019, all in SHR Fords. He had a best start of third in the August 2018 race, and best finishes of 14th in the 2018 and 2019 openers, both seasons culminating with runner-up finishes in the series championship.
OUR WEEKLY WRAPS
We’re ready to close out the season in style. Check out our schemes for Daytona.
What Our Drivers are Saying:
Kevin Harvick, Driver of the No. 4 Mobil 1 Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas:
You haven’t missed the playoffs since 2009. Is the key to that consistency your experience?
“Well, there are just different ways to race, right? There are different ways to solve the equation, and sometimes we’re going to run fourth, and we have to accept that and be able to say, ‘If we have a fourth-place car, we need to finish fourth.’ On the days when stuff is chaotic and there are cars torn up everywhere and you finish ninth with a 20th-place car, those are really big wins. I’ve done all that. I’ve been on that side of the fence where you’ve had 20th-place cars all year and you have to figure out how to make something out of it. They’re going to have the races, regardless, and you still have to show up. You can’t just quit because your cars are slow. So you just have to figure out how to manage that, and also manage it when you have fast cars, medium cars, know what you have that day and get the most out of that day.”
Aric Almirola, Driver of the No. 10 Smithfield Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:
How do you race this weekend knowing you have to win to make the playoffs?
“You take more chances and you put yourself in positions you wouldn’t typically put yourself in – especially when it comes down to the end of the race. Typically you try to win the race, but I think on a normal day if you can get out of there with a top-five finish and some good points, then you take those in and you always weigh out that risk versus reward. Right now, as we go to Daytona for the final race of the regular season, you’re willing to go with extremely high risk because the reward is extremely high. It’s the last opportunity to get in the playoffs.”
Chase Briscoe, Driver of the No. 14 Ford Performance Racing School Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:
What makes Watkins Glen so different from other road courses?
“It’s not as technical as some of the others. You have to focus a lot on the balance of the car to be able to get around it. It’s a very high-speed track and there isn’t really a slow corner that you can use to set up a pass if you get behind. We’ve seen with the new car it’s been tough to pass, and guys have been really aggressive on the road courses, so I think we’ll for sure see some guys making moves that might not work.”
Cole Custer, Driver of the No. 41 Autodesk / HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:
You’ve now had three races with the NextGen car on superspeedway-style tracks this year. What have you learned about what it will take to win at Daytona on Saturday night?
“I think the biggest thing about the superspeedway racing this year is this new car is really all about getting the pit stops good and making sure you stay with the lead draft. If you’re the last car in line, it’s really easy to lose the draft. So I think that’s been the biggest thing. At the end of the day, it’s been really similar. You’re still able to push really hard, you’re still able to draft and run three-wide, and four-wide at times, so it puts on good racing. You just want to make sure you can stay with the lead draft.”
