NASCAR drivers looking to the 'speedway gods' for help at Daytona

Both Carson Hocevar and Chris Buescher referenced the existence of the ‘superspeedway gods’ on Friday at Daytona regarding the luck that is required to win on the two traditional ‘drafting tracks.’

To wit, it is expected that there will be at least one major wreck, and maybe even more than a single ‘Big One.’ There isn’t a lot that drivers can do to miss them other than simply get out of the draft and risk losing a lap.

These races are often decided by ‘Big Ones’ at the end of races too so everyone that takes the green flag on Saturday will be dependent on these mythological beings at some point in the pursuit of wins of the championship standings.

For example, Hocevar was leading the Daytona 500 and got crashed and then he almost crashed at Talladega on the way to winning his first ever Cup Series race. The gods taketh away and giveth in equal parts.

“Yeah, well, when I got spun at Daytona, there was no one to the left of me,” Hocevar said during his press conference. “And I almost got spun at Talladega but there was someone to the left of me, and it spun them, and it didn’t spin me.

“So I figured, if you’re going to get spun, just have someone to the left of you and you can keep it straight. And that was the difference maker, which, ironically enough, I kind of laughed and thought after that last caution that we were going to win, just because what (Spire team owner) Jeff Dickerson has taught me is that superspeedway racing gods exist.”

Buescher, like Hocevar, is locked into the Chase for the Championship but there is room to be gained and lost in the final regular season seeding over the course of three stages on Saturday.

Where they ultimately move up or down is up to those deities again.

“We know you need to be seeded probably somewhere no worse than sixth to truly have a shot at it and that’s going to be tough as well,” said Buescher, 51 points out of sixth. “We’re close. We’re in the hunt. We’re going to do all we can to put more points on the board tomorrow night and certainly this is a great opportunity for us.

“We’ve got really great race cars here through the years — lots of opportunities to win races and been able to win here and been really close at other times, so we need a couple of things and the speedway gods to look positive on our days and if we can do that, we can certainly have a great outcome tomorrow evening.”

He said the thing too!

Doing the math

To the point about all the moving and shaking that can still take place in the standings before the reset next weekend, the potential of a crash dictating the championship picture is quite tangible.

The only driver with nothing to lose this weekend is Denny Hamlin, who locked down the regular season championship last weekend at New Hampshire. He’s just focused on winning a race.

Ryan Preece trails Shane Van Gisbergen by 31 points. However, due to a 25-point penalty for what NASCAR deemed as an intentional crash of Ty Gibbs at Texas, Preece’s No. 60 car only trails SVG’s Trackhouse No. 97 car by six points to make the owner’s Chase for the Championship.

As Brad Keselowski pointed out on Saturday, that matters a lot.

“Ryan’s position in owner’s points is really close and, ultimately, that’s how the money is paid out, so wearing my owner hat, we’re paying a lot of attention to that,” Keselowski said. “And driver points is not as close, but still close enough with a great day that he could point his way into it, so it’s really important for us that we put our best foot forward.”

To wit, Preece is just trying to score as many points as possible, and try to win the race.

“Be on offense,” Preece said. “Brad pretty much explained it to you guys – the driver’s and the owner’s side – but, for me, when I come into this weekend I just think about trying to win stages and win the race. That ultimately, no matter what situation it is, we would get our way into the playoffs, so, selfishly, I’d like to be in on the driver’s side, but I am fully aware, and I’ve been in the car owner points race before.

“Ultimately, I would love to get both in. I completely understand the situation and know that having a great day will get us in on the owner’s side, but the goal going into it before everything starts is to try and do both.”

Shane Van Gisbergen said ‘there is a lot going on’ between the two points battles.

“Not really sure how it’s going to play out,” he said. “I think, you know, 30 points is a lot until it’s not, until (Preece) has two good stages, then we’re probably under a lot of pressure. So, yeah, as everyone knows, there’s a lot of anticipation, I guess, around the new rules and how the cars are going to be.

“I think we plan to be pretty conservative and then see how his race is going and react to that. If he’s scored well in Stage One, we probably need to get amongst it in Stage Two and start pushing the issue a bit. It’s going to be fun. It’s a pretty cool feeling to have the pressure on us and see how we do.”

Speaking of Keselowski, he still has a mathematical shot to advance. Effectively, he would need to win and score at least 13 stage points, and have Shane Van Gisbergen score just one point by falling out of the race early.

“My car needs a miracle,” Keselowski concluded.

Hocevar is 11th in the standings but could reach as high as sixth. This matters because the regular season standings decide the Chase for the Championship initial standings.

Denny Hamlin
Second -25
Third -35
Fourth -40
Fifth -45
Sixth -50
Seventh -55
Eighth -60
Ninth -65
Tenth -70
Eleventh -75
Twelfth -80
Thirteenth -85
Fourteenth -90
Fifteenth -95
Sixteenth -100

So, there is much for someone like Hocevar to race for in trying to reach as high as sixth when Saturday ends too.

“It would be worth about 35 points,” Hocevar said. “That’s how good it would feel when the Chase starts, I guess. I don’t know. I mean, (Chase Briscoe) would have to wreck pretty early and I’d have to pretty much max out to make that happen. So I don’t know. Maybe I’ll buy a lottery ticket and see which one hits.”

That and pray to the superspeedway gods.

To practice or not?

With a drastically different superspeedway rules package, the case could have been made that NASCAR should have called for some sort of practice on Friday just to get teams a feel for what to expect.

In the name of eliminating fuel saving tactics and the inability to pass in these cars due to their inherent dragginess, NASCAR shortened the rear spoiler from 7″ to 4″ and decreased horsepower from 510 to 465.

Most drivers on Friday said there probably should have been some practice, even if there was very little that would have been learned from it.

Daniel Suarez said there would not have been a 40-car pack in a hypothetical session.

“We were not going to experience what we’re going to experience tomorrow night because there were going to be packages of maybe 10 cars, 12 cars, 15 car max, and that’s kind of like maybe,” Suarez said. “And tomorrow, it’s going to be (40) of us. It would have been nice, but I don’t think that we’re going to learn everything that we’re going to learn tomorrow. Sometimes a little bit is better than nothing, but who knows?”

Denny Hamlin said it would have been a value for teams but would not have been entertaining to fans.

“Probably,” Hamlin said of NASCAR’s need to schedule a session. “But it would have been a decent learning experience, but I don’t think the fans miss out on anything. I think that we would have just been in really small packs, kind of, with our manufacturers. So, you didn’t miss anything from an entertainment standpoint, but something from a learning, yeah, possibly.”

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