Thursday, November 21, 2024

Daytona 500 Signals The Start Of A New Season

Well it’s that time of the year again. Time to dust of the old goggles and fire-up the remote and go racing. The Daytona 500 signals the start of a new season for the Nascar faithful.

Know as “The Great American Race”, the Daytona 500 will feature 43 of the sports finest on February 20, 2011. The event serves as the final event of Speedweeks and is sometimes referred to as “The Great American Race” or the “Super Bowl of Stock Car Racing.” It is held the second or third Sunday in February, and since 1971, has been loosely associated with Presidents Day weekend.

The winner of the Daytona 500 is presented with the “Harley J. Earl Trophy” in Victory Lane, and the winning car is displayed, in race-winning condition, for one year at Daytona 500 Experience, a museum and gallery adjacent to Daytona International Speedway.

Now known as the “NASCAR Sprint Cup Series” (aka: Winston Cup Series, aka: NEXTEL Cup Series) the drivers’ champion is determined by a point system where points are given according to finishing placement and laps led. The season is divided into two segments. After the first 26 races, the 12 highest ranked drivers are seeded based on their total number of wins and compete in the last 10 races with the difference in points greatly equalized. This is called the Chase for the Championship.

Since 1949 the series features 49 drivers from 22 teams. For those under rocks, Jimmie Johnson of Hendrick Motorsports driving a Chevrolet was last years winner ……… let the games begin !!!

This One’s For Posterity

I thought I would write-up a quick post before retiring for the night. It has been nearly two years since I have had the time to re-build this site. While I wished I had gotten to the project sooner, I’m glad I waited …… it was a lot more challenging to re-build than I thought.

When I looked into re-building this site about 18 or so months ago, I was confounded by the lack of images that were available to me. I was a little confounded by this as Nascar is obviously a very visual sport. Now, it seems that there is no lack of images to be had. Images for Nascar are a little more individually specific. I was just not use to this. I have never been out of options with a good keyword and Mr. Google.

As I started the re-build I was a little miffed at the quality of images that were used in the construction of the site. I had a Kalifornia designer do the work. I had worked with this designer before and was quite please with his work, but this time around the images were a total wreck ….. maybe he was dealing with the same problem I was. Anywho I had to start completely from scratch. This was not fun. No site I have ever been involved with took some much of my time to come close and I not really sure that I am totally satisfied with the results. This is sure to change as I go forward with this site..

Another area of contention was the “Featured Video”. It was some random of the wall race in Rhode Island back in 71. Off I went is search of the perfect video. I think I have found it. It was the 1988 Richard Petty Mishap at Daytona. Never have I seen such a dramatic accident. I know this is all part of the picture, but mostly you get just a bunch of pile-ups that look really cool, but lack depth of drama. I was sure this incident was going to result in the death of Petty. He was no worse for the wear. Yet Dale Earnhardt Sr. ……………

As I move forward with this project, I hope you will find the very best of what Nascar has to offer here. And I am afraid that you will be disappointed if you are looking for the details of the numerous mishaps that visit this exciting sport every year.

It is my sincere hope that you will find a spot or at least a bookmark for this site. Thanks for stopping by. I’ll see you back here for the opening of 2011 at Daytona. :)