DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — From Jimmie Johnson’s NASCAR return to Kevin Harvick’s farewell. From defending Daytona 500 winner Austin Cindric having to break into his father’s motorhome because he locked the keys inside, to Kyle Busch sharing a ride with his longtime nemesis.
There were just some of the tales from Wednesday’s Daytona 500 Media Day.
The all-day affair is when drivers in the NASCAR Cup Series meeting the media before the action begins on the track at Daytona International Speedway.
As if that wasn’t enough, single-lap time trials for the Daytona 500 were scheduled to begin at 8:15 p.m. Eastern Time.
First things first.
Johnson Back In A Stock Car
After two years in the NTT IndyCar Series as the driver of No. 48 Carvana Honda at Chip Ganassi Racing, seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson made has returned to cars with roofs and fenders.
The two-time Daytona 500 winner returns as the owner/driver of the No. 84 Carvana Chevrolet at The Legacy Motor Club.
When asked if getting back in a stock car was like riding a horse, Johnson quipped, “We’re going to find out. With all this practice, I feel right at home to go straight into qualifying.”
What makes Daytona 500 pole qualifications so unique is each driver entered in the race has to run their fastest timed lap without any practice. It’s the first “official” NASCAR Cup Series track activity before the biggest race on the schedule.
It’s also Johnson’s first race in the Next Gen car.
“There are nerves,” Johnson said. “I know how much effort the team has put into all three cars. I feel really good about that. But there is some level of anxiety because you don’t get practice laps.
“I really hope we have a strong qualifying effort tonight to make tomorrow night less stress free.”
The complicated qualification format for the Daytona 500, which also includes Thursday night’s two 150-mile qualifying races and the speeds turned in Thursday night’s single-lap session along with the top 36 cars on entrant points that have Charters guaranteed starting positions.
Because Johnson has not raced full-time in NASCAR since 2020, he needs to either be fast in single lap runs or finish high enough in his Thursday night qualification race.
On Friday, Johnson will get a chance to fly with the famed Thunderbirds of the United States Air Force.
“I’ve been pushing that off for decades,” Johnson admitted. “I’ve had that opportunity for a while. I don’t know if I will ever get asked again. I was always afraid I was going to puke and now I’m not going to eat a lot so there won’t be much to puke up and I’m going to go let it rip.
“I really look forward to being scared, I get motion sickness so easily. I’m going to puke. I know it’s going to happen.”
Harvick’s Swan Song
Kevin Harvick’s incredible NASCAR Cup Series career will come to an end this season. It includes a win in the 2007 Daytona 500, Cup Series victories at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2003, 2019 and 2020, and the 2014 NASCAR Cup Series championship.
With 60 wins over 22 seasons, Harvick is one of NASCAR’s all-time greats.
Kevin Harvick after his win at Richmond (Va.) Raceway last season. (HHP/Andrew Coppley)
He explained his approach to his final season before joining FOX Sports as one of the analysts for NASCAR on FOX.
“Dale Jr. summed it up for me by saying it was my NFG tour,” Harvick said, and feel free to use your imagine for what ‘NFG’ means. “If we have to settle scores, we will settle them immediately. We aren’t waiting until next week.
“If it rolls, we are settling them.”
Many of those scores that were settled throughout his career was with his nemesis, Kyle Busch.
Both drivers have their young sons involved in racing including Harvick’s son Keelan and Busch’s son Brexton.
“Kevin actually gave me a ride over here this morning, from the short track,” Busch said as their sons were competing at Citrus County Speedway, south of Ocala, Florida. “We rode together and that is kind of weird, right? Almost like ‘Days of Thunder’ where we should have gotten our own rental cars. It would have been a Ford versus a Chevy and that would have been funny.
“Him having Keelan and me having Brexton and us having things outside the race track, and different things in life like you mentioned to focus on and what it will teach you, has meant a lot to the both of us in how we can relate and work with one another.”
Cindric’s Motorhome Fiasco
Defending Daytona 500 winner Austin Cindric was locked out of his motorhome Tuesday night and needed an assist from fellow driver Harrison Burton of The Wood Brothers.
He explained the process on Wednesday.
“The danger of what we were doing didn’t set in until a little bit later, but I’ll get into that,” Cindric said. “To clarify, the Airstream isn’t mine, it’s my parents. My dad brought it down here for the Rolex and organized it with the track to let us keep it here, so we don’t have to go back and forth. It’s only two or three weeks in-between.
“So, in between miscommunications, there’s really only one full set of keys and that full set of keys ended up being locked into the trailer on purpose. I didn’t quite know that at 8:30 at night. I had a partial set, but it only does the dead bolt and a few other things.
“The door was locked, so I was trying to figure out where the keys are. Nobody knows where the keys are, so the sleeping bed is in the front of the trailer, and I know it’s on a hinge because last year I was having to find fuses under there.
“I was like, ‘All right, if I can crawl in there and get enough leverage to push up on the bed, I should be able to crawl. out.’
“That’s when I called Harrison Burton.
“Harrison comes over and I’m trying to figure out how to lift myself in without breaking the latch and all this other stuff because my dad would kill me. I had Harrison pick up my legs and shove me in and, from there, I realized I didn’t have near enough leverage to pick up a bed because the hinge is here and there’s about a one-foot gap I would be able to get in if I lifted the bed up all the way.
“I was doing more to pick up all of the other structure around me than the actual bed, so that was a problem.”
The NASCAR duo had to come up with a creative solution in order to solve this unexpected problem.
“We decided it was a good idea to take off the panel that separates the bed, so we took out like 20 wood screws and that couldn’t pull off because it was stuck on something else,” Cindric continued. “About that time, enough people on the team and Pops (Team Penske President Tim Cindric) had called me and said, ‘Look, the keys are inside, so whatever you’re doing to break in, just keep going.’
“So, any means necessary.
“Confirmed.
“So, I tried to take up the panel and couldn’t do it, so we tried to lift up on the whole thing to see what was keeping the panel from coming off and as I lifted up some of the panels kind of moved and shifted the bed forward and there was a bit of a hole.
“I’m like, ‘All right, Harrison is there enough room for you to crawl in if I keep lifting up?’ So, I lock out my arms and Harrison shimmies through the hole on the side of the bed and the rest is history.
“Harrison brought out the keys. The bed is still stable. I kind of halfway put it back in position, had to take some stuff off to make sure it wouldn’t move around, but that’s how Speedweeks has started.”
Keyword: Daytona 500 Media Day: From Johnson’s Return To Harvick’s Last