2014 Daytona 500 Preview

The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season opens tomorrow with the 56th running of the Daytona 500. Nine previous winners and seven Daytona 500 rookies take part. With the Unlimited and the two duel races already in the books, here are a few key points as we look forward to tomorrow.

Is This Toyota's Year?
And more specifically Joe Gibbs Racing. Toyota has never won the Daytona 500 and Joe Gibbs Racing haven't won the race since the famous "Dale and Dale Show" with Dale Jarrett beating Dale Earnhardt to the line in 1993. Toyota has amassed sixty-three victories since entering the Cup series in 2007 with Joe Gibbs Racing being responsible for fifty-four of those victories.

Gibbs Racing became the first team to ever sweep the duel races in one year when Matt Kenseth and Denny Hamlin won Thursday night and Hamlin is looking to become the first driver ever to sweep Speedweeks by winning the three Cup Series events, the Unlimited, Duel and Daytona 500. While Kenseth has two Daytona 500 victories, Hamlin has only one top ten finish in the race while Kyle Busch only has two.

Seven other Toyotas will take part tomorrow. AJ Allmendinger is the top non-Gibbs Toyota in fifteenth with Clint Bowyer starting twentieth but dropping to the back of the field after wrecking his primary car in the duel race Thursday night. Three rookies are driving Toyotas and they are Cole Whitt, Alex Bowman and Parker Kligerman. The other two Toyotas are Brian Vickers and Michael Waltrip, both are starting outside the top thirty.

Can Austin Dillon Match His Qualifying Performance?
The defending Nationwide Series champion won his first career Cup series pole position last week and now Dillon looks to get his grandfather Richard Childress his third Daytona 500 victory. Dillon is the fifth Childress driver to win Daytona 500 pole. Dale Earnhardt finish second from pole in 1996 but ever since then, the results have gotten worse for Childress pole sitters as Mike Skinner finished twelfth in 1997, Jeff Green finished thirty-ninth in 2003 and Jeff Burton finished thirty-second in 2006.

The last Daytona 500 pole-sitter to win the race was Dale Jarrett in 2000 while only three of the last ten pole-sitters have finished in the top ten.

Can Jimmie Johnson Repeat?
No one has won back-to-back Daytona 500s since Sterling Marlin in 1994 and 1995. Johnson's win in the race last year was his first top twenty-five in the six Daytona 500 starts. Prior to that his last top twenty-five was his 2006 win. History isn't on his side.

Who Will Be The Surprise?
For a little over a decade, each Daytona 500 has had a surprise driver in the top ten. 2002 was Geoffrey Bodine in third. 2003, Mike Wallace finished ninth. 2004, Scott Wimmer finished third. 2005, Scott Riggs finished fourth and Kevin Lepage finished ninth. 2006, Ken Schrader finished ninth. 2007, Mike Wallace finished fourth and Joe Nemechek finished ninth. 2008, Reed Sorenson finished fifth. 2009, AJ Allmendinger finished third in his first career Daytona 500. 2010, Jamie McMurray won the race after never finishing better than twenty-sixth in his seven previous Daytona 500 starts. 2011, Trevor Bayne won in his second career start, David Gilliland finished third and Bobby Labonte finished fourth in what is his most-recent top five finish. 2012, Paul Menard finished sixth after starting thirty-seventh. Last year, Michael McDowell and J.J. Yeley started in the final two positions on the grid and finished ninth and tenth respectively.

This year, Josh Wise starts eleventh, he has one career top twenty finish. Landon Cassill starts eighteenth while Terry and Bobby Labonte both raced their way into the field and will start twenty-fourth and twenty-sixth. This will be Terry Labonte's final Daytona 500 start.

Who Can Break Through For Their First Daytona 500 Victories?
Terry Labonte will start his thirty-second Daytona 500 and he has never won the race. His brother Bobby will be starting his twenty-second Daytona 500 and is in the same position. Tony Stewart will be making his sixteenth Daytona 500 start and is still looking to break through. Kurt Busch will start his fourteenth Daytona 500 and has six top ten finishes in the race, including three runner-up finishes. The only other drivers who will be making at least their tenth Daytona 500 start tomorrow and not have won the race are Greg Biffle, Kasey Kahne, Casey Mears, Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards.

A Chase Spot Is On The Line
With the Chase-format change, the winner of tomorrow's race is in prime position to make the Chase. Will that change how drivers approach the race? Will a middle of the field team use strategy to put themselves in position for not only a Daytona 500 upset but a possible championship later this year?