“In the Know”
Daytona Speedweek
The 64th running of the Daytona 500 will take place on Sunday, February 20 at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway. To earn a spot in this year’s Daytona 500, drivers must first compete in the Bluegreen Vacations Duel – twin 150-mile qualifying races that set the 40-car field for the Daytona 500.
Tune in to the broadcast and prepare to be entertained! The Boss, Tony Stewart, will join Mike Joy and Clint Bowyer in the booth for FOX, adding more reasons to tune in. Don’t miss a minute of the coverage.
The Details
NASCAR Cup Series Overview
Wednesday, Feb. 16:
Daytona 500 qualifying: Single-lap qualifying to determine pole for the Daytona 500
Time/TV/Radio: 8 p.m. ET on FS1/MRN/SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
Thursday, Feb. 17:
Bluegreen Vacations Duel: Twin 150-mile qualifying races that set the field for the Daytona 500
Time/TV/Radio: 7 p.m. ET on FS1/MRN/SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
Sunday, Feb. 20:
64th annual Daytona 500: First of 36 points-paying NASCAR Cup Series races in 2022
Time/TV/Radio: 2:30 p.m. ET on FOX/MRN/SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
The Broadcast schedule
You won’t want to miss any of the action as we head to The World Center of Racing. From practice to the grand finale on Sunday, there is plenty of action to catch.
SHR FAST FACTS
Kevin Harvick: The 2022 season marks Harvick’s 22nd year in the NASCAR Cup Series. Of his 754 career, points-paying starts, 41 of them have come on Daytona’s 2.5-mile oval. In addition to his 2017 Daytona 500 victory, Harvick won the 2010 Coke Zero 400. He has 11 top-fives and 16 top-10s on the Daytona oval. The 64th Daytona 500 will be his 42nd points-paying start on the Daytona oval.
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 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 first time in his career. Almirola also has three Daytona starts in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series with a best finish of 12th. This year’s Daytona 500 marks Almirola’s 21st points-paying Cup Series start at the 2.5-mile superspeedway.
Chase Briscoe: Outside of the Cup Series, Briscoe has made six previous starts at Daytona – four in the NASCAR Xfinity Series and one apiece in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and in the ARCA Racing Series. He has started within 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: The Daytona 500 marks Custer’s 76th’s career Cup Series start and his fifth on the Daytona oval. His 11th-place finish in last year’s Daytona 500 is his best result at the iconic track.
OUR WEEKLY WRAPS
We’ll be heading to Daytona in style. Check out our fresh wraps for Daytona Speedweek.
Bring on 2022
No matter the challenges, we as a race team never back down. And as we kick off the 2022 season, the expectations at SHR remain the same. We’re all in to win.
What Our Drivers are Saying:
Kevin Harvick, Driver of the No. 4 Busch Light Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:
What does it take to win the Daytona 500?
“The superspeedways, in general, are difficult to have everything line up to get a win out of the weekend. For the Daytona 500, it’s our biggest race of the year, but it’s also the one race a year that you have months to prepare for. Every team in the garage has their most prepared car that shows up at the Daytona 500. On top of that, you have the most aggression and enthusiasm to try to take risks and do things that you normally wouldn’t do to win races because the Daytona 500 only comes once a year, and it can make a year and it can also make a career out of winning that race. I think as you look at the Daytona 500, it’s just different than any other race and it becomes difficult to win because of all the risk-taking that you don’t see on a weekly basis.”
Aric Almirola, Driver of the No. 10 Smithfield Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:
What would it mean to become a Daytona 500 champion in your last full-time season?
“Outside of winning the championship, if I had to pick one race to win, it would be, without a doubt, the Daytona 500. I’ve won every other race there is to win there. Being only two hours away from Tampa, Daytona is my home track, so it would be huge to have that opportunity to be a Daytona 500 champion. I’m already fulfilled in my career, but that would be the icing on the cake.”
Chase Briscoe, Driver of the No. 14 Mahindra Tractors Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:
Do you have a goal that you’d like to accomplish in your second season?
“The goal, and truly the expectation, is to run up front consistently. Be a guy that’s in the hunt for wins most weekends, not just four or five times. If we could get a win or two, make the playoffs and then make a run in the playoffs, that would be a successful second season. Daytona is a place where you want to win. No matter who you are or what kind of background you come from, you want to be able to say you’re a Daytona winner. It’s not my favorite type of racing, but it’s one that fans always make sure they are watching. It’s humbling to be able to compete in it but winning it and starting the season off with a step in the right direction toward fulfilling those goals would be a moment I’d never forget.”
Cole Custer, Driver of the No. 41 HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:
Do you feel your solid effort at the Busch Light Clash at the Coliseum is a sign of things to come this year?
“For sure. I think it’s a mindset going into this year. We want to go into this year and hit hard and be able to figure out this car faster than any other team and try to figure out how to get us back to the front where we belong at Stewart-Haas Racing. It was a great way to start off the year, a great confidence-builder. It was kind of an oddball racetrack, but I think you can take a few things to other racetracks like Martinsville and the short tracks and things like that. Everybody went there trying as hard as they could, so it was good to have the pace that we had and have a solid run.”
Of Special Interest: THE NEXT GEN
The NextGen car is an entirely new racecar, and if you’re keeping score at home, it’s the seventh version of the stock car NASCAR introduced in 1949. Each version has been an improvement from its predecessor, be it from a manufacturer standpoint with more aerodynamic bodies or from a NASCAR standpoint with better overall safety. Dimensions have varied over the years with drivers, teams and manufacturers politicking for various changes to spoilers, splitters, roof railings, ride-heights, etc., resulting in a multitude of templates that have shaped the on-track product. But the NextGen car is a massive leap forward, as never in NASCAR’s 73 prior years has this much time, energy and money been spent to bring a car from concept to reality. Say goodbye to such time-honored traditions as the H-pattern shifter, 750-horsepower engines, five-lug wheels and even centered door numbers. You can say “Hi” to them at the NASCAR Hall of Fame, but not at a NASCAR Cup Series track. Instead, say hello to a sequential shifter, 670-horsepower engines, a single center-lock wheel nut akin to Indy cars and sports cars, and car numbers just behind the front wheels. But that’s not all. Introduce yourself to carbon fiber-reinforced plastic body panels, a carbon-fiber floor that covers the entire underneath portion of the car, and a rear-end diffuser – all of which are in place to reduce dirty air. And it’s more than skin deep, as rack-and-pinion steering replaces the archaic recirculating ball, and an independent rear suspension is a drastic upgrade from the full floating axle first championed by 1950s-era Detroit iron. The bottom line is that the NextGen car is much more in line with what manufacturers sell and consumers want. Win on Sunday, sell on Monday has never been more accurate.
Check out some of SHR’s first with the Next Gen on YouTube:
