NCS: What to watch for in the Blue Green Duel at Daytona

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Musical chairs: With a new season comes the changing of drivers and numbers with some of the biggest names out of the series like Chip Ganassi Racing which sold their operation to Trackhouse Racing who bought over Ross Chastain to continue driving the No. 1 Chevrolet. However, 2004 Cup Series champion Kurt Busch who was also with the organization moved over to 23XI Racing owned by Denny Hamlin and Michael Jordan in the No. 45 Monster Toyota.

Brad Keselowski who spent most of his career including his Championship run with Penske left the organization to move over to a newly formed Roush Keselowski Racing to become part owner in the organization in the No. 6. This left his old car up for grabs which saw Austin Cindric move up from the Xfinity Series to take over Keselowski’s old ride.

Harrison Burton who just completed a season with Joe Gibbs Racing moves up into the Cup Series to take over the longest running team in NASCAR history, the famous No. 21 fielded by the Wood Brothers who have been in NASCAR for over seven decades.

In other news of teams merging Richard Petty Motorsports and GMS announced they would combine for the 2022 season and beyond with GMS Racing buying out a majority share from Medallion Financial Corp. who will continue to field the No. 43 Petty made famous alongside the return of the No. 42 with Ty Dillon returning to the Cup Series full-time.

Kaulig Racing who showed up in 2021 with one goal in mind, to win trophies will move over full-time with long time driver Justin Haley. Kaulig will continue to field a second car for drivers AJ Allmendinger, Daniel Hemric and Noah Gragson splitting time in that seat.

The Euro Series is coming to NASCAR with Team Hezeberg putting together a part-time effort with US based Reaume Brothers that will see the No. 27 attempt to qualify as an open car for the Daytona 500 with F1 championship driver Jacques Villeneuve and NASCAR Euro Series driver Loris Hezemans who will pilot the car in six races throughout the season.

Todd Gilliland who has been part of the truck series with both Kyle Busch Motorsports and Front Row Racing will take over the No. 38 this season for the departed Anthony Alfredo.

Finally, 50 and 0 Floyd “Money” Mayweather with the remains of StarCom Racing will field The Money Team No. 50 starting at Daytona with Kaz Grala behind the wheel.

There are no backups: With the supply chain issues hitting every part of life, it’s even made its way into NASCAR with a limited number of parts and pieces available to teams to build the Next Gen car.

Teams came into Daytona with one car and maybe one or two back in the shop currently under construction. If you mess up in the Duel on Thursday or a practice session destroying a car you may be out of luck in getting the car repaired or a second car, put together in time to race on Sunday.

Qualify on the front row: Unlike other races throughout the season the Daytona 500 locked in the front row last night with Kyle Larson taking the pole for the Daytona 500 also allowing him to start on the pole for Duel 1 with Hendrick team mate Alex Bowman taking the outside pole in qualifying to start on the pole for Duel 2 for an all Chevrolet/Hendrick Motorsports front row for the Daytona 500.

“Yeah, it’s really neat. It makes me just, I mean anytime you are really proud of your team to get a pole here cause this is the littlest it has to do with us drivers, qualifying at superspeedways. Just a huge thank you to the engine shop at Hendrick Motorsports. Everybody who’s had a part in touching these vehicles, whether it be on the computer, engineering, or just hands on. It’s really neat, just awesome the speed in our HendrickCars.com Chevy. Hopefully this is the beginning of a really good weekend.” Said Larson

In doing so both are locked into the show Sunday no matter what happens to them in the Duel tonight at Daytona.

 

Speedway Digest Staff
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