Daytona Speedweeks Blastoff With Shootout

Green flags fly for stock car racing fans this weekend in Florida. Daytona International Speedway—the 2.5-mile-superspeedway that Richard Petty’s father once called “a monster”—is the launch pad for the 2007 NASCAR season.

The speedway holds two races and the first-round of qualifying for next week’s main event, the Daytona 500. The ARCA/ReMax 200 and the Budweiser Shootout are the two races scheduled for Saturday afternoon and night. The time trials for the “Great American Race” will begin at 2:00 p. m. Sunday afternoon.

It will be a wide-open-petal-to-the-metal type week that follows counting down to the Daytona 500. Round-two of the qualifying will be held next Thursday in the Gatorade Duel, a pair of 150-mile heat races. The results of those two events (and NASCAR’s formula for guaranteeing starting spots for some teams) will determine the final starting grid for the February 18th race.

It looks like the battle for a starting spot in both the Daytona 500 and ARCA/ReMax race will be almost as exciting as the races. Around 70 drivers and teams will attempt to qualify for the ARCA race and at least 50 will be battling for the 43 starting spots in the Daytona 500.

A chance to run the 500 is prime real estate in the racing world. Last place in the race last year paid $281,682. Carl Edwards made over $3,600 per lap for the 78 he completed before crashing.

Jimmie Johnson went on from his Daytona 500 win last year to claim the championship and the Daytona trophy is probably one of the best motivators a team can have at their shop. The more than $1.5-million paycheck for first place will buy a lot of lug nuts too!

The NASCAR tour heads to California and Las Vegas before turning the haulers toward Atlanta for the March 18th Kobalt Tools 500.

The Nextel Cup and Craftsman Truck drivers get a weekend off before the Atlanta event, but the Busch drivers will be heading south of the border to Mexico for a March 4thrace.

Nextel Cup drivers have 38 races on their 2007 tour, including the Budweiser Shootout and the Nextel All-Star Challenge. There are 35 Busch Series and 25 Craftsman Truck races scheduled this season. All three of the series will wrap up the season at Homestead-Miami the weekend before Thanksgiving.

Load Up: The “Shootout” is on the NASCAR agenda for Daytona this weekend. It is a race reserved for the top-qualifiers from the past season and past winners of the special event.

The latest numbers from the speedway show 21 drivers eligible to run the special event that does not award points toward the 2007 championship. You must be a Bud Pole Award winner from 2006 or a past winner of the Shootout to get an invitation to compete in the event. The special exhibition race has been a tradition since 1979.

The Saturday night race will be a 70-lap battle where drivers are required to make at least one green-flag pit stop.

The 21 Shootout drivers include nine former race winners and six Winston/Nextel Cup Champions.

The pole winners from last year in the race include Kasey Kahne, Kurt Busch, Jeff Burton, Denny Hamlin, Greg Biffle, Ryan Newman, Scott Riggs, Jeff Gordon, Kevin Harvick, Jimmie Johnson, Kyle Busch, Elliott Sadler, Boris Said, David Gilliland and Brian Vickers.

The drivers approved to run as past winners are Dale Earnhardt Jr., Tony Stewart, Mark Martin, Dale Jarrett, Ken Schrader and Bill Elliott.

Elliott has started an all-time record 21 times in the Shootout and has completed every lap in each of those races. Mark Martin has started an event-record 18 consecutive Shootouts. Ken Schrader has run 16 of the preseason events.

David Gilliland will be the only rookie in the Shootout.

Dale Jarrett, Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon and Ken Schrader are the only drivers running this year with more than a single Shootout win. Jarrett has three Shootout wins. He claimed his checkered flags in 2004, 2000 and 1996.

Stewart, Gordon and Schrader have a pair of Bud Shootout wins each. Stewart’s wins were in 2001 and 2002. Gordon was the winner in 1994 and 1997. Ken Schrader got his trophies in 1989 and 1990.

The drivers entered this year on the one-time Shootout winner’s list include Denny Hamlin (2006), Jimmie Johnson (2005), Dale Earnhardt Jr. (2003), Mark Martin (1999) and Bill Elliott (1987).

The top-five finishers of last year’s Budweiser Shootout were Denny Hamlin, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Tony Stewart, Scott Riggs and Jimmie Johnson. Hamlin led 16 of the 72 laps run. Ken Schrader led the most laps (18) of any driver in the event.

Nine different drivers traded the lead 16 times and there were three caution flag incidents during the race. The event took just over one hour and ten minutes to complete.

Georgia Boys: Three Georgia drivers are signed up to qualify for the ARCA/ReMax 200 in Daytona Saturday. Chris Cockrum, of Rockdale County, Dicky Williamson, of Savannah and David Ragan, of Unadilla, are among the over 60 names on the entry list.

Ragan will be pulling double-duty at the track running in the ARCA event and attempting to qualify for his first Nextel Cup race as the new driver of the No. 6 Ford. Jack Roush Racing picked the former Atlanta Motor Speedway Legends driver to fill the seat being vacated this year by Mark Martin.

Ragan, Reed Sorenson and 1988 NASCAR Champion Bill Elliott are the only Georgia drivers signed up for Daytona 500 time trials on Sunday.