DAYTONA  INTERNATIONAL  SPEEDWAY  ROAD  COURSE   -   DAYTONA  FL

NASCAR founder William France Sr. began planning for the track in 1953 as a way to promote the series, which at the time was racing on the Daytona Beach Road Course. Ground broke on construction of the 2.5-mile speedway on November 25, 1957 and the first race was in 1959.  The 3.81-mile road course was built in 1959 and first hosted a three-hour sports car race called the Daytona Continental in 1962.  The race length became 2,000 km (1,200 mi) in 1964, and in 1966 was extended to a 24-hour endurance race known as the Rolex 24 at Daytona.  In 1973, a sharp chicane was added at the end of the backstretch, approaching oval turn three due to the sleek high speed performance cars gaining too much speed.  

Then the coronavirus struck in 2020 NASCAR was sidelines for two months with no racing.  When they were able to resume racing; they had to scramble to fill race dates and find alternate locations to make up for missed events.  On July 8, 2020, NASCAR announced that it would race the Daytona road course in all of its national series for the first time in mid-August (with the Cup Series racing the Go Bowling 235), due to current COVID-19 pandemic health restrictions in New York state (requiring 14 days self-isolation on arrival from other states) preventing use of Watkins Glen International.  On July 30, a modification of the course to 

add a chicane near the exit of Turn 12 (NASCAR Turn Four) was announced, lengthening the course to 3.61 miles.  On August 16, the Cup Series raced; making this the first time any NASCAR series had raced on the road course.  Chase Elliott made history by claiming the first ever Cup win on the road course.  To date the only other Cup race was in 2021.  Again, Elliott looked sharp, but he got knocked out of the lead on two separate occasions, ruining his chances of winning.  Christopher Bell made a late race charge, and passed Joey Logano for the win.  No Cup races are currently scheduled for the road course.

 

All Photos copyright and are property of their respective owners