The Daytona 500 has been the biggest crowd-puller in NASCAR ever since the earliest days of the sport. It came to be known as the Great American Race over time popularly and has served as the flagship event of every Cup Series season. But more and more drivers have been coming out in recent days and expressing that they’d pick the Southern 500 over it.
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The biggest reason behind this different choice is Darlington Raceway, the venue of the latter race. The 1.36-mile oval came to be of its unique egg shape because the former owner of the land on which it currently sits did not want his minnow pond to be disturbed for the track’s construction in 1950. The adjustment resulted in the creation of a truly challenging race track.
The varying degrees of turns in the corners present a hurdle that even the most experienced drivers have a hard time figuring out. Put this together with the length of the Southern 500 and contenders have in front of them a tiresome endurance race. This difficulty is what makes winning the event mean so much more for some than winning a relatively straightforward Daytona 500.
Joe Gibbs Racing superstar Martin Truex Jr. said during the latest Playoff Media Day when asked if the Southern 500 meant more than the Daytona 500, “Yeah, I think if you poll all the drivers, they would probably say that. But, you know, nobody else would. For me, it’s more special. I wouldn’t say bigger, but more special. You’d want to win it more as a driver.”
Veterans Dale Jr. and Jeff Burton throw further light on the Southern 500
Jeff Burton won the Southern 500 in 1999. The former driver said to Richard Petty during a conversation earlier this year that he would never swap his Southern 500 for a Daytona 500. He reasoned that Darlington is the biggest stage that shows people how difficult it is to handle a race car.
He said, “You can see the drivers ride against the wall, you can see them having to change lanes and it’s just…it’s always changing and as it’s changing you’re having to make those adjustments. The fans can see the drivers making those adjustments and I think that track more than anywhere else, shows how hard it is to drive a race car.”
In a recent episode of Dale Jr. Download, Dale Earnhardt Jr. reciprocated these emotions. He explained that Darlington was the Everest of NASCAR and conquering it was a bonafide factual evidence of talent. He further stated that the majority of the field would pick it over the Brickyard 400.
Do these admissions mean that the Daytona 500 is losing its luster? The Great American Race is still the hero of the show and attracts the crowds like no other fixture. While drivers might not love the superspeedway’s unpredictability, fans certainly do. And as long as the people love it, it will remain to be NASCAR’s biggest draw.
