Sprint Showdown: Grab a Coke, Smile For Four Hundred Miles
Originally called the Firecracker and once sponsored by Pepsi, this summer showdown at Daytona, now known as the Coke Zero 400 powered by Coca-Cola (Saturday night, 8 p.m. EDT on TNT).
Originally designed to showcase other racing series, this 400-miler has become quite the classic in its own right, with dark horses and champions crowned in Daytona International Speedway's July tradition.
From Fireball Roberts' win in 1959 in what was originally a 250-miler to last year's exciting victory by Kyle Busch in the 400-miler, Daytona tends to showcase the best and sometimes bring a smile to the underdogs of racing.
Guys like Sam McQuagg, Charlie Glotzbach, Pete Hamilton, Greg Sacks, and John Andretti are some of the faces of the drivers who had their biggest moment in NASCAR with a win in this Independence Day festivity.
There's always the talk about having a drafting partner, which is imperative on-the-track, as well as down pit road, when you need that other car to get you back up to speed exiting off your box.
Just how much drafting is too much drafting?
When a competitor pushes the car out front too hard, that often leads to what fans love and hate in the form of "The Big One," or the crash that seemingly eliminates half the field.
Fan favorites to offshoots are often collected in that mess, which certainly change the complexion of the race picture.
That's when the true, hard, gritty racing begins—drivers selling each other out for another drafting partner, close-quarter moves, paint trading, and alliances that are only as good as the total number of minutes that Megan Fox is shown in Transformers 2.
Will we see a repeat winner in the form of Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kyle Busch, or Tony Stewart? Or will the race showcase a first time winner or the underdog victory?
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