The Clash at Daytona isn’t meant to be a real race. It’s meant to get people excited about the Daytona 500 week.
So it brings a little bit of a different attitude, and that attitude starts Friday: Drivers will do minimal work to get their cars ready and then hope for the best.
“That race is usually a race of attrition,” says three-time Clash winner and defending champ Denny Hamlin. “There’s usually a lot of wrecks, and a lot of it is because we’re rusty.
“These teams got to where they don’t like to run a whole lot of practice because they tear up race cars and then you’re building another race car that you really don’t need to.”
The 75-lap race will be broken into a 25-lap segment and then a 50-lap segment. Unlike when NASCAR goes racing “for real,” the laps between the stages won’t count.
What to watch for when the green flag drops at 8:24 p.m. ET Saturday:
Earnhardt opted not to do the Clash even though he is qualified for it as a past winner. He won’t race because, he said, he wanted his 2016 substitute driver Alex Bowman, who won a pole at Phoenix, to race — and race with the crew he won the pole with while Earnhardt missed races with a concussion.
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Theoretically, Earnhardt and Bowman both could have raced, as Hendrick driver Kasey Kahne didn’t qualify for the field. But with Kahne’s car and crew having an association with Farmers Insurance and the No. 88 team’s sponsorship with Nationwide, that was an avenue that was just a little too slippery if Earnhardt or Bowman wanted to run in a car with a different crew.
So Earnhardt will spend his evening in the Fox booth. Bowman will be on the track. It is Bowman’s only scheduled race so far this season. He is under contract with Hendrick Motorsports as a test driver.
What in the world is Suarez doing in the Clash?
Suarez, who has never been in a Cup race, is in the Clash spot that the now-retired Carl Edwards had earned.
How?
NASCAR has allowed substitutes for injuries/illness in the past under the theory that the team sold sponsorship and prepared for the race.
So …
“We looked at the circumstances and timing around the unexpected driver change with the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing team and made the determination that we will allow a driver substitution for the Advance Auto Parts Clash,” NASCAR vice president Jim Cassidy said. “The team was already in the advanced stages of preparing for that event, and we felt it made sense to allow that car to run.”
NASCAR views Suarez replacing the retiring Edwards as different from Clint Bowyer replacing Tony Stewart — something that was planned 16 months in advance rather than six to eight weeks.
Bowyer wasn’t exactly pleased with NASCAR’s decision but didn’t seem all that stressed out over it.
“There’s no difference between my situation and his, and he was in and I’m not,” Bowyer said. “Nonetheless it doesn’t bother me. It is water under the bridge. … At such a late notice, if they had said [four weeks ago], ‘We made a mistake, you could have went in [now],’ I don’t know that we could have been ready.”
Certainly, NASCAR has left itself open to criticism, and some will speculate that NASCAR just wanted its first Mexican-born driver in the race to promote it.
As Hamlin said, this is a race of attrition. There are only 17 in the race, so one “big one” could knock out half the field, and if a driver takes the wrong gamble, there might be fewer than 10 cars running at the finish.
Also, with 17 cars, there won’t be much time for a driver to avoid an accident if running in the back of the pack.
“As a driver, I used the strategy of laying back at the beginning last year when we won it,” Hamlin said. “When I won it [in 2014], I tried to stay up front the entire event and it paid off. … You know you’re going to have stiff competition.”
It will be interesting to see how NASCAR enforces its five-minute clock and how it impacts this event.
New NASCAR rules for 2017 eliminate the ability of teams to replace crashed parts and pieces during a race. Any work must be done on pit road, and teams have five minutes — from when the car hits the yellow line entering pit road to when it crosses the line exiting pit road — to add tape or supports to fix the car. After five minutes, a driver needs to be able to show minimum speed under green to continue in the race (and come back down for more repairs, if needed).
Of course, teams wouldn’t have much incentive to fix a car after losing a lap or two in an exhibition race, but at least drivers and teams might get a look at how the clock will be enforced.
How did NASCAR decide who gets in the race? Here are the criteria:
* Those who won poles in 2016: Bowman, Kurt Busch, Kyle Busch, Austin Dillon, Chase Elliott, Hamlin, Kevin Harvick, Jimmie Johnson, Matt Kenseth, Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano and Martin Truex Jr.
* Former Daytona 500 pole winner: Danica Patrick
* Those who made the playoffs in 2016: Chris Buescher, Kyle Larson, Jamie McMurray.
* NASCAR exception for late substitution for 2016 pole sitter: Suarez.
Greg Biffle, Edwards, Tony Stewart and Earnhardt were eligible for the race but are not entered. Biffle does not have a ride for the 2017 season.
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