Daytona 500 2012: 3 Reasons This Great American Race Will Be the Best in Years

The 2012 Daytona 500 is going to be an absolute barnburner. This NASCAR season is going to pick up right where it left off, and that is at its absolute, thrilling best. 

As always, this field is loaded, teams are prepared and ready, drivers are getting a heavy pedal foot and fans are jacked. 

Those conditions always make the "Great American Race" exciting, but this race has even more going for it. 

Return of Pack Racing

With modifications to the cars and the smooth-paved track of Daytona, the race was run last year in two-man groups, as you can see here:

This was a boring way to run a race. Drivers were spread out, half the field had to concede to play second fiddle to a lead driver, and it took away all the strategy that comes with running in a pack. Well, that pack racing is back. 

Drivers will still use the two-man groups for short stretches before their cars get too hot, but much of this race is going to be run in a pack. 

And that is going to lead to thrilling strategies, bold moves and a few wrecks. In other words, it will highlight all the reasons NASCAR has thrilled fans.

All of this was on display in last weekend's shootouts. 

Debut of Fuel Injection

For the first time ever, NASCAR drivers will be powered by fuel injection engines. Gone is the antiquated manual tinkering of carburetors, and it has been replaced by the efficient and computer driven technology of fuel injection.

This is going to help make teams smoother changes that are easier to make. Not too mention making the race a little kinder to Mother Nature. 

Doug Yates, CEO of Roush Yates Engines, talks about the changes in an article by Mark Aumann of NASCAR.com. Yates:

"

The competition side is what I really love about racing and our sport. The way we can now tune the engine went from tweaking a distributor and the jetting and the carburetor, to now really doing it with a computer and just keystrokes via the map and the map size that NASCAR allows us for the fuel map and the ignition map.  So it’s a really exciting time, and the way we approach it is totally different.

"

This is the dawn of a new era for NASCAR, and it will great to see how the teams handle it. 

The Storylines 

This race is loaded with intriguing storylines. We have Tony Stewart coming off of his dramatic championship and still deciding to change crew chiefs. 

There is Carl Edwards, who must deal with the heartache of losing the championship on a tie-breaker, and starting off his year by winning the pole. 

Dale Earnhardt Jr. posted the third-best qualifying time and will look to build off of his bounce-back run from last year.

Jimmie Johnson must deal with entering a season as anything but the defending overall champ for the first time in six years, as well as with having been caught with illegal modifications during his practice runs.

Kyle Busch is looking for redemption after serving a late-season suspension for blatantly wrecking someone, and he will come off a win in the Bud Shootout on one of the best displays of driving you will ever see

And then there is Danica Patrick, who is embarking on her first Daytona 500 and full season running with the big boys. 

These are just some of the storylines that are percolating and all reasons why this race is destined to be a classic.