Parity Is Striking Daytona

No less an authority than the King, Richard Petty, summed up what nearly everyone in stock car racing is saying about today’s Daytona 500: “It’s a wide-open race.”

Unlike many years, when only a few drivers had a realistic shot at winning, there seems to be a strong contender in nearly every garage.

There is Tony Stewart, the defending Nextel Cup champion. Jeff Gordon, who won the race last year, and 2004 winner Dale Earnhardt Jr. Pole sitter Jeff Burton. Jimmie Johnson. Elliott Sadler. Greg Biffle. Carl Edwards. And on and on.

“I’ve been here since they started this stuff,” said Petty, who won the Daytona 500 a record seven times, and “this is probably as even a field as I can remember.”

One reason: The huge sums being poured into NASCAR by multi-car teams owned by Jack Roush, Roger Penske, Robert Yates and Richard Childress, not to mention Petty, that are backed by scores of corporate sponsors.

Their deep pockets provide most of this year’s drivers the latest in racing technology and equipment, narrowing the differences between the drivers.

Veteran Dale Jarrett, another favorite in his Robert Yates Ford Fusion, said it is “way more difficult” to compete than when he first came into the sport.

“I can go back to ‘99, when we won our championship -- which wasn’t that long ago -- and we could have an off-day and finish in the top 10,” Jarrett said. “You have an off-day now and you’re going to be 25th.”

The Daytona 500 is expected to draw about 200,000 spectators to the 2.5-mile Daytona International Speedway, 30 million to their television sets. Forecasters expect mostly cloudy skies and temperatures in the mid-60s.

The race not only is NASCAR’s preeminent event, it also gives the winner momentum going into next Sunday’s race at California Speedway in Fontana, the Auto Club 500, and an early lead in the chase for the Nextel Cup title.

There is another equalizer already built into the 43-car field that figures to make today’s race wide open: The carburetor restrictor plates that NASCAR mandates at Daytona and Talladega.

The plates, which choke horsepower, are a safety feature intended to keep the cars from exceeding 200 mph on those high-banked oval tracks.

But they also keep the cars in tightly bunched packs that put an emphasis on “drafting” other cars to reach the front, so the race turns into “a 200-mph chess match,” said Sadler, who won one of the Daytona 500 qualifying races Thursday and is Jarrett’s teammate.

The close quarters caused by restrictor plates also provided an incubator for the biggest controversy that surfaced this year in the days leading to the 500: dangerous “bump-drafting.”

Stock cars have been banging into each other since the sport began half a century ago. More recently, drivers increasingly have used bump-drafting -- bumping their cars’ noses into the rear of a car ahead of them -- to push both of them forward. But at 190 mph, the tactic also can cause the front car to lose control.

Stewart, after competing in the Budweiser Shootout exhibition race a week ago, said the bump-drafting had become so intense that “we’re going to kill somebody” unless NASCAR took action.

NASCAR listened. Shortly after Stewart’s outburst, race officials said they would monitor bump-drafting this week and penalize any driver who crossed the line.

The action “was too aggressive,” said NASCAR Chairman Brian France. “I was a little astonished at some of those really hard hits, particularly in the corners. You knew that wasn’t good.”

But NASCAR, intentionally, didn’t say exactly what form of bump-drafting would not be tolerated, or what the penalty would be.

That left all the drivers and their owners guessing -- and cautious.

“I don’t know what’s too much ... until someone gets penalized,” said Sadler. “I don’t want to be the first guy” to get a slap on the wrist, he said, “but we also don’t know where the bar is set.”

And they might not find out until the final laps of today’s race, with “everybody pushing the envelope as far as they can until NASCAR steps in,” he said.

That could set up even more controversy if one of the drivers fighting for the win gets penalized for bumping too hard.

“It’s going to be a test of NASCAR’s will and the drivers’ patience,” said Roush, whose drivers include Biffle, Edwards and Mark Martin. “What they decide in the [scoring] tower could have a lot of bearing on the outcome of the race.”

The bump-drafting imbroglio also set up a debate about whether Stewart had become the drivers’ public voice, a position last occupied by the late Dale Earnhardt.

The question assumed weight this week because this is the five-year anniversary of Earnhardt’s death in a last-lap crash at the Daytona 500, and tributes abounded for “the Intimidator,” who won seven Cup championships.

Stewart, who drives a Chevrolet for Joe Gibbs Racing, would appear to be a natural candidate to fill the void left by Earnhardt. Besides being the defending Nextel Cup champion, Stewart has deep racing experience, a big fan base and an outspoken persona that commands attention.

But Stewart, 34, said, “I don’t feel like I’m in some elected position to be a leader. I just did what I thought was right.”

Besides, the Indiana native said, there is still a void on his resume: He has yet to win the Daytona 500.

“All I want,” he said, “is that trophy at the end of the day.”