The Daytona 500 is notorious for drivers not giving their rivals an inch on the track often leading to crashes. This was yet again evident at the most recent iteration of the race. Ross Chastain slid through the infield grass off the bumper of Austin Cindric’s Ford. Chastain just missed getting clipped in the wreck as the cars behind him all began to wreck, with 15 drivers affected by this wreck. The caution flag immediately followed and William Byron was declared the winner. 

Over the years Daytona 500 has seen some devastating crashes. Richard Petty’s rollover crash in 1988 and Ryan Newman taking off like an airplane in 20023 are some incidents that come to mind. In light of all this, the question has to be asked: Is The Great American Race sustainable?

The Next-Gen car’s cost makes it very difficult for teams to operate at the Daytona 500

NASCAR has done a great job with driver safety since the Dale Earnhardt tragedy in 2001, but the wrecks have not reduced at all. Just last season, at the final regular season race, Ryan Preece lost control, went onto the grass, got airborne, flipped about a dozen times, and landed with his car looking like a ball of fire. Thankfully, the Stewart-Haas Racing man was unharmed, but his car was unrecognizable.

It must have cost the team several thousand to repair the vehicle that too just a week ahead of the next week’s race. That’s an issue that the teams have been facing ever since the Next-Gen made its debut. But why should that make the Daytona 500 unfeasible? Wrecks can happen at any race. Well, the 500 is not just any race.

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There is no race in the NASCAR schedule that has as much fanfare as The Great American Race, and it’s not just NASCAR that has to splash the cash. As per the Florida Times-Union, the Daytona 500 is the most expensive of the year. This is because the teams have to use 2 engines, one for the Bluegreen Duels and another for the main race. Pair that up with the extra $10,000 expense that is added due to the electronic fuel injection systems. The report also states that some smaller teams have to use the same engine for 3 race weeks straight.

Then there are the expenses one has to deal with when there are crashes. When the Next-Gen car was proposed, the team owners believed that it would be cheaper to purchase the car from a mandated manufacturer. But here’s the kicker: there are many parts that a team has to purchase or manufacture apart from the parts everyone is getting.

Denny Hamlin broke it down quite well in an earlier episode of the Actions Detrimental podcast. He gave a clear idea about just how much team owners have to bear while making the cars and repairing crash damages. The 23XI Racing owner said that when the owners got the budget for the Next Gen, for the first time, the amount was $225,000. However, to set up the car properly and make it race-ready, it costs close to $350,000.

“We’re racing Lambos out there,” the 43-year-old exclaimed. “At the end of the race, I saw a big finish on the start/finish line, I roll back around and I’m like God please don’t be any of our cars. It’s such a big cost.”

“Our crash budget has gone up tremendously because we had to make safety changes for the crashes. So the cars, remember, they didn’t even hardly…Alex Bowman got a concussion right? They probably didn’t even need to put a rear bumper on it the next race. Just very minimal damage at all when they hit the wall. Now, when you hit the wall, you see the cars crushing. Well, it’s crushing expensive s***,” the Joe Gibbs Racing driver added, passionately.

If a team owner of 23XI Racing, a fairly big team with JGR’s backing, is complaining about crash costs, imagine how the smaller teams must feel. So is it really sustainable for NASCAR to keep having a race that for one, demands more of every team irrespective of size, and two, is so treacherous that a crash is likely to take place in it? Hamlin said that these costs are the main reason for contention between NASCAR and the owners when it comes to the new revenue-sharing deal.

But then again, there are a lot of pros to having the Daytona 500 for NASCAR, and those pros are pretty obvious. In a time when the sport is reportedly losing viewership, The Great American Race brings in massive numbers.

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New revenue-sharing model needs to alleviate financial pressure on teams

For several years, the Daytona 500 has been the race with the highest viewership. According to a report by NASCAR viewership analyst Cindy Yen, The Great American Race garnered more than 8 million viewers in the past couple of seasons. This year’s numbers are yet to be released and several fans believe that the numbers will be down as the race was rescheduled to Monday due to the weather conditions. However, there is an argument that suggests otherwise.

A comparison between the 2020 edition of The Great American Race and the 2021 edition showed that NASCAR would be better off with the viewership numbers if the event was rescheduled to Monday due to rain. In 2020, the race had to be rescheduled to Monday due to rain, but the following year, it was completed on Sunday despite the weather. There was a halt for more than 5 hours, which can be pinned as the reason for the dip in viewership. But despite even that, Daytona’s numbers stand tall!

And of course, then there is the sheer revenue that NASCAR and the teams pull from The Great American Race that they simply would not be willing to let go. If the Daytona 500 was free of crashes, the teams involved would probably make a lot of money if they performed well enough. But that’s too utopian a thought. Especially when one factor is the weather. 5 of the last 12 races have seen rain, and that makes the track even more treacherous than it already is.

But there is no way NASCAR is even going to consider taking the Daytona 500 away from the fans. It is a part of the culture that would anger probably everyone involved with the sport. What they need to do is to come up with a revenue-sharing model that alleviates the pressure on the teams, especially the smaller ones. It will be intriguing to understand the structure that the teams and NASCAR will agree upon, hopefully soon in the future.

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