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4 Burning Questions: Has Summer Daytona Lost Its Luster?

1. Has the 400-mile Daytona race lost its luster?

The mid-summer race at Daytona International Speedway was never a crown jewel by any means, but it was one of NASCAR’s longest-standing traditions.

Every Fourth of July weekend, NASCAR’s biggest stars headed to the World Center of Racing for 400 miles under the Saturday night lights. What more is there to ask for?

That tradition dating back to the early 1960s came to a halt in 2020, as for the first time ever, Daytona’s summer race was moved to mid-August to serve as the regular season finale.

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Here's Who's Performing & Appearing at Daytona

Daytona no longer has the coveted Fourth of July spot, but its new date still served an important purpose as the gateway to the playoffs. That’s not the case this year, as the Paris Olympics shifted the schedule back an additional week. Daytona now serves as the penultimate race of the regular season, and for perhaps the first time ever, it feels like any other date on the schedule.

There’s no holiday that makes this weekend special. The excitement provided by having drivers fight tooth and nail to keep their championship hopes alive isn’t as intense when Darlington Raceway is the true end of the line. And whether it’s the persistent rain that impedes Daytona in the summer or some malaise from the frequent copy-and-paste overtime marathons at superspeedways, the 400-mile race at Daytona seems to have lost some of the luster from its Fourth of July past.

It’s one thing if NASCAR has found a new permanent home for Fourth of July weekend, but it hasn’t. The Brickyard 400 was moved to the first weekend of July in 2020 to help ratings, but that flopped and was scrapped immediately. Fourth of July weekend then moved to Road America with enormous packed crowds lining the 4.048-mile road course, but the track got the unceremonious rug pull from the Cup schedule after two events. The Chicago Street Race has shown promise the last two years (and is all but expected to be back for a third), but as a temporary street circuit, it’s a track that lacks the permanent stability that holiday weekends thrive on.

The Southern 500 was a Labor Day weekend tradition for more than a half century until it was moved away for 2004, and it was returned to its traditional weekend in 2015, where it has remained ever since.

Could Daytona make a similar return to Fourth of July weekend down the road? Only time will tell.

2. Did Toyota Racing Development just tank Denny Hamlin’s title hopes?

In a year when TRD has blown engines left and right, it’s fitting that an engine mistake just cost one of its championship contenders a ton of regular-season points and playoff points right before the playoffs are about to begin.

See also
Denny Hamlin, Joe Gibbs Racing Penalized for Engine Inspection Violation

On Aug. 22, NASCAR penalized Denny Hamlin and the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team for its win at Bristol Motor Speedway — that’s right, Bristol — after TRD accidentally disassembled the No. 11 car’s winning Bristol engine before NASCAR could inspect it.

The NASCAR rulebook states that all winning engines must be inspected by NASCAR before they are broken down or reused, and TRD self-reported the violation. The sanctioning body responded with a L2 penalty and the loss of 10 playoff points and 75 regular season points in the drivers’ and owners’ championships for the No. 11 team, plus a $100,000 fine to crew chief Chris Gabehart.

The points penalty dropped Hamlin from third in regular season points to sixth, and he went from having a slim chance at winning the regular season championship to being completely out of the mix. That penalty could cost Hamlin between three and seven playoff points depending on where he finishes in the regular-season championship, and when you add it to the loss of 10 playoff points, it’s a devastating penalty for a championship-caliber organization in a system where every single point matters.

While Hamlin’s championship hopes are far from over, he’s going to have significantly less wiggle room in navigating the first three rounds. Instead of entering the postseason with one of the largest safety nets, he’ll be entering right in the middle of the pack.

3. Tyler Reddick, Chase Elliott or Kyle Larson?

Now that Hamlin is completely out of the picture, the regular season battle now comes down to Tyler Reddick, Chase Elliott (-10) and Kyle Larson (-32) with two races to go.

Unfortunately for Larson, he squandered his best chance at Michigan International Speedway, where he entered with the points lead and had one of the fastest cars until he wrecked by himself on a mid-race restart. Losing those points proved to be costly, and so did missing the start of the Coca-Cola 600 in May.

What doesn’t bode well either is that superspeedways are Larson’s weakness by a longshot. Even if he impresses with a solid points day, he’ll have to be more than perfect at Darlington to have a fighting chance. While he did win last year’s Southern 500, Reddick finished right behind him in second, and he also led more than half of the race at Darlington in May.

For Elliott, what he’s lacked in speed he has more than made up for in consistency. He only has one win and a pedestrian 213 laps led on the season, but he has the second-best average finish behind Reddick and doesn’t have a single finish worse than 21st on the year. He’s also shown remarkable success at superspeedways in the past, and one crash from Reddick could put Elliott right in the catbird seat.

Just like the battle to make the playoffs on points, the regular-season battle will be a matter of seeing where the dust settles after Daytona. If Reddick is ahead of Elliott or at least within 10 points of him after Saturday (Aug. 24), he looks poised to dominate at Darlington and wrap it up there. But if Elliott has a monster race while Reddick suffers an early exit, Elliott might have just enough in the tank to claim his second regular-season crown in three years.

See also
Eyes on Xfinity: When Will Sheldon Creed Win a Race?

4. Could this be Justin Allgaier’s year?

In his nine NASCAR Xfinity Series seasons with JR Motorsports, Justin Allgaier has scored 22 wins, and he is currently riding a streak of eight consecutive winning seasons. He broke Kyle Busch’s all-time record for top 10s in Xfinity competition earlier this year, and after scoring his first-ever win at Michigan last Saturday (Aug. 17), Allgaier currently sits ninth on the series’ all-time win list.

Despite all of that, Allgaier is still lacking the biggest prize of them all: an Xfinity championship. He has 10 top-five points finishes in 13 full-time seasons, but none have been first place. Last season was arguably the closest he’s come to a title in his career, as he finished third in an overtime finish for last year’s Phoenix Raceway finale, only coming behind Cole Custer, who won the race and the title.

To say there have been some bumps in the road for the No. 7 team this year would be an understatement, but Allgaier has taken charge in the summer, with two wins and nine top 10s in his last 11 starts, with crash DNFs serving as his only double-digit finish. He also gained a ton of ground on Custer in the regular season championship, as his lead has been trimmed to a mere 12 points.

Allgaier leads all Xfinity drivers this season with 554 laps led and he’s well on pace to surpass the 643 he led last season. But most importantly, Allgaier has shown racing-winning at the track that decides everything: Phoenix.

A two-time winner in the Arizona desert with wins in 2017 and 2019, Allgaier was cruising with a three-second lead at Phoenix in March until a flat tire with five laps to go sent him straight into the outside wall in a hard crash. Despite the crushing defeat, he led 52 laps in the race, which marked the most in a Phoenix race since the 2020 season finale.

While race management and maximizing finishes has always been a struggle for Allgaier (just look at all of the races he could have won this season until something went awry), he has the experience, the speed and the winning history at Phoenix to be a serious challenge for the championship if he can reach the Championship 4. If there’s ever a time for him to score that elusive title, it’s now.

About the author

Stephen Stumpf is the NASCAR Content Director for Frontstretch and is a three-year veteran of the site. His weekly columns include “Stat Sheet” and “4 Burning Questions.” He also writes commentary, contributes to podcasts, edits articles and is frequently at the track for on-site coverage.

Can find on Twitter @stephen_stumpf.

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DoninAjax

NA$CAR would move Christmas Day if they thought they could make more money!

Echo

It’s never enough is it !! I bet my bourbon tastes just as good in a quart jar versus the finest crystal made.