Lots of history and heat at Daytona this week

Friday and Saturday night under the hot lights of Daytona there will be post 4^th of July racing. ESPN will have Friday nights Nationwide Firecracker 250 race starting at 7:30 p.m. ET with radio on the MRN Network and Sirius XM.

TNT gets Saturday’s Sprint Cup the Coke Zero 400 starting at 7:30 p.m. ET with the radio the same as Friday’s race. Two big races at Daytona over the holiday weekend and that makes for some hot racing both nights.

For years the Daytona Firecracker 400 was in many ways one of the summer’s best races. As a kid I loved to go to the race because unlike the Daytona 500, which is run in February, the 400 was run in the bright hot sun of July.

A trip to the beach was always in order and the bikinis in July are a whole lot more enjoyable then the few you see in February. It is an easy formula – hotter in July means less clothing – I am not a weatherman but it is far more comfortable to be there in July.

Few people know that USAC the open wheel racers that we now know as IndyCar were scheduled to run in a 300 mile race on the 4^th of July in 1959 at Daytona as complimentary race to the newly minted NASCAR sanctioned 500.

 But in April of 1959 the USAC cars came to Daytona for the first race of their season. The first ever Daytona 100 was also the last race for USAC as the open wheel cars were far too fast and two dangerous to run on the high back track. Two drivers Marshall Teague and George Amick would die in separate crashes at the speedway that first week in April. The USAC officials took Daytona off the schedule and the 4^th of July race was run in Pikes Peake instead.

So NASCAR stepped in and took over the 1959 date making it a 250 mile race or half the size of the Daytona 500.  In 1963 the race was expanded and took on a new name Firecracker 400 and it has become a feature race on the NASCAR summer series.

So, that brings us to this week’s Coke Zero 400 (still like the Firecraker 400) and what we can expect in the heat at Daytona.