The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
MEET FOUR DRIVERS IN THE DAYTONA 500 WITH TIES TO CONNECTICUT
The 2021 NASCAR Cup Series kicks off on Sunday with the 63rd Daytona 500 in Florida. While The Great American Race will look a little different this year in terms of limited fans in the stands due to the pandemic, NASCAR is still hoping to bring the same level of excitement and hype to its season opener.
From a longtime veteran to a rookie in his first Daytona 500, this year’s race includes four drivers with ties to Connecticut. Here’s a closer look:
NO. 37 RYAN PREECE (BERLIN)
The 2009 Xavier High School graduate will make his third Daytona 500 appearance in 2021. Preece’s best finish in the race was in 2019 when he finished 8th after starting 21st. The 2021 NASCAR Cup Series season marks his third season driving the No. 37 JTG Daugherty Racing Chevrolet. The 30year-old became the first repeat winner of the Islip 300 in November and finished the 2020 season with two top-10 finishes and an average finish of 24.3. Preece is also a twotime race winner in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, winning a race in both 2017 and 2018 before his breakout season in the NASCAR Cup Series in 2019, where he earned one top-five finish and three top-10 finishes.
NO. 22 JOEY LOGANO (MIDDLETOWN)
As one of the sport's most veteran racers, Logano enters the 2021 Daytona 500 for his 14th season in the NASCAR Cup Series and his ninth straight driving the No. 22 Team Penske Ford. Logano, who was born in Middletown, spent a portion of his childhood in Portland, Connecticut, before moving to Georgia at age 9. Logano has raced in 12 straight Daytona 500s, with 2021 being his 13th, and has six top-10 finishes, including winning the race in 2015. Honored as the 2009 NASCAR Cup Series Rookie of the Year, Logano won the 2018 NASCAR Cup Series Championship and most recently finished third at the 2020 NASCAR Championship 4.
NO. 7 COREY LAJOIE (NORWALK)
While the 2021 Daytona 500 will be LaJoie’s fifthstraight appearance in the race, it will be his first season racing in the No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet. LaJoie had his best finish at Daytona last year when he placed 8th, despite being involved in Ryan Newman’s crash on the final lap. LaJoie is a thirdgeneration NASCAR racer with family ties to the Norwalk area. Both his father, Randy, and grandfather, Don, are members of the New England Auto Racing Hall of Fame — the latter held a record 58 feature wins at the Danbury Racearena. In the 2020 season, Corey – then racing in the No. 32 Go Fas Racing Ford — finished with one top-10 finish and the overall 30th ranking of the NASCAR Cup Series.
NO. 38 ANTHONY ALFREDO (RIDGEFIELD)
In his first Daytona 500, Alfredo will be racing in the No. 38 Front Row Motorsports Ford. Alfredo, who turns 22 in March, ended the 2020 NASCAR Xfinity Series season with three top-5 finishes and 10 top-10 finishes in the No. 21 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet Camaro.
It seems that all quarterbacks, even the great ones, have happy feet now. Tom Brady walked away from a 20-year dynasty with the New England Patriots — and just won another Super Bowl with Tampa Bay. Deshaun Watson wants to leave Houston. Aaron Rodgers acknowledges his future in Green Bay is “uncertain,” and Russell Wilson appears to be on a calculated mission to make the Seattle Seahawks uncomfortable.
This NFL offseason will be one of significant quarterback movement. The carousel is already spinning in a peculiar new way, the Detroit Lions and Los Angeles Rams having set the tone for a wild market with their blockbuster swap of Matthew Stafford and Jared Goff. It established an “any trade is possible” vibe, despite the monster contracts involved. Rumors are that Carson Wentz could be the centerpiece of the next blockbuster deal, even though his recent meager performance at a $32 million-a-season price tag makes Goff’s $33.5 million seem like a reasonable investment.
But most captivating is the growing dissatisfaction of a few top-tier quarterbacks. Watson remains the only one from that group likely to be dealt, even though the Texans claim they won’t trade him. Still, there’s something to the carefully worded push for clarity that Rodgers made. And Wilson, so fluent in quarterback cliche, is now taking his grievances public and lobbying for more sway in the Seahawks’ decision-making. These are indicators that, similar to what the NBA has experienced with its stars the past decade, we’re amid an NFL era of shifting power dynamics.
