CHEVY ON THE UP

DECIDING THE PECKING ORDER BETWEEN NASCAR’S manufacturers on the basis of the Daytona 500 is a fool’s errand, but there was enough to suggest that Chevrolet’s recordbreaking win bodes well for the manufacturer.

The brand-new Camaro ZL1 proved its mettle with pole for Alex Bowman (below) and with a very competitive showing in the Thursday Duels, with Chase Elliott winning one of the two races.

The 500 was expected to be a different story, with Daytona not considered a representative track and Ford having won seven restrictorplate races in a row – despite its Fusion being the oldest car on the grid.

The expectation in the paddock is that the competitive order for the 2018 season will take clearer shape at Atlanta this weekend, but the fact that three of the top five at Daytona were Chevrolets bodes well.

Race winner Austin Dillon and secondplaced Darrell Wallace Jr effectively made it a Richard Childress Racing one-two, with Wallace’s Richard Petty Motorsports team aligned with RCR, while Chris Buescher was fifth with JTG Daugherty Racing.

Chevrolet has now won more Daytona 500s than any other manufacturer – with a total of 24 – and it took a clean sweep of the weekend with victories in the Xfinity (with Tyler Reddick) and Truck (Johnny Sauter) series too.

But it may have been a lucky penny that made the difference, according to Dillon. “I met a fan and actually he had no favourite driver,” Dillon explained. “I told him I would give him my hat if I was his favourite driver. Well, I gave him the hat. The next day he saw me in the infield and said here’s a lucky penny I found heads-up and I said, ‘Man, we have to put this in the car’. We put it in the car and here we are in Victory Lane.”