NASCAR Through the Gears: Daytona 500 roulette. Helio’s issue. And about that gas problem

To have a shot at poker glory, they say, all you need is a chip and a chair.

“Just give me a chance (and a pair of aces for hole cards, if you don’t mind).”

At the Daytona 500, you just need four wheels and a starting spot (and some Sunoco, which might soon be hard to find and, yes, more on that later).

We have 45 cars in town for the 500, the most since 2015, when 50 came south and seven left early — that was the last year of the 43-car lineup.

Depending on whether Helio Castroneves makes the field conventionally or through a new NASCAR hall pass, either four or five of those 45 will hit that I-95 North ramp Thursday night after the Duels at Dusk (my new favored name, but I’m not smart enough to copyright it).

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Down below, you’ll eventually learn why we can rule out Helio for a potential Victory Lane visit, but everyone else will have the proverbial chip and chair. Before William Byron’s unsurprising win last year, we saw a three-year Daytona run where the winners were tucked fairly deep on the odds board — Michael McDowell, Austin Cindric, Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

Horsepower-sapping, field-equalizing rules at Daytona (and Talladega and Atlanta) make this anyone’s ballgame, and it all begins with something we haven’t seen in a while around here: practice.

First Gear: A Wednesday morning shakedown as a Daytona wakeup

Years back, it wasn’t uncommon to see some teams come to Daytona in December to get a head-start on Daytona 500 prep. Then all would return in January for official test weekend.

They’d return in February, pull the gear off the haulers for more practice laps to see if the Boys in the Shop got ’er dialed in.

In recent years, all of that: gone. All relics of an earlier time, back before simulators and wind tunnels could replicate conditions and trim the travel budget.

But what’s this, a Daytona practice session right out of the gate? That’s right, Wednesday morning, starting at 10, a 50-minute track availability for the 45 cars and drivers ahead of Wednesday night’s pole qualifying.

Since there’s not another practice before Thursday night’s qualifying races, it’ll be interesting to see who prefers drafting instead of single-car runs in hopes of finding potential pole speed.

There’ll also be practice sessions Friday and Saturday, some of which Helio may devote to entering and exiting the pit.

Second Gear: Off the throttle, Helio, this ain’t Indy!

In his IndyCar and sports-car rides, Helio Castroneves has an easy method for maintaining legal pit-road speed. He just pushes a button, and the onboard computer keeps him at, say, 55 or 60 or whatever the posted limit is for a particular track.

In NASCAR, the driver controls these things with his right foot feathering the throttle and an eyeball glued to the tachometer.

“You have to get that one right,” Helio told Fox Sports in a Daytona preview. “The biggest challenge I think, for me … it’s about six or seven pit stops I have to be careful and control what to do.”

Along with practices and the Thursday qualifier, he’ll also get track time via the 200-mile ARCA race scheduled for Saturday, which is preceded by a Thursday afternoon practice and Friday qualifying.

By the way, Helio isn’t the only Indy/Sports-car crossover entered in the ARCA field. Katherine Legge, the British racer whose long career includes four Indy 500s and 12 Rolex 24s at Daytona, is entered in a Chevy owned by Joe Farré.

Third Gear: Got gas? Through November, yes

Some of you never stopped saying Unocal, and here we are, 21 years later, on the cusp of another possible change in NASCAR’s fuel supplier. This season is the last for Sunoco in its current deal as the official fuel of NASCAR.

They may stay beyond this year. They may not. It’s called negotiating.

According to the smarties over at Sports Business Journal, Sunoco began changing its business model eight years ago by selling more than 1,000 of its convenience stores to 7-Eleven. They say that move “started Sunoco’s shift from being more B2C-focused as a retail store operator to being more B2B-focused as a fuel supplier.”

Got that? I think it means they wanted to quit selling Slurpees and focus on selling gas to those who sell both Slurpees and gas. And corndogs, at the proper locations.

Fourth Gear: Speaking of a Hall pass

We shouldn’t cut the motor without proper congrats to the new members of NASCAR’s Hall of Fame: Ricky Rudd, Carl Edwards and Ralph Moody.

At just 45, by the way, “Cousin Carl” is the youngest Hall of Famer.

The voting will be tougher next year among the modern-era candidates who are eligible (Kurt Busch and Kevin Harvick aren’t eligible yet). We’re getting into that gray area of non-champs in that 16–to-24 career wins range — racers such as Jeff Burton, Harry Gant, Neil Bonnet, Greg Biffle …

… And Geoff Bodine, who not only included a Daytona 500 among his 18 career wins, but put together a spectacular run of success on the Northeast modified circuits before “coming south.” Richie Evans and Jerry Cook are in the NASCAR Hall based almost solely on their modified work. Hell, Bodine can’t even get nominated, which gets you wondering.

— Email Ken Willis at ken.willis@news-jrnl.com

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: NASCAR | Daytona 500 roulette. Pay attention, Helio Castroneves