The superstar NFL quarterback, potentially the most powerful force in all of sports, is ready to test his might. Until now, he
didn’t have the awareness or the nerve to aspire to such potency. He adhered to an institution-first mentality, interpreting the title of franchise quarterback as a lofty job description rather than a precious kind of football capital.
The importance and difficulty of playing the position have never been questioned, nor has the scarcity of elite talent. A great QB isn’t a brick of gold; he is an entire vault. At any time, there are only a handful of special ones, and if a team is blessed with such a player, it has a ticket to sustained success
and prolonged pursuit of championships, which cannot be taken for granted in a sport of roster attrition and fluctuation.
These quarterbacks are testing their ability to leverage their indispensable talent and stretch their authority. It makes for a riveting NFL culture war, with coaches, front offices and ownership so accustomed to hoarding control and signal callers being satisfied with selling whatever product they are given. But they’re not so eager to be merely the face of the franchise and most credible spokesman anymore. They
want to be, truly, that franchise player.
So there’s Wilson, stirring up drama this week in an interview with Dan Patrick, detailing the nearly 400 sacks he has taken in his first nine seasons and applying pressure on the Seahawks in an uncharacteristic manner. He risks upsetting the fans, not to mention his offensive line. But this was more about the company line. He doesn’t want to toe it without having a say.
If you like your athletes docile, this is a controversial shift in temperament. However, conflict isn’t always a bad thing in sports. Since back-to-back Super Bowl appearances, the Seahawks have been stuck on good the past six years. Urgency is appropriate, as long as Wilson can acknowledge that he needs to play better.
“I want to be able to be involved because at the end of the day it’s your legacy,” he told Patrick. “It’s your team’s legacy. It’s the guys you get to go into the huddle with and at the end of the day, those guys you’ve got to trust. When you think about one of the reasons why Tom went to Tampa was because he felt like he could trust those guys and (coach Bruce Arians) was going to give him the opportunity . ... You think about guys like LeBron (James). He was able to be around great players that he can trust.”
It’s important to recognize that Wilson, 32, was in college when James signed with the Miami Heat in 2010 and worked with that franchise to take apart its roster to create a gamechanging Big Three with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. Watson, 25, was in high school then. Aaron Rodgers, 37, was about to begin a season in which he would lead the Packers to a Super Bowl victory. They were all fledgling quarterbacks in some way when James became an aspirational figure with how he reimagined a superstar’s role in team building.
Then in March, Brady did the unimaginable: He left the Patriots. He seemed like the ultimate company man, but at 43, he bet on himself. He played general manager, too, convincing Rob Gronkowski to come out of retirement and later advocating for the Bucs to sign wide receiver Antonio Brown despite his problems. When the team struggled in November, Arians changed his approach and adjusted his offense to fit Brady. In Tampa, Brady’s voice was stronger. And he won his seventh title.
In this copycat league, Brady has shown them another way. All his winning cannot be duplicated, but some will consider his second act a model.
Power is different from acclaim, influence, fame and money. The best quarterbacks are realizing that, while they have it good, they’d like more control. And they are so hard to find that teams can’t just ignore them or trade them for a low-maintenance replacement.
For as large a crew as it takes to be successful on the football field, it’s almost impossible to win a championship without an elite quarterback. And the more the game changes, the more vital that position becomes.
Let’s go back 29 years. That’s when Washington won its third Super Bowl under Joe Gibbs, doing so with a different quarterback each time. That run under Gibbs was a masterful exhibition of building a complete team around the position, and Washington thrived during an era in which many teams managed to lift the Lombardi Trophy without needing a Hall of Fame-bound quarterback. It was still a league of running backs and extraordinary defenses.
Since 1992, you can point to just four instances in which a Super Bowl champion triumphed without a QB in the Hall of Fame or tracking to be a Hall of Famer: the 2000 and 2012 Baltimore Ravens (Trent Dilfer and Joe Flacco), 2002 Tampa Bay Buccaneers (Brad Johnson) and the 2017 Philadelphia Eagles (Nick Foles). Those squads are often hailed as reason to believe there is another way, but you’re talking about four exceptional teams over three decades.
The superstar NFL quarterback is the franchise, and he can remain the franchise for 15 years. It makes him the most valuable and durable asset in sports. The most powerful, too. And he’s only starting to toy with idea.