Daytona 500 Front Row Start Grows In Importance
Credit: DAYTONA BEACH, FLORIDA - FEBRUARY 14: Joey Logano, driver of the #22 Shell Pennzoil Ford, (R) winner of the Daytona 500 pole award and Michael McDowell, driver of the #34 Love's Travel Stops Ford, Front Row second fastest winner pose for a photo during qualifying for the NASCAR Cup Series Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway on February 14, 2024 in Daytona Beach, Florida. (Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images)
Joey Logano and Michael McDowell will make up the front row for Sunday’s Daytona 500. In years past, starting from the front row for the 500 maybe meant more from a public relations angle than its actual ramifications for the race itself.
But since the introduction of NASCAR’s NextGen Cup Series car two seasons ago, qualifying up front now means a little more according to pole sitter Logano.
“I think it helps on some things. When other drivers see that you have a fast car, I really think that speedway racing is all about reputation. If you have a fast car with a driver that understands the draft, cars will go with you more often. It makes you more confident to put this thing out in the wind. It’s going to pull a lane. It’s got the speed. You put it out front, it’s going to tote the lane forward. That’s what you want.
“As a driver, it puts you in a pretty good spot, you know? When I got the team that I have behind me, with a spotter, Coleman, myself really understanding the draft well, our pit crew seems to be lights out right now in practice, things are looking really good.
“We just have to go out there and execute our job at this point. We all know how to do that, but we’ve got a good bullet in the chamber right now to fire away and see what we got.”
“Being up front and trying to control your own destiny is important for this race.”
McDowell, who won the 2021 Daytona 500, the last one run in the previous generation car, proved the race could be won from any starting position. But that was then and this is now.
“Well, it does matter for sure. There’s so much that can happen in a 500-mile race. We all know that. But we’ve also seen with this Next Gen car that track position is important, and it’s not always easy to get. It’s not easy to go from the back to the front.
“A couple guys have done it successfully. But it’s very tough to move from the back to the front just because the pack doesn’t build, the draft doesn’t build like it did with the older car. Also guys with different strategies of saving fuel, pitting with your manufacturers, all that becomes very complicated when you’re trying to come through the pack.
“Being up front and trying to control your own destiny is important for this race, for all of it, but it’s not the end-all, be-all. We all know that, right? You can have maybe one or two little blemishes throughout the 500 and still be okay, it’s just harder now than it used to be.”
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