DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — They are the signature spectacles in each racing series, the Indianapolis 500 and all its pageantry with more than a century of tradition and milk drinking in open wheel racing, and the Daytona 500, NASCAR’s season opener run under the Florida sun at the unofficial home of the “ birthplace of speed.”
Indy and Daytona.
Just say the city names to even casual sports fans and they’ll surely know each of them as two of the biggest dates — for sure, two of the biggest parties — in American racing.
They are united by four wheels, 500 miles on a 2 1/2-mile track, and raucous crowds of 100,000-plus fans that spill into Indy’s Snake Pit and Daytona’s Tent City.
And, well, not much else.
“They’re two completely different concepts of racing and I think people don’t really understand the differences,” said Juan Pablo Montoya, a two-time Indy 500 champion with seven starts in the Daytona 500.
Montoya is one of the handful of elite drivers to attempt racing in both the Indianapolis 500 and the Daytona 500. This year’s Daytona 500 field is dotted with drivers who have tried both, including seven-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson, AJ Allmendinger, Kyle Larson and even a Daytona 500 rookie in four-time Indy 500 champion Helio Castroneves.
While a longshot, the Brazilian star is attempting to match A.J. Foyt and Mario Andretti as the only drivers to win the Indy 500 and the Daytona 500.
Castroneves will have some help in the draft — the tricky mix of downforce and drag — from three other teammates at Trackhouse Racing.
“I think the main difference is, they’re both unique to survive,” Montoya said. “The factor with NASCAR that makes it really difficult is that you not only depend on yourself to win the race, you depend on your teammates pushing you, your friends. Having the teammates close to you at the right time makes a bigger difference than anything else.”
Here’s what some of this year’s drivers who steeled their nerves over 500 miles in both races have to say about the challenges of them both — and how Castroneves might fare in Sunday’s race.
“The race itself and the ways the cars behave in the draft are so different. I’m very curious to see what Helio thinks as he gets more experience on the track. In IndyCar, the tow is just mind-blowing how much it helps cars pick up speed. A tow in the stock car is minimal. All the energy comes from behind the push. Really just different dynamics.”
Johnson is a two-time Daytona 500 winner and the 2022 rookie of the year at the Indianapolis 500.
Kyle Larson
On the crowd:
“Both atmospheres are really good, for sure. I don’t know. They’re still, like, very different. Like, it’s hard to answer that because they’re both the peak of the sport. They just have their differences.
“The infield at Indy has the Snake Pit, but the infield here has all the campers, and that’s really cool. Driver intros sort of similar. The crowd feels closer to you at Indy, at least the grandstand crowd. The frontstretch at Indy is swarmed with people. But pit road is also similar to that here. But it’s more race fans. I don’t know. I feel like maybe Indy just has like a little bit more of the kind of history feel to it than the 500, Daytona 500. Other than that, I mean, they’re both great. The atmospheres at both of them were great.”
On the cars:
“I think the challenging part potentially is just probably the weaker brakes. You don’t slow down as good as you would in IndyCar for like a green-flag pit cycle. Maximizing time for the green-flag ins-and-outs, that’s where it’s going to be probably a challenge. Too, at Indy, it’s so narrow, y’all just follow each other. Here it’s like you’re trying to pass people, braking and stuff. That’s probably where he’ll get a little bit maybe overwhelmed at times. But he’ll get the hang of it. It’s not a big deal. He’ll be fine.”
Larson is NASCAR’s 2021 Cup Series champion, competed in the Indy 500 last year and will return this May.
On the cars:
“Where do you start, I guess? I think when it comes to the Daytona 500, just that pack racing, right? You’re constantly side-by-side. The Indy 500, the year I ran it, the way the aero was, you make big runs and stuff, but you’re not side-by-side constantly. I think that to me is the bigger difference of the way you race those races. You have to be pinpoint accurate in either car. The consequences are really high in both cars if you make a mistake. I think the stress of not having to be side-by-side at the Indy 500 constantly is a little bit easier. But you’re also running 50 miles-per-hour quicker.”
On the crowd:
“We all love motorsports. There’s a handful of races you can say to somebody that’s not a motorsports person and they know exactly what it is. These two races, you could argue the four biggest races in the world, you could put up Monaco, you could put up Le Mans, maybe. The energy of this race as you build up to it and as you walk out and they announce you, at least for me, it’s the same emotion for sure.”
Allmendinger finished third in the 2009 and 2017 Daytona 500s, and was seventh in the 2013 Indy 500 and leading until he was forced to pit because his seatbelt became undone.
