DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- The truck trailers hauling NASCAR Nextel Cup cars are meant to be rolling billboards for the team's primary sponsor.
Driver Michael Waltrip goes an extra step to let people know who he is. Brilliantly painted in yellow on both sides of his No. 55 hauler is this advertisement: "2001 Daytona 500 Champion" and "2003 Daytona 500 Champion."
For a Nextel Cup driver, few things outshine winning the Daytona 500.
"You get halfway through the season, and it's like who won Richmond? Or who won California, or Vegas? Let's look and see," Vancouver driver Greg Biffle said. "No one asks about Daytona. Everybody knows who won the Daytona 500 all year."
The Daytona 500 is the Super Bowl of auto racing, but in a sense, the Super Bowl could be the Daytona 500 of football.
Known as The Great American Race, the Daytona 500 has been around since 1959, but really, its tradition dates back to 1936, when they used to stage a big race on a makeshift 1.5-mile track on the beach. Much of what appeals to stock car fans -- drafting and 200 mph speeds -- were born at Daytona.
The race draws the nation's largest crowd for a sporting event, as nearly 240,000 show up at Daytona International Speedway on race day. A television audience of approximately 20 million join the on-track spectators, making it one of the country's most-watched sporting events.
Daytona's approximately 180,000 grandstand seats sell out months in advance of the race. It makes for a lucrative secondary market, which can fetch four-figure prices for Daytona 500 race ticket.
Huge money and prestige is at stake. Last year's Daytona 500 purse was $17.6 million, almost double the next largest purse on the Nextel Cup series; this year's purse is more than $18 million. The winner stays in town for a Monday morning champion's breakfast, then usually heads to New York to make major media appearances.
A few week after Ward Burton won the 2002 Daytona 500, the team's car owner, Bill Davis Racing, made a deal to extend the team's sponsorship with Caterpillar.
"You hope it wasn't the only thing it was based on, but it probably made a difference," Davis said.
Like the Super Bowl and Kentucky Derby, the Daytona 500 is a place that attracts stars. The race is well attended by the Hollywood crowd; this year, comedian Jay Leno will drive the pace car. In 2004, President George Bush served as the Daytona 500 honorary starter.
Daytona International Speedway itself is a Disneyland for racing fans. The stadium is replete with historical reminders, and bills itself as "The World Center of Racing." Next door is Daytona USA, an interactive racing museum which includes simulators, pit stop demonstrations, an IMAX theatre and car displays.
What particularly separates the Daytona 500 from the Super Bowl is timing. Rather than serve as the championship game as the Super Bowl does with football, the Daytona 500 is the traditional kickoff to the Nextel Cup season. Like the Super Bowl, there's incredible buildup for the race, as teams test cars, make practice runs and give countless media interviews for two months prior to Daytona 500 race day.
Speed Channel, for example, is doing 70 hours of live broadcasting from Daytona this week leading up to the race.
"It doesn't disappoint," Waltrip said of his two Daytona wins. "It gets better every day."
Did you know?
Should Greg Biffle win Sunday's Daytona 500, he wouldn't be the first Washington native to become its champion. In 1990, Spanaway Lake's Derrike Cope won the Daytona 500, the first Nextel Cup win of his career. Sixteen years later, Cope has won just one other Nextel Cup race, a 1990 event at Dover.
Did you know?
Lee Petty won the first Daytona 500 in 1959, but he wasn't the driver standing in Victory Lane when the race ended. Johnny Beauchamp, who hit the finish line in a bang-bang finish with Petty, was originally awarded the win. But three days later after examining photographic evidence, it was determined that Petty crossed the finish line first and was awarded the victory.
