DAYTONA 500

Introduction:

The Daytona 500 is held annually, at the International Daytona Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida.  It is a 500 mile (805 km) NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series race.  The race will celebrate its 50th run in 2008.  In the NASCAR calendar, the Daytona 500 is widely considered as the most crucial and respective race fields.

Memorable Daytona 500s:

The U.S. television has ranked the Daytona 500 as the highest viewed of any auto race in the year since 1995.  The 2006 Daytona 500 had grabbed the sixth greatest average live global TV spectators of any sports event, with a mammoth crowd of 20 million spectators.  This long track was not wholly on the sand but also on the highway near the beach.  In the initial periods, the events organized were of 320 km (200 mile).  Radiators and wipers were provided to the cars to fight back the sand.  After a long period of time, the Daytona 500 was organized at the Daytona International Speedway in 1959, since its inaugural.  The crash of Bobby Allison at Talladega, in 1987 alarmed the installation of new restrictor plates that were provided in 1988 Daytona 500 as per the rule, because the speeds were very high at the super-speedways.

Qualifying Procedure:

The process to qualify at the Daytona 500 is quite distinctive.  Certain teams needs to race to make a route into the field of Daytona 500.  A spot is assured in the Daytona 500 for all the subjected teams since 2005.  The row held one week before the race is the first step to qualify the field of Daytona 500.