Tag: Daytona International Speedway

NASCAR driver Daniel Suárez’s Daytona race car was scarily charred after bursting into flames

Daniel Suárez is OK, but that was scary!

Daniel Suárez’s night at Daytona International Speedway ended a lot earlier than he hoped after his race car burst into flames. But thankfully, the No. 99 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet driver is OK.

Not even a quarter of the way into the 160-lap Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona, Suárez’s caught fire on pit road, and at one point, the whole rear of the car was engulfed in flames. The fire was the result of exhaust from Denny Hamlin’s No. 11 Toyota coming out of the pits from directly behind the 99, according to NASCAR.

The fire obviously forced Suárez to return to pit road, and after just 37 laps, the Trackhouse Racing driver’s race was over. There’s no real way to carry on racing when your car is this charred and damaged — even though Suárez definitely wanted to.

Here’s a look at what happened during both of Suárez’s pit stops. Definitely a scary moment.

Again, Suárez is thankfully OK, and he explained what happened from his perspective.

He said he could see the smoke and feel the heat, but he couldn’t see the fire. He didn’t know how big it was and initially hoped he could stay in the car during repairs.

He told reporters afterward:

“Every single time that we do pit stops, we drop a little fuel; that’s completely normal. Unfortunately, when [Hamlin] was leaving, he stopped right behind me because he was waiting for me to leave. And his exhaust fired up the little fuel I dropped and as I was still parked there, that [got] into the back of my car where the fuel cell is. …

“Really unfortunate situation, to be honest. Honestly I don’t know what we could have done different, but just a little bit sad that we’re out of the race this way so early. But I’m glad I’m fine and the entire team was fine.”

DAYTONA BEACH, FLORIDA – AUGUST 24: Daniel Suarez, driver of the #99 Coca-Cola Zero Sugar Chevrolet, pits with flames during the NASCAR Cup Series Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway on August 24, 2024 in Daytona Beach, Florida. (Photo by Logan Riely/Getty Images)

Suárez added: “I was fine. I wanted to keep running.” Then, he realized the magnitude of the damage after seeing the top of the car on fire.

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Jaguars want to find stadium plan that forces team out for just 1 year

Jaguars president Mark Lamping says the team is trying to see if there’s a way to play one year elsewhere during renovation instead of two.

Earlier this year, Jacksonville Jaguars president Mark Lamping laid out two potential options for the renovation of EverBank Stadium. The team could either play two years at another venue — like Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville or Hodges Stadium at University of North Florida, perhaps — or four years at home during a lengthier and costlier construction project.

This week, he offered a third, more palatable option.

Lamping told reporters in London that the Jaguars are looking to “see if there’s anything we can do to maybe go from playing away for two years to just one year.”

“We don’t have that solved yet,” Lamping said, via John Oehser of Jaguars.com. “But we’re going to continue to do everything we possibly can to still get the stadium done on time and have it be the least disruptive as possible as far as our games in Jacksonville are concerned.”

The Jaguars have a lot of potential solutions for a temporary home, including even Daytona International Speedway, but there’s far from a perfect one. Gainesville and Daytona Beach are both more than an hour drive from Jacksonville. While Hodges Stadium is nearby, Lamping has said it’d cost “in excess of $100 million” to bring it up to NFL standards.

Playing away from EverBank Stadium for just one year, wherever that ends up being, would be a win for the Jaguars.

The first step, though, is reaching a deal with the City of Jacksonville on a renovation project in the first place. Any agreement with Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan will also need approval from city council and then 75 percent of NFL owners.

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Mark Lamping: Gainesville, Orlando more prepared for Jaguars than Daytona

Mark Lamping isn’t convinced Daytona International Speedway is the best candidate to be a temporary home for the Jaguars.

Jacksonville Jaguars president Mark Lamping will meet with Daytona International Speedway representatives on Friday to discuss the possibility of NASCAR’s premier racetrack potentially serving as a temporary home for the Jaguars in the future. He doesn’t sound convinced that much will come from the meeting, though.

In an appearance on 1010XL earlier this week, Lamping said Daytona isn’t the team’s top choice in the event that the Jaguars play games outside of Jacksonville during a renovation of TIAA Bank Field.

“One thing Daytona has going for it is that they’re used to big crowds,” Lamping said. “It’s pretty close. You just have to worry about going back and forth up I-95. So if you’re going to invest a bunch of money in a facility … they’ve hosted football there before.

“There will be some issues with that as it relates to infrastructure, so we’ll see how it goes. But again, that’s going to add cost to the project, so we’re going to have to figure out who pays that cost. The preference, if we are going to take games away from Jacksonville, we’ll look at all alternatives because you never know what you may discover, but as you sit here today, you’d have to say Gainesville and Orlando are more prepared to host NFL games right now than doing games at the speedway.”

The Jaguars are hoping to reach a deal with the City of Jacksonville on a massive renovation of their home stadium. While a four-year renovation of the stadium could allow the team to stay at TIAA Bank Field during construction, a two-year project would force the team to play elsewhere.

There are local venues in Jacksonville like Hodges Stadium at the University of North Florida, but that facility would require a significant investment to be ready to host NFL games.

While the idea of the Jaguars playing games on the front stretch of NASCAR’s most iconic track is fun, it seems pretty low on the list of possibilities.

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Daytona International Speedway might host Jaguars games, even though it probably shouldn’t

Florida’s most famous race track wants to host the Jaguars if they’re displaced by new stadium construction.

The Jacksonville Jaguars may soon need a temporary home if TIAA Bank Stadium begins extensive renovations to bring a home venue steeped in 1995 into the 21st century. That construction is slated to take place before the team’s current lease runs out in 2029 and is ultimately subject to the approval of Jacksonville’s city council thanks to extensive public funding. It if happens, it could leave the team homeless for up to two seasons.

That means the Jaguars may need a temporary place to call their own. And while London is always happy to host for a game each season, that’s not a proper fix. Team owner Shad Khan is in the market for local venues capable of holding 50,000-plus fans as his resurgent team sets its sights on a Super Bowl.

So how about grandstands that seats more than 100,000?

Officials at Daytona International Speedway — NASCAR’s mammoth 2.5-mile Florida track — have pitched their venue as a potential host despite being a 90-mile drive south and, famously, not being a football stadium.

“Daytona International Speedway is a world-renowned sports and entertainment venue and hosts a full schedule of events each year,” Kelleher said in a statement released June 10. “As good neighbors in the Florida sports community, DIS will be speaking with the Jacksonville Jaguars to see if we can assist them with their potential upcoming facility needs around our scheduled events.”

Per the Daytona Beach News-Journal, the team’s top choices are the University of Florida’s Ben Hill Griffin Stadium or Orlando’s Camping World Stadium, though neither is a perfect fit. Each would be at least a 90-minute drive from the team’s current Jacksonville home. But team president Frank Lamping isn’t ruling out the home of the Daytona 500.

“It would be an interesting solution but would also require significant investment in terms of infrastructure,” Lamping told VenuesNow. “It can accommodate a big crowd. It would be a little wonky, but it’s worth considering.”

“Wonky” is a bit of an understatement. Hosting at a 2.5-mile tri-oval means many of the available seats would be trying to watch the Jags from a different building in downtown Jacksonville. Here’s what it looked like from the boxes when Bristol Motor Speedway — a significantly smaller (0.533 miles) oval track — hosted a college football showdown between Tennessee and Virginia Tech in 2016.

That’s before getting to the infrastructure of locker rooms, lights and putting together an entire NFL football field in the infield. As SB Nation pointed out in 2016, that’s *a lot.*

So yeah, Daytona is a fun idea whose execution would be considerably more difficult than hosting games at one of the other football stadiums without a two-hour radius of Jacksonville. And, again, this all relies on the Jaguars’ construction plans and the approval of public funds (which, aside, subsidizing costs for a team owner worth $11.6 billion is generally a bad idea for taxpayers!).

There are a lot of moving parts to consider before declaring Florida’s most famous racetrack a temporary NFL home field. But Daytona is officially in the mix, even if nothing is officially happening at this point. We’re only several arduous steps away from being able to sit three quarters of a mile from the 50-yard line at a Jags game.

Jaguars to meet with Daytona Speedway officials about possibly hosting games

Jaguars games at Daytona International Speedway? Team president Mark Lamping isn’t ruling it out.

The Jacksonville Jaguars are preparing for the possibility that they’ll need a temporary home in the future during the renovation of TIAA Bank Field. While Gainesville and Orlando have been at the forefront of the conversation, the Jaguars aren’t dismissing outside-the-box ideas either.

According to trade magazine VenuesNow, Jaguars president Mark Lamping plans to meet with Daytona International Speedway officials soon about the possibility of hosting games.

“It would be an interesting solution, but would also require significant investment in terms of infrastructure,” Lamping said Wednesday, via VenuesNow. “It can accommodate a big crowd. It would be a little wonky, but it’s worth considering. After the renovations, it’s nice.”

The racetrack underwent a $400 million renovation that was completed in 2016 to update the concourses and luxury suites. The 2.5-mile tri-oval track seats more than 100,000 fans, but placement of a football field so attendees have a good view would be a challenge.

In the 1970s, Bethune-Cookman played a few games on the grass infield by the front stretch.

While it would a creative solution to the Jaguars’ potential need for a short-term home, Daytona is certainly a long shot. Just like Gainesville and Orlando, Daytona Beach is well outside of Jacksonville. And if the Jaguars believe the speedway requires a significant investment, it seems they are likelier to spend on a local venue like the University of North Florida’s Hodges Stadium.

Jaguars games at NASCAR’s most famous track is a fun concept, but the idea doesn’t seem very realistic. Still, the team is clearly considering all options as it gets closer to a stadium renovation.

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NASCAR at Daytona: Starting lineup for 2023 Daytona 500 and paint schemes for all 40 cars

Get a look at the starting lineup and flashy paint schemes of the 2023 Daytona 500.

The 2023 NASCAR Cup Series season is officially here, and after multiple qualifying events this week — including single-car qualifying rounds, as well as short duel races — the starting lineup for the 40-car field for the Daytona 500 is set.

Hardly surprising, Hendrick Motorsports continued dominating Daytona 500 qualifying, and the organization will have two of its four cars starting on the front row. Alex Bowman won the pole for the third time in his career, extending Hendrick’s streak of Daytona 500 pole winners to eight of the last nine season. Teammate Kyle Larson will join Bowman on the front row.

Most notably, some big names in motorsports qualified as open entries, meaning they didn’t have guaranteed starting spots. Seven-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson — who is now a co-owner with Legacy Motor Club, formerly Petty GMS Racing and Richard Petty Motorsports before that — and running a few races for the team this season — made the field, along with motorsports star Travis Pastrana, who will make his Cup debut for 23XI Racing, Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin’s team.

So ahead of the 2022 Daytona 500, here’s a look at the starting lineup, including all the paint schemes for the first race of the season.

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Bettor turned $13 into $1 million on wild NASCAR parlay thanks to spot-on podcast analysis

A life changing bet.

When Nick Giffen and Jordan McAbee, hosts of the Stacking Dennys podcast, gave their betting analysis Wednesday for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Daytona, they made sure to add these disclaimers:

“I’m not expecting these things to happen. I’m just betting them because the probability that it happens is greater than the odds we’re getting,” said Giffen, an analyst for Action Network.

“I can’t recommend any bets this week,” added McAbee of Fantasy Racing Online.

With that bit of information and a few of the hosts’ long-shot favorites, one loyal listener threw $13.49 on a four-leg parlay of top-10 finishers. And it actually cashed for a payout of $999,433.63!

The parlay included bets that Landon Cassill, Cody Ware, B.J. McLeod and David Ragan would all place in the top 10 for +7408700 odds. Cassill placed fourth, Ware sixth, McLeod seventh and Ragan ninth.

“When Jordan says Cassill always finishes and Rotodoc says Ware and McLeod are correlated. Thank you guys so much! Long long time listener and appreciate it so much. Life changing!” the bettor messaged Giffen (@Rotodoc on Twitter).

Rarely is being a loyal listener rewarded so handsomely. This was a bet that not even Giffen and McAbee made, though I’m sure they wish they had.

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Paths to the NASCAR playoffs for bubble drivers Ryan Blaney and Martin Truex Jr.

How one of these drivers can steal the last remaining NASCAR playoff spot.

One more race, and the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series playoff field will be official with the premier series’ top-16 drivers advancing to the 10-race postseason for a shot at the championship in November.

Through the first 25 races of the regular season, there have been 15 different race winners, meaning 15 drivers made themselves playoff eligible. But with so many different drivers in Victory Lane this season, the idea of “win and you’re in” has been much less of a guarantee — though it’s true now ahead of the regular-season finale.

Those on the playoff bubble, particularly winless drivers Ryan Blaney and Martin Truex Jr., have needed repeat winners to keep themselves in playoff contention. Kyle Larson winning his second race of the season last weekend at Watkins Glen International certainly helped.

But now, headed into the last regular-season race — the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway on Saturday (7 p.m. ET, NBC) — Blaney and Truex have one last chance to lock themselves in the playoffs. The problem for them, however, is that without a win, there’s a chance neither makes it.

NASCAR rookie Austin Cindric ‘didn’t make a mistake’ on his way to a Daytona 500 victory

The 23-year-old NASCAR driver’s first career win was the Daytona 500.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — For the past three and a half months, Austin Cindric has been “haunted” by his performance in the NASCAR Xfinity Series championship race.

“Every moment of every day,” he said of how often he thinks about losing a second consecutive championship in the second-tier series by 0.030 seconds to Daniel Hemric in November.

“I’ve never been in so much pain that I wanted to vomit,” Cindric said. “Never in my life have I been in so much pain, felt like I let so many people down that I’ve wanted to just throw up on the sport.”

But in the 23-year-old rookie’s debut as a full-time Cup Series driver, he found redemption for that loss, taking the checkered flag in the biggest race of his life, Sunday’s season-opening Daytona 500, for his first win at NASCAR’s highest level.

“This makes up for losing the [Xfinity] championship last year,” Cindric said.

“It’s a racer’s dream, and so many people get close to it. And I feel very grateful and very proud to be able to pull it off.”

Replacing Brad Keselowski — who became a driver-owner for Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing — in the No. 2 Team Penske Ford, Cindric edged out runner-up Bubba Wallace by 0.036 in the third-closest finish in Daytona 500 history.

It was Cindric’s eighth career Cup start, and the rookie became the second-youngest Daytona 500 champ after 2011 winner Trevor Bayne, then 20 years old. He led 21 laps.

He raced like, and beat, hard-charging Cup veterans in the final laps around the 2.5-mile track, elevated by his No. 2 Ford that was fast enough to finish second in his qualifying race Thursday and start fifth in “The Great American Race.”

“If you looked at Austin this week and the way he ran, he didn’t make a mistake today,” said team owner Roger Penske, who celebrated his 85th birthday Sunday and got quite the present.

“He was up second, third, almost the entire race, and then at the end to be able to pull it off, [it] shows you the quality of kid he is and also the experience that he already has as a young man.”

With multiple wrecks in the final 10 laps of the 200 go-arounds scheduled — fairly standard for the end of the Daytona 500 — NASCAR went to overtime and ended the race with a two-lap shootout.

Cindric clung to his lead from the inside lane after the final restart with teammate Ryan Blaney, Keselowski and Wallace among those chasing down the No. 2 Ford. Coming out of Turn 4 on the last lap, Blaney moved to the top of the track to attempt to pass his teammate for the win, but Cindric went with him and threw a block.

Blaney made contact with the outside wall as Wallace went to the inside, but they ran out of time to get around Cindric.

“I was able to get Austin in front and off of [Turn] 4, where we were good enough to make a move,” Blaney said. “I got blocked and I ended up getting fenced. I’m happy for Roger Penske, winning the 500 on his birthday. I’m happy for [Cindric’s crew chief] Jeremy Bullins and everyone that works on that 2 car.”

Confident going into the weekend, Cindric said he knew he had a car capable of winning, but there are no guarantees at the Daytona track. NASCAR’s second-longest oval breeds chaos, and simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time can shatter very realistic shots at winning the Daytona 500.

“I did not pack an extra set of clothes, by the way, so I’m not that confident,” Cindric said, laughing about how his expectations influenced his weekend wardrobe.

“I’ll be re-wearing my clothes from [Sunday on Monday], and I will have fresh underwear,” he joked. “So that’s a win.”

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Bubba Wallace crushed after runner-up finish at Daytona 500: ‘Like a gut punch’

Bubba Wallace finished second in the 2022 Daytona 500 by just 0.036 seconds.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Bubba Wallace was devastatingly close, painfully close.

And he felt the agony of defeat immediately, finishing the Daytona 500 on Sunday as the runner-up for the second time in his NASCAR Cup Series career.

Wallace missed out on what could have been his second consecutive superspeedway victory by just 0.036 seconds behind Cup rookie Austin Cindric in the 2022 season opener. It was the third-smallest margin of victory in Daytona 500 history, but in the No. 23 23XI Racing Toyota’s driver’s eyes, it’s first or failure.

“Damn, I wanted to win that one,” said Wallace, who’s at the beginning of his fifth full-time Cup season and second with Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin’s team.

After parking his car on pit road with Cindric and the No. 2 Team Penske Ford team celebrating in the background, Wallace climbed halfway out of his car and sat in the opening of the driver’s seat window, taking a moment to himself. His heartbroken emotions seemed to be building inside, as he held back welling tears in his eyes.

Speaking to the media afterward, he reiterated his dejected feelings.

“Going down the back, [I was like], ‘Alright, pal, it can either end really bad or end really good,” Wallace said he thought to himself on the last lap in overtime. “‘This could hurt or the victory could be sweet.’ I think I’d rather get wrecked out than finish second.”

He was running among the top-5 drivers during that final trip around the 2.5-mile track. By the time he exited Turn 4 for a one last push to the finish line, he was up to third.

“We were gonna turn and burn right there,” Wallace’s crew chief, Bootie Barker, said about the No. 23 team’s approach to the two-lap shootout to close the race. “All out, take ‘em out, whatever you’ve gotta do.”

And when Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney went to make a move on his teammate Cindric, who was leading the race, Wallace had an opportunity on the inside of the track. Cindric moved to the outside to throw a block on Blaney, but with an open lane on the inside, Wallace just couldn’t get there.

“I felt like I had a really good chance to lose it, and to lose it means you’ve got a shot to win it,” Cindric said.

“You talk about Brad [Keselowski], Ryan, Bubba — a lot of the guys that I was having to fend off there at the end of the race are guys that have been in the sport for a while and have paid their dues and put themselves in position every time at these types of races.”

And this is the second time Wallace has been in this specific situation, finishing second to Austin Dillon in the 2018 Daytona 500. But he said this one came with “a total different emotion.”

Wallace was a Cup rookie four years ago and said he “didn’t know what [he] was doing” back then running up toward the front. This time around, he “really thought we had it.”

“I didn’t have a fighting chance in the first time in 2018,” Wallace said. “This one, being that close, it’s just like a gut punch. So going from all the confidence in the world to literally having it ripped out from underneath you is a really [expletive] feeling.”

Wallace being in contention at the end was far from a surprise. He now has four top-5 finishes at Daytona and was again the runner-up in August in 400-mile regular-season finale before earning his first career Cup victory at Talladega Superspeedway in October.

“He definitely has a knack for [superspeedway races],” Barker said, noting it’s instinctual and not something you can teach racers. “You gotta have good stuff, but Bubba’s exceptional at these places.”

23XI Racing director of competition Mike Wheeler praised Wallace’s confidence and aggressiveness in the final laps not taking his foot off the gas. But second place, even one by 0.036 seconds, still isn’t a win, and it stings, Barker said.

Wallace caught his first glimpse of the finish on the big screen while on pit road and couldn’t help but look as it replayed.

“Ooooh, I don’t want to see that,” he said. “That sucks! God! That sucks!”

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