Yahoo News Is simply avoiding crashes the biggest key to winning the 2020 Daytona 500?
The cliche “to finish first you must first finish” is trite. It’s also extremely applicable to the 2020 Daytona 500.
The race will, in all likelihood, have a lot of crashes that take out a lot of cars. Crashing has intensified recently at Daytona and Talladega and there’s no reason to think it’ll take a respite on Sunday.
“You are going to have to survive,” Kevin Harvick said earlier this week. “I think survival will be more talked about this year than any year in the past. We have all been programmed to block and do things with the old package for so many years and this is not the old package. The runs are happening faster. The cars are kind of lining up and spin out really easy to the right when you push them wrong.”
Sunday’s race will be the first 500 at Daytona with the current set of rules governing races there and at Talladega. The cars will have much larger spoilers than they did for the 2019 Daytona 500. Those larger spoilers cut a bigger hole in the air for a trailing car to use the draft. A bigger hole in the air leads to less resistance for following cars. And more speed.
But pinning the propensity for crashing on the current set of rules doesn’t seem entirely fair. The 2019 Daytona 500 featured five crashes involving five or more cars including a 21-car melee with less than 10 scheduled laps to go and wrecks involving seven and eight cars respectively over the final 11 laps of the race.
The trend continued at both Talladega races and the rain-shortened Daytona race with the current rules. The four points races at the two tracks had 13 total crashes involving five or more cars. And, of course, last week’s exhibition Clash featured three crashes with six or more cars and every member of the 18-car field was involved in at least one wreck.
“The runs are not the same as what they used to be,” defending Cup champion Kyle Busch said. “This aero package is different with the hole in the nose ‑‑ what are they called? The aero ducts? Okay. So the old package, like there used to be this bubble, right, you'd catch up to a guy and then half a car length away you'd start to push him back away. That bubble is less. So in case anybody didn't figure that out when we were here during the Shootout, then you'd better go back and rewatch the film.”
That lack of an air bubble leads to a trailing car catch up to the car ahead much faster. Over the last few years, the best drivers at Daytona and Talladega were the ones who learned how to block the cars behind by anticipating the rush from the cars behind. And thanks to the way the air reacted behind the cars, a single move in front of a faster car could blunt that car’s momentum.
That doesn’t happen any longer. The cars behind still keep catching up. And some drivers have resorted to making more than one blocking move to stay ahead. The best blocks are proactive, not reactive. Multiple blocks and a car behind that isn’t slowing down is a recipe for a mess.
2019 Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin said he’ll trust his gut if he thinks a wreck is brewing to happen ahead of or around him. Hamlin’s a two-time Daytona winner, so there may be something to his tactics. But while wreck avoidance at Daytona can be a skill, it still largely comes down to luck. Wrecks can seemingly happen from anywhere.
“I'll just pull out of the draft, go backwards, say that there's something about to happen here, and I know odds and statistics are going to say in this position I'm sitting in, there's a high percentage I'm going to be in a wreck here. So I get myself out of it, get to the finish, then go from there. I am up front more, so it seems like you would think the chances of the big one starting, you're going to be free from it. Over the last few years, the average position from the big one starting has went from sixth to third.
“Now you have to be even further up front to try to avoid statistically where you're going to be in it. I think it's always changing. You got to continue to adapt and make sure you sense and when you feel the hair on the back of your neck stand up, make sure you get out, put yourself in a position to get to the finish.”
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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.
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