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DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Three-time Sprint Cup champion Tony Stewart avoids thinking about what it would be like to finally win a Daytona 500. Stewart just knows it’s got a lofty spot on his bucket list. “Very high on it,” he says. “Some of the wildest, craziest finishes in our sport have come in the Daytona 500. I don’t know how you could honestly sit here and imagine what that (winning) moment would be like. You just hope you get to live it in real life.”
Although he’s won three July races at Daytona International Speedway, Stewart will try to snap a 0-for-13 record the Great American Race on Sunday.
“It’s not going to be a good feeling if you end your career and you don’t win Daytona,” Stewart says. “everybody wants to win that biggest race. I won’t say it’s not a complete career if you don’t win it, but there’s a lot of priority on this.
“Darrell Waltrip and Dale (Earnhardt) Sr. both had to go a long time before they got it.”
Stewart is hardly alone. The driver he edged for last year’s series championship, Carl Edwards, is winless in seven Daytona 500 starts (and 14 overall at the superspeedway).
The nature of Daytona can also make it the most elusive.
A multitude of factors — not the least of which is racing luck — make winning the 500 difficult. That it’s run with restrictor plates, which choke down horsepower to keep speeds in check, levels the playing field between teams, big and small.
Trevor Bayne showed in 2011 that logic can be defied in the 500, winning as a 20-year-old rookie in his second Cup start.
“It was crazy,” bayne admits. “I was so under-the-radar. I remember driving out, seeing ‘21’on top of the board and what a crazy feeling that was. I don’t think it sunk in — the whole victory lane thing. The next day, I’m on the plane and I see the (championship) ring and I almost teared up. It was like, ‘Man, this is real.’ It’s not something you wake up from.”