DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Will
Jimmie Johnson do what hasn't been done in 31 years? Or might
Danica Patrick do what's never been done?
Probably not.
But those are the two hottest questions going into Saturday night's Coke Zero 400.
Call them too pop-culture in nature, with two mainstream names, not inside enough for hard-core NASCAR fans, if you will. But, hey: This is a pop-culture race, always has been, run in a hurry before an audience comprised more of beachgoers than serious fans.
This is the direct descendent of the Firecracker 400, which many still deem the best name ever for a NASCAR race, before the advent of commercial names.
What Johnson could do is become the first driver to sweep both races at Daytona International Speedway in a single season since
Bobby Allison did it in 1982.
Patrick, as with every week she fires her engine, can become the first woman to win a major NASCAR race -- but it's much more interesting this weekend than it has been at, say, Michigan or Charlotte this year.
She started on the pole for the Daytona 500 in February, ran in the lead pack throughout the race, was third going into the final lap and wound up eighth because she didn't yet know how to swim with the sharks in a restrictor-plate-racing shuffle at the end.
So this could be her best shot to win since the season opener.
Johnson was quick but subtle to point out the differences in his own task from what Allison accomplished.
"Have plates been on for 31 years too?" JJ deadpanned. Allison's feat came five years before restrictor plates were instituted. In '82 a driver could race and win on his and his car's own merits. Now, of course, a driver is largely along for the wild ride in the shuffling and scrambling of plate racing, depending on others for aerodynamic pushes and pulls.
And this may be the same track Johnson won the Daytona 500 on this year, but conditions are different -- somehow even more intense for the summer race than for NASCAR's showcase event in February.
"When you come back for this event the track has so much less grip, much hotter conditions, and there is just more urgency to lead … just more energy and more opportunities to make mistakes in the July race than in the February race … .
"Also, everybody is just charged up for a night race, Fourth of July weekend and all those things."
Different, yes, but, "I feel like it's not going to be worlds of difference," Patrick said in response to questions as to whether she can deliver a drive as electrifying as hers in February.
Hinton: Around the track
What was there to learn Friday in Daytona? Dale Earnhardt Jr. is OK with the return of the "3." It's hot, but not that hot, Tony Stewart is no gymnast plus a whole lot more, writes Ed Hinton.
Story"Yeah, I can do the same thing," she said. "I don't get worse as the year goes on."
Her friend and TV commercial colleague,
Dale Earnhardt Jr., got a point blank question: Can Danica actually win this race?
"Yes. Of course. Absolutely," he said.
Patrick figures the biggest reason she dropped back from third to eighth in the last-lap shuffle in February was that she failed to take advantage of an opportunity to work with Earnhardt in the waning moments.
Should the two find themselves in position to draft together again Saturday night, does Patrick now have enough experience that Earnhardt could help her win? Or, conversely, enough experience that she could help Earnhardt win?
"The answer is yes for both," Earnhardt said. "With plate racing you just don't know.
Mark Martin was pushing me in the [February] race and he has as much experience as anybody, and we didn't get the job done, as good as I think we are at it …
"You just sort of go by your gut in those last moments," Earnhardt continued. "It just comes down to anyone, her or I or anybody, making that gut decision at that moment …
"You don't fall back on years of experience," Earnhardt said. "It comes down to, really, like dodging a bullet as you move left or right and hope you make the right decision."
Where the Daytona 500 is NASCAR's showcase race, the 400 is a sprint with enormous sense of urgency, flying by the gut, dodging bullets.
"Firecracker 400" still says it best about this race.