FanHouse Warmup: Daytona 500

And boy, will Sunday's race be the ultimate -- even if its just short term -- antidote for what ails most of the racing world and the rest of the country. The race should feature a ton of drivers with great chances to win and there will certainly be many dramas and storylines that playout through the whole day.

Its often questioned by those both in and outside of the sport as to why NASCAR starts its endless season of racing with its premiere event, it's "Super Bowl of Racing" as its often called.

Sure, it probably makes sense to build up a season to its ultimate pinnacle in every other sport, but come on, would you really want to be tuning in Sunday to watch a race from California's Auto Club Speedway?

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Yes, it's raining in Daytona this morning and it looks like we're going to at the least have some delays for today's race.

I would like to get on NASCAR, and more precisely, it's television partner FOX Sports for pushing the start time of this race into "Prime Time" by starting this event at 3:40pm, but today, the track will have been wet much earlier than the traditional 12:15pm start time.

Luckily, we've got lights here and the forecast and radar is showing that the later we go in the day, the better chance we have to get 500 miles in. Let's hope that happens -- I've got a flight back home early Monday morning.

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Valentine's Day for Tony Stewart and Goodyear didn't produce much Saturday after Stewart's teammate Ryan Newman blew a tire -- actually, make that exploded a tire -- in turn two of the final practice for the 500. The ensuing wreck also snared Stewart's No. 14 and forced both cars to backup cars.

Each will start at the rear of the field with Stewart racing in the car that took second place in last Saturday night's Budweiser Shootout. Newman, on the other hand, will be racing Stewart-Haas Racing car number 39-452 -- a car that has an interesting story behind.

Because Newman destroyed his primary car during the Gatorade Duels on Thursday, he was already racing a backup. The car for Sunday's Daytona 500 rolled off the No. 39 hauler on Saturday as a No.14 Office Depot car for Stewart.

The team wasn't able to get the car back on track for the final practice, but it will be completely wrapped for Sunday in Newman's U.S. Army colors and have the No.39 emblazoned on the side.

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Joey Logano's Daytona debut might not be amazingly impressive, but you've got to remember that this rookie is still 18-years-old.

Sympathy, though, doesn't mean his teammates will be waiting around to help push him through the pack on Sunday.

"If he gets his car driving better and can keep up -- then we'll work with him," said Busch. "If you can't keep up in this draft -- and with all these guys -- then you can't waste time trying to help a teammate that's hurting your performance."

On Friday, neither Busch or Denny Hamlin -- who Saturday said he had the "strongest car out there" -- took part in the scheduled practice session, but Busch got in Logano's No. 20 Toyota for a few laps to help the rookie driver get up to speed.

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Keith Urban Lite showed up Saturday evening on the infield grass of the Daytona tri-oval. Urban -- a country music star who I, unabashedly, consider to have played the single-best concert I've seen -- is scheduled to perform four songs during FOX's pre-race show for both the television and the now sold-out at-track audience.

In order to pull the production off with hundreds of flag-waving and dancing people to add to the show, a rehearsal took place as dusk set in Saturday night. And so Urban's band performed, but Keith apparently wasn't around to for the preparations.

That left a guitarist with a singing ability that wasn't exactly Urban's to fill in as FOX's camera crews tested out the camera angles for the performance.

Let's just say you'll be happy that Urban will be the front man on Sunday.


As is the norm in the restrictor plate era of NASCAR racing at both Daytona and Talladega, the field of drivers who have a legitmate chance at winning the race is quite numerous.

In that same breath, though, that number of potential winners can shrink dramatically thanks to one bad errenous move by a single driver that sets off "The Big One" -- a crash that has been known to take out 10 to 20 cars at one time.

Throw in knowing that minor aerodynamic damage to the body of the car can cause major handling issues and the pressure these drivers feel in the season's biggest race, and the Daytona 500 nearly always brings the cream to the top.

Sunday, we'll have 43 drivers racing in temperatures and track conditions that will be noticably different than the previous four days of on-track activity, with tires that have become somewhat of question for a small number of teams and multiple cars that have been strong for all of Speedweeks here in Daytona.

And, oh yeah, the last two years have been a two-lap green-white-checkered finish.

Let's just say anything can, and probably will, happen Sunday at Daytona.


While we know that anything can happen, as racing experts (OK, just Holly is the racing expert) we still feel a need to "call" who will find the checkered flag on Sunday. Here's our picks:

Geoffrey Miller - Kyle Busch (Surprise winner: Jamie McMurray)

Holly Cain - Jeff Gordon (Surprise winner: Kasey Kahne)

Enjoy the race. We'll see you back here at FanHouse for plenty of post-race coverage.