Daytona 500 is the first race and the most prestigious race in the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) Sprint Cup Series. This race usually occurs in February. It annually held at the Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida, and it is a 500-mile-long (850 km). Daytona 500 is the first of two Cup races and the second is Coke Zero 400. It is the most important race on the NASCAR calendar, carrying the largest purse.
This phenomenon race is virtually unique in sports and tends to have the championship or other events at the end of the season. Daytona 500 has the highest US television ratings for any auto race of the year. In 2006, it attracted the sixth largest average live global TV audience with 20 million sporting viewers. The competition that is as known as “The Great American Race” or the “Super Bowl” serves as the final event of Speedweeks. The game has been associated with President Day weekend and will be held in mid-to-late February.
The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season begins a new with this showcase of speed, skill, and determination as driver battle the famed 2.5-mile tri-oval and 31-degree banking. NASCAR also announced a multi-faceted rules packages for the 2019 Cup Series season. It will be implemented for the Coke Zero Sugar 400 where cars will take only a smaller spacer to restrict air flow into the engine. With the package, the cars will be producing 550 horsepower with the estimated increase of 140 horsepower and will continue at speeds near 200 mph.
The machines will have more power and maneuverability throughout the field as a result. This package will produce the same thrilling style of racing. NASCAR has been using the combination of a tapered spacer and restrictor plate at Daytona International Speedway for the past couple of years. This conical package is more efficient which has allowed the teams to eliminate the need of a restrictor plate and still can maintain the side-by-side racing that fans have come to expect at Daytona.
In 2019 Daytona 500, NASCAR will invite Fernando Alonso, who is two-time Formula 1 champion, to joining the competition in the main event of the Cup Series Season. Fernando Alonso has announced his retirement from Formula 1. According to the BBC, Alonso wants to go on exploring new adventures, so, NASCAR has an idea about being part of those adventures.
The association will invite him to compete at the four-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-kilometer) Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida. If Alonso is joining the next year’s Daytona 500, this will be his first career Cup Series and NASCAR race. Alonso, whose career Formula 1 victory, has had success throughout his entire career in pretty much every series that he has in. The winner of this race will present with the Harley J. Earl Trophy in Victory Lane. The winning car will display for one year at museum and gallery adjacent to Daytona International Speedway, Daytona 500 Experience.