Earnhardt Jr. on pole after rain washes out qualifying
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Dale Earnhardt Jr. earned the pole for today’s Coke Zero 400 race at Daytona International Speedway because his crew chief correctly predicted the weather.
Greg Ives instructed Earnhardt to go flat-out at the start of Friday’s first practice session because the rules state the field will be set by practice times if a qualifying session is canceled. When rain washed out the Saturday session, Ives proved to be a skilled weatherman.
Earnhardt Jr. is a twotime Daytona 500 winner and won this race in 2001.
Austin Dillon will start second and will be followed by Clint Bowyer, Paul Menard and Trevor Bayne.
David Gilliland will start sixth, and A.J. Allmendinger, David Ragan, Jamie McMurray and Kasey Kahne round out the top 10.
Jeff Gordon will start 24th in his final race at Daytona. The four-time NASCAR champion is retiring at the end of the year and said he was disappointed he didn’t get a chance to qualify Saturday. Gordon won the pole for the season-opening Daytona 500 and the May race at Talladega.
The qualifying washout meant Michael McDowell and Ryan Blaney failed to make the 43-car field.
It was a big blow for Blaney, who had an engine failure in his Daytona 500 debut but was the lone Ford capable of competing for the win at Talladega in May. He finished fourth and might have had a shot at the victory, but few drivers were confident enough in the rookie to work with him in the closing laps.
But that performance earned him enough respect that he might have been able to contend and get drafting help today.
“I was really looking forward to qualifying and getting into the race,” he said. “Some stuff we can’t control and this is one of them. This is the bad part about running part-time.”
NASCAR RETURNS TO NBC TODAY
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — For 29 years, the summer race at Daytona International Speedway was a part of the nation’s birthday.
The event was always run on Independence Day, no matter what day of the week. The race was in the morning, and the drivers and their families were celebrating on the beach by late afternoon.
The tradition that began in 1959 ended in 1988 when the event was moved into prime time on whatever Saturday was part of the holiday weekend. Now it has been moved once more, to Sunday night, to accommodate the return of NASCAR to NBC.
Mark Lazarus, chairman of NBC Sports Group, said the change was about audience.
“The Fourth of July is annually the lowest night of television-watching of the year — fewer people watch TV that night because they are all out watching fireworks,” Lazarus said Saturday.
“In order for us to start our relationship with as big a splash as we can, we wanted to give ourselves the best chance and opportunity to have a big audience. It was simply math.”
By moving it to Sunday night, the race now goes head-to-head against the United States playing in the Women’s World Cup final. NBC’s pre-race show begins at the same time as the game, but the race doesn’t actually start for another 78 minutes.
“It’s a mixed blessing it will bring a lot of different people to the television set,” he said. “We’re hopeful, if we continue to market, that we’ll get some people who wouldn’t be home watching TV to transfer over and check us out.”
Although NASCAR and Daytona officials signed off on the switch to Sunday, it’s an the ideal situation for track President Joie Chitwood.
Running the race a day later hurts attendance because campers usually return home on Sunday, and now the World Cup likely will cut into viewership. Chitwood understood NBC’s desire for the Sunday night race but is thankful the race will return to Saturday night in 2016.
“In our conversation with them, it was just the one time,” he said. “We all talked about what we could do special for NBC, and this was one of their components, and it made a lot of sense when we sat down and really talked about it. When you look at what they’ve done with ‘Football Night in America,’ they are just knocking it out of the park. They’ve really captured that.
“Hopefully, they can sprinkle a little bit of that magic on this event this Sunday.”