As with every year, the first official practice is underway at Daytona just a few days before the duels to decide who gets into the big show this Sunday and gets their chance to be remembered in the sports history as a Daytona 500 Champion. As the race draws closer the news is ramping up and we are seeing more and more headlines, there are stories covering everything from car shortages all the way to how certain teams showed up to the track with their cars.
Starting the day off was a mixed emotions regarding how the newest team in NASCAR owned by Floyd Mayweather, The Money Team Racing, made their way into the garage area the morning of their first practice session. The team showed up with a rental trailer with their car in the back. This is “news” because almost every other team in the sport, at least on the national level, shows up in glorified motorhomes that the drivers can practically live out of for the weekend. This is somewhat shocking due to their owner being known for having disgusting amounts of money and can not afford a “real” car hauler.
Now into the real news of the day, on track practice. There is some good news and some bad news. The bad news is due to a part and car shortage, not every team has a backup car ready to go so some teams may not being going their hardest and may just be along for a ride this week until it becomes actual race time. This could be playing a factor in the results that we got from practice due to the teams near the front are for the most part the teams that have been reported to have a backup car.
Topping the list is last years Daytona 500 Champion Michael McDowell with David Regan pulling a close second, the rest of the list is Ford drivers all the way until 6-10 which is Toytoa drivers, Chevy did not manage a single top 10 driver. This is very telling for the way this could pan out later in the weekend because drivers like Byron and Bowman are usually very good at Daytona and are not seen until 12th place on.
With all this being said do not take what happened yesterday with too much seriousness as it is just the first day of practice and there is still just under a week of racing left to be had and much more can happen as the week goes on.
The Slow Restart 