Daytona 500 kicks off NASCAR’S 75th Cup season
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Others notice the onrushing springtime in their own ways. Azaleas blooming in Augusta. The popping of catchers’ mitts in Florida and Arizona. The swallows of San Juan Capistrano.
Around here, the chirping of birds is less subtle — springtime’s trumpeted arrival is quite unmistakable.
It comes in from the south. Low and, from a distance, slow. But it’s not at a distance for long.
Whatever constitutes your version of a long, dark winter is officially blown away as the United States Air Force Thunderbirds take dead-aim just above the top of the grandstands and, seconds later, flood the senses with an ear-heating, sinus-raking barrage that tells you, by God, something is about to happen.
If that’s not enough for you, shortly thereafter the command is given and 320 cylinders of internally combusted rumble is unholstered, shooing away winter and, for what it’s worth, introducing a North American sporting staple.
The Daytona 500.
Hubba-hubba and pass the Budweiser!
The 75th NASCAR Cup Series seasons hits the on-ramp with the 65th Daytona 500, and if you thought both were an inevitability since Day 1, you’re weak on local racing knowledge.
It was 75 years ago this past December when Bill France Sr. — Big Bill — gathered like-minded race-folk together in Daytona Beach and dreamed aloud of a world where stock-car racing was simply organized, with only the most distant dream of it becoming what we see today.
“We don’t know how big it can be if it’s handled properly,” France said. “Neither does anybody else here. Right here within our own group, in my mind, rests the outcome of stock-car racing in the country today.”
Before ending his preamble at the beginning of four days of organizational meetings, and before turning to the nuts-and-bolts matters at hand, Big Bill teased his ultimate goal.
“We have the opportunity to set it up on a big scale,” he said.
Just over a decade later, as the organizational efforts began to sprout legs and dig up some momentum, largely on dirt tracks and black-topped bullrings, Big Bill brought Big Scale to stock-car racing.
But there was nothing automatic about Daytona International Speedway growing out of the muck on the west side of town in 1958. France had to spend several years prior barking up a lot of tall trees, all the while with a Plan B in his back pocket: West Palm Beach, where, he said, the welcome wagon was waiting.
Finally, enough trees rained down just enough green to build the mammoth speedway in time for the first Speedweeks and Daytona 500 in 1959. Back then, and for several years, Daytona was so big, no one could get their arms around the thought of the speed — and danger — it offered.
Today, Daytona is still big, but not the biggest. Still fast, though not the fastest.
But the awe these days is delivered by what it means to win here on a Sunday in February. Through scripted marketing and unscripted drama, the Daytona 500 has become the biggest reason
NASCAR not only made it to 75, but got there with wind in its sails.
TV coverage begins at 2:30 ET this afternoon. The simultaneous green flag for the 65th and 75th flies at 3:14 ET.
Buckle up.