What makes Daytona so special?
Maybe you get tired of some of my old sayings that I like to use, but it's almost the blind obvious; The Daytona 500 is so special because it's the first race of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season and for three months out of every year, every Cup team in the garage spends time getting ready for it.
We always put a lot of extra effort into Daytona because we have the time to.
Back in the day, there was no other race that we spent so many hours building a car for a single race as we do for the Daytona 500. Before it was fashionable to go test in the wind tunnel, build special engines and components for that race and spend a lot of time testing, we would spend hours and hours building a car just for that race. You nurtured that baby all winter long. You worked on it, talked to it, massaged it and did everything imaginable just to get it right for the Great American Race.
By the time you got down to Daytona Beach, you and that car had become really close, personal friends — especially if you unloaded that machine and she goes around the race track like nothing you have ever driven before. I've had a few of them do that — the Tide car a couple of times along with a few others that were exceptionally good at Daytona. That's why some drivers develop a special bond with their Daytona cars and as a matter of fact, my Tide car is going to be with me at Daytona International Speedway this year.
And it's not just the driver. The amount of money spent on cars, motors, testing and the hours the engine people spend in the dyno room just working on an engine for Daytona — if you think about it, that engine you really can only use four times a year at the restrictor plate races.
I worked with some of the greatest engine builders in NASCAR history — Randy Dorton, Waddell Wilson, Junior Johnson and a lot of great engine builders. I know of times when the Daytona engine was taken apart and put back together seven times as these engines guys would tweak it in search of putting the best piece together.
Going along with that, I also remember when they would bring the Daytona 500 engine in on Saturday before the race. You drop that baby in the car, run it 50 miles like the engine builders wanted and then she was ready to go.
Another reason why the Daytona 500 is so important is that there's no other race that I know that has an $18 million purse and that's what this year's Daytona 500 is going to pay out. The winner is guaranteed to make $1.4 million. What's more, if you just manage to qualify for the race, last place pays a quarter of a million dollars — you get that just to start the race! That's why the Gatorade Duel qualifying races are going to be more exciting than they have ever been before.
One more to think about is the fact that since 1979, the first time this race was shown live flag-to-flag, this race always has the biggest TV audience of the year. While most races draw just over a 5 rating on the Nielsen charts, the 500 usually gets above a 10 rating — that's incredible.
This year's Daytona 500 has all the ingredients to create the most excitement and become the highest rated Daytona 500 in history. I'm pumped about that.
Those numbers alone tell you the significance of this event. But there's more.
The big Harley J. Earl trophy is pretty cool, so is the opportunity for the winner to go to the White House just like the champions in other sports. There's so many other perks, but the point is that there's no other race that gives you so much for winning like this one.
So you've got money, prestige and perks, but the other thing you got, which is something you can't put a value on, is that you get to put your name on a list with unbelievable drivers.
I was in a room back in July at Daytona when almost all of the 24 living former winners were there. As a former winner, I looked around the room and it's a unique crowd. There's such a feeling of accomplishment to know that your name is alongside all those greats like Mario Andretti, A.J. Foyt, seven-time Cup champion Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson — the legends of the past, the heroes of today and some of the stars of the future make up that list, and it's an honor to be a Daytona 500 champion.
I mentioned this before, but one thing that gets overlooked a lot is the fact that this is the first race of the new year.
Ask any driver, "What's the most important race you are going to run?" They will all tell you "The next one." In this case, it's the first one. If you can get off to a great start at Daytona, you get a lot of momentum and that can really carry you as far as how the rest of the year goes and how the championship goes. It's always been, "However Daytona goes, that's kinda how your year goes." If you leave Daytona with momentum, it never fails because you are on a roll and you take off.
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Last year's winner Kevin Harvick may disagree. But if you think about it, after winning the 500 in 2007, Harvick went to California and would have won if not for a flat tire. If not for that bad racing luck, imagine what could have happened if he won those two first races in a row.
All the effort, all the energy and all the money spent for that one race is what makes the Daytona 500 so special. And when you win it, you know it was all worth it because you have accomplished something very few people have done and the ones that have are elite.
The past winners club is an incredible fraternity to be a part of. I only won it once, just like a lot of guys in that group, unlike Richard Petty who won it seven times. I almost won it a lot of times just like Dale Earnhardt, but just the fact that I won mine on the 17th try in car No. 17 ... you know that whole scenario with the 17.
I'm proud to be a part of the Daytona lure and history. It makes your career complete. There's a plateau that you can get to by winning races and winning championships, but you are in a league of your own when you win the Daytona 500.
And that's what makes the Daytona 500 so special.
Oh, by the way
I was listening to the radio the other morning and some of the announcers were talking about all the technology that teams have today.One of the announcers said, "Can you imagine if Junior Johnson had all the stuff these guys have today?" When I heard that, I was thinking to myself "What makes you think he didn't have it?"
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Can't get enough Darrell Waltrip? Check out his new "Oh, by the way" blog to get even more of DW's insights. | ||
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At the time when Cale Yarborough won his three consecutive championships and when I won a bunch of races and my three titles with his team back in the late '70s and early '80s, Junior Johnson had more technology than anybody else in the sport. He had things that other people never even thought of.
He was that way up until he quit being an owner. The reason he quit was because everybody finally did get everything he had and it wasn't any fun anymore.
Junior was probably the most innovative, think outside the box person in NASCAR. He was not a rule breaker, he was a rule maker. He would do things to his engines and his cars that a normal person would never have thought of.
And he had the technology. We went to the wind tunnel, we used telemetry. When I drove there for Buick, we had some of the most incredible testing equipment that I'd ever seen and nobody else in the sport at that time had.
I know that everybody thinks that this sport has gone to another level and that they've never seen the things that are going on now, but trust me, it's been there.
There was nothing Junior about Junior Johnson.
Check out the rest of Darrell Waltrip's 'Oh, by the way' comments in his blog.
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