Daytona 500: Alex Bowman on pole; Travis Pastrana, Jimmie Johnson make the race

Start your calendar.

The 2023 NASCAR season is upon us, with the first official competition on the near horizon. As in tonight!

NASCAR's top drivers will spend much of the day talking and posing for pictures. "Media Day" has been a preseason ritual for about two decades now.

But tonight, after they're talked out, they'll get down to business. Basically, it's only a matter of holding down the right foot and keeping that car planted as close as possible to the bottom of the racing groove, as Daytona 500 pole qualifying sets the front row for Sunday's Great American Race.

It begins at 8:15, but we're bound to see quite a few headlines throughout the day.

Stay tuned here for the good stuff.

Thursday NASCAR live updates at Daytona:Keep up with the action here. The duels are today

NASCAR SPEED FREAKSAfter McDowell and Cindric, who's Daytona 500's next 1st-time winner?

LARRY MAC'Mixed emotions': McReynolds reflects on safety, wins, Earnhardt's death ahead of Daytona 500

New Trackhouse extension: NASCAR's Ross Chastain signs, preaches watermelon advocacy at Daytona

Alex Bowman, Hendrick Motorsