NASCAR Cup Series: The start of a new era
By Asher Fair
This Saturday night’s race at Daytona International Speedway will mark the start of a new era in the NASCAR Cup Series for the most iconic track on the schedule.
The significance of Daytona International Speedway, the “World Center of Racing”, is not limited to the annual Daytona 500, even when it comes down solely to the NASCAR Cup Series.
In addition to the Daytona 500 every February, the four-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-kilometer) high-banked superspeedway oval in Daytona Beach, Florida hosts one other Cup Series race each year, a 400-mile race that ran as a 250-mile race for its first four years.
Both races have been contested every year since the track opened back in 1959. While the Daytona 500 has been contested every February, the Firecracker 400, now known as the Coke Zero Sugar 400, has been contested each Independence Day (July 4th) weekend.
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The one exception was the 1998 season, when the race initially scheduled for Saturday, July 4 did not end up taking place until Saturday, October 17. This race, then known as the Pepsi 400, was moved from early July to mid-October as a result of the widespread wildfires in central Florida.
The Daytona 500 tradition continued for a 62nd consecutive season this year, with Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin winning the race for the second straight year and the third time overall back on Monday, February 17.
But the Coke Zero Sugar 400 tradition came to an end after 61 years.
The Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway was instead moved to Sunday, July 5 as a part of multiple schedule changes to the 2020 season that were announced back in March of 2019.
As a result, a new era is slated to begin this weekend, as the 160-lap race at the track is now slated to serve as the final race of the regular season leading into the four-round, 10-race playoffs.
Daytona International Speedway is a track at which typically anybody in the field can win due to the pack racing and the likelihood of the “Big One” occurring as the laps wind down and knocking out several of the usual frontrunners.
With this race now being the final race before the 16-driver playoff field is solidified, that will only add to the intensity.
That intensity, of course, comes at the expense of a tradition that lasted for more than six decades before it ended earlier this summer.
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Tune in to NBC at 7:30 p.m. ET this Saturday, August 29 for the live broadcast of the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series regular season finale, the Coke Zero Sugar 400, from Daytona International Speedway.