Immediately after many irritating finishes, Tony Stewart lastly received at NASCAR’s most famed observe. Stewart dominated the rain-delayed Pepsi four hundred past 12 months, but nevertheless wanted a extraordinary 4-extensive go to maneuver to your entrance, then pulled absent on a restart with nine laps left to seal his to start with Nextel Cup victory in 14 begins at Daytona International Speedway. Successful this race in the Daytona five hundred or at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is the greatest win a driver could ever have Stewart mentioned. But Stewart will settle for this for now, he celebrated by climbing the fence into the flag stand to say the checkered flag. It had been his second consecutive victory and showed that the 2002 collection champion can still be a contender. He begun in the pole, led a race-history 151 of a hundred and sixty laps, and moved to 3rd from the standings Daytona Intercontinental Speedway opened in 1959, nevertheless the record of auto racing at Daytona goes again Significantly farther than that. In 1936, the precursor to these days’s Daytona five hundred was born with a class that went down 1.5 miles of highway.
William H.G. France, a mechanic and racer who’d moved south from Washington, D.C., finally took about The work of working the Seaside races on the next of two courses employed for the people occasions. In 1947, he presided about a gathering at Daytona’s Streamline Hotel wherever NASCAR was born.
Ten years later on, France commenced engaged on his showplace. “Large Bill” France was developing it, he insisted on 31-degree banking while in the corners. That’s as steep as he could make the turns and nonetheless maintain the devices Placing down the asphalt from tipping above.
When motorists gathered for the initial Daytona 500, it absolutely was a watch-popping expertise. Drivers were additional accustomed to 50 percent-mile Grime tracks and noticed the 1.366-mile paved track at Darlington.
Bob Welborn ran 140.121 mph to win the pole for the 1st Daytona five hundred, and Lee Petty gained in a photo finish about Johnny Beauchamp. It was at Daytona International Speedway where Junior Johnson found that if he tucked his auto right driving another just one, he could go speedier than he could operate by himself. And drafting grew to become a Portion of the Activity.