Before summer’s end, there is usually a flurry of trips to the beach with holidaymakers looking for one more day in the sun before fall comes to cool the sands and chill the sea. Come Saturday, a day in the sun at Daytona Beach will turn to nighttime at the Daytona International Speedway, where many drivers in the NASCAR Cup Series are looking to not let the sun set on their 2024 seasons.
Six months after William Byron won his first Daytona 500 in February, NASCAR returns to Daytona for the track’s annual summertime race, the Coke Zero Sugar 400, an event marking the last major wild card in the battle for a playoff spot. With just two races remaining in the regular season, Daytona marks perhaps the single biggest inflection point in which drivers fighting on the playoff bubble — and those who have to win to contend for a championship come September — could see their postseason hopes be made or broken.
Where to watch the NASCAR Cup Series at Daytona
Date: Aug. 24
Location: Daytona International Speedway — Daytona Beach, Florida
Time: 7:30 p.m. ET
TV: NBC
Stream: fubo (try for free)
What to watch
Because of the nature of superspeedway racing and the great equalizer of the draft, much of the focus this weekend will be on not just the drivers in a points battle at the playoff cut line, but also those for whom Daytona marks their last realistic shot at earning a win and an automatic playoff berth. While Martin Truex Jr., Ty Gibbs, Chris Buescher, Ross Chastain and Bubba Wallace can all still earn playoff spots on points, everyone from 18th-place Kyle Busch on back in the playoff standings must win either this weekend or at Darlington to remain eligible for the Cup Series Championship.
The group of playoff hopefuls in desperation mode includes five different past Daytona winners, including Busch (2008 Coke Zero Sugar 400), Michael McDowell (2021 Daytona 500), Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (2023 Daytona 500), Erik Jones (2018 Coke Zero Sugar 400), and Austin Dillon (Two career Daytona wins). Busch and McDowell should be chief among the contenders this weekend, but there’s a wide variety of possibilities beyond simply these five drivers.
A number of the drivers in must-win territory have had either their best runs or best finishes of the 2024 season in speedway races, chief among them being:
- Todd Gilliland (16 laps led in the Daytona 500, 58 laps led at Atlanta, eighth-place finish at Talladega)
- Noah Gragson (Five laps led and ninth-place finish in the Daytona 500, five laps led and third-place finish at Talladega)
- Daniel Hemric (Eight laps led and ninth-place finish at Talladega)
- Corey LaJoie (One lap led and fourth-place finish in the Daytona 500)
- John Hunter Nemechek (Seventh-place finish in the Daytona 500, 20 laps led at Talladega)
- Harrison Burton (11th-place finish at Atlanta, 10th-place finish at Talladega)
It should be expected that these drivers will have fast cars capable of running up front, and it’s likely they’ll be as aggressive (bordering on desperate) as they need to be to give themselves a chance for a season-altering victory. This will put an extra burden on the drivers in the bubble battle to get to the front themselves and nip any potential bubble bursters in the bud.
News of the week
- The National Motorsports Appeals Panel heard and denied Richard Childress Racing’s appeal of Austin Dillon’s post-race penalties from Richmond on Wednesday, expressing in their ruling that NASCAR’s competitors “are expected to demonstrate exemplary conduct if its series’ championships are to be validated. In this case, the ‘line’ was crossed.” The Appeals Panel did, however, reduce the suspension of Dillon’s spotter Brandon Benesch from three races to just one, which was already served at Michigan this past weekend.
RCR plans to appeal further, with an appeal to the National Motorsports Final Appeals Officer set to be heard Monday. Meanwhile, NASCAR president Steve Phelps elaborated further on the sanctioning body’s reasoning in penalizing Dillon for crashing two of his competitors in the final corner during an appearance on Kevin Harvick’s “Happy Hour” podcast.
“If we hadn’t penalized it, then I think what we would see over the next 12 weeks would look significantly different. We just can’t have it,” Phelps said. It really comes down to ‘what do you want your sport to be,’ and that’s why I think we ruled the way we did. Because we’re not demolition derby. We’re just not. We are a sport that, if we had done nothing, I think we would have opened ourselves up for a mess, honestly.”
- NASCAR issued an L2-level penalty to Denny Hamlin’s team on Thursday, stripping Hamlin and the No. 11 team of 75 driver/owner points and 10 playoff points for violating NASCAR’s engine inspection requirements after Toyota self-reported that it disassembled and reassembled Hamlin’s race-winning engine from Bristol in March prior to presenting it to NASCAR for inspection. Crew chief Chris Gabehart has also been fined $100,000.
The penalty has major consequences for Hamlin for both the rest of the regular season and the playoffs, as the 75-point penalty drops him from third (-28) to sixth in points (-103), effectively eliminating him from regular-season championship contention. The penalty of 10 playoff points, meanwhile, drops Hamlin from 21 to 11 playoff points and is the equivalent of eliminating two of his three victories this season.
In a statement, Toyota Racing Development president David Wilson took responsibility for the penalty and apologized.
“Despite procedures being in place, Denny’s race winning engine from Bristol was mistakenly returned to our Costa Mesa facility, disassembled and rebuilt instead of being torn down and inspected by NASCAR per the rulebook,” Wilson said. “Although we know with absolute certainty that the engine was legal and would have passed inspection, we left NASCAR in an impossible position because they were not given the opportunity to properly inspect our engine.
“We have reviewed our processes and have implemented several additional steps to ensure that this never happens again.”
- In response to two separate incidents in which cars went airborne and flipped over at Michigan, NASCAR has mandated a new right side rear window air deflector beginning at Daytona. The new “shark fin,” which mirrors the one already used on the left side of the car, increases the liftoff speed of a car in the early part of a spin and will be supplied to race teams by NASCAR.
- The Charlotte Business Journal reports that Hendrick Motorsports has sued former sponsor Hooters in pursuit of $1.7 million, plus interest, in alleged unpaid sponsorship fees. Hendrick dropped Hooters, which had sponsored Chase Elliott since 2017 and was the primary sponsor for Elliott’s win at Texas earlier this year, for failing to meet its financial commitments and has now sued on grounds of breach of contract and unjust enrichment.
Pick to win
Michael McDowell (+2500) — Here’s the one driver who could really upset the apple cart as far as the playoffs go. Michael McDowell was the outside polesitter for the Daytona 500 and showed in his Duel race that he had one of the fastest cars in Daytona, but engine issues prevented him from making a competitive charge at his second win in The Great American Race. Then, McDowell went to Talladega, won the pole and led the most laps, and was set for at least a top-five finish before one block too many coming off Turn 4 left him and a bunch of other cars in a heap before the finish line.
The expectation should be for McDowell to have one of — if not the — fastest cars in the field again this weekend. And considering this is likely his last best chance to earn a playoff spot, McDowell should be in full-attack mode and factor heavily in deciding who wins this race all the way up to the trioval coming to the checkered flag.
