Well, now that football is over and the weather is finally getting warmer, it's time for racing season to officially commence. After witnessing Jeff Gordon, Max Angelelli, Ricky Taylor & Jordan Taylor win the Rolex 24 a few weeks ago, the racing at Daytona International Speedway will focus on NASCAR and the start of the 2017 Monster Energy Cup Season.
There are a lot of changes to the series for 2017, so I'll get right to it...
1) The sponsor- Monster Energy has taken over sponsorship for the NASCAR Cup Series. With that into play, the "Chase" name is gone, replaced with "Playoffs", which is the new term for the 10-race showdown to crown a champion beginning in September.
2) Race formats- Race distances will be the same for races, however, they are now divided into 3 stages. After a set number of laps, the stage will finish and the top-10 drivers running in position at the time will receive points. 1st place gets 10, 2nd place gets 9, etc., and the points will add up as bonus points, which will be counted towards Playoff Points. At the end of the 2nd stage, the race will be declared an official race, in the event of rain or other weather, but it will still still follow same format as finish of Stage 1. Stage 3, which will cover nearly the entire 2nd half of a race, will declare an official race winner and race wins also count towards a Playoff Spot. The "win-and-in" format will remain in play for drivers to lock up Playoff Spots. These breaks will create lesser commercials on TV for green-flag racing, also required mandatory interviews with Stage winners and crew chiefs. Plus, the fans will enjoy the new format. These formats also will be used in the Xfinity & Camping World Truck Series as well.
3) Pit Crews- I'm saying Pit Crews because NASCAR will be more stricter for pit road violations. Unlike in 2016, where there were 6-levels of penalties for car infractions, this year, there is only 2-levels, which will be more tougher on crews for getting the cars to have right balance, missing lugnuts, weight, chassis violations and more. NASCAR could penalize drivers with loss of practice time, fines, suspensions, etc, and there will be more violations now than in the past.
4) Cars- Expanding on Point 3, if a car is involved in a wreck and has damage, teams will be limited to repairing a vehicle and NASCAR will be closely watching like never before. Teams will no longer be allowed to replace damaged body parts, but could replace sheet metal. Teams will only be given 5 minutes on pit road to fix damage, after that time limit expires, the car will be forced to retire. Furthermore, if a car goes behind pit wall or into the garage, that will result in a DNF. If a car speeds down pit road to be fixed during a wreck, there will be a loss of 15 seconds to that time limit. Also, cars, once fixed on pit road, need to maintain minimum speed during a race. So again, pit crews, as well as the drivers, will need to pay more attention this year like never before.
5) Driver Changes- For this, I'm only going to talk about Cup. With Carl Edwards' surprising retirement after the end of the 2016 season, Joe Gibbs Racing has tapped Daniel Suarez to replace him in the 19 car. Furniture Row Racing added a 2nd car, with Erik Jones handling the 77. Ty Dillon also moves to Cup, replacing Casey Mears in the 13 car for Germain Racing. Greg Biffle also lost his seat at Roush-Fenway Racing, and has taken a break from NASCAR full-time, unless an interest does come up. With Tony Stewart's retirement, Clint Bowyer now drives for the 14 car after a gap-year with HScott Motorsports.
The Daytona 500 will take place next Sunday, February 26th. Daytona 500 Qualifying happens Sunday, to lock in the top-2 spots in the field as well as setting the lineups for next Thursday's Can-Am Duels. Practices for the Great American Race begin tomorrow, as well as the Advanced Auto Parts Clash (formerly Sprint Unlimited & Bud Shootout), which is the annual exhibition race of past pole-winners. Speedweeks has officially begun.
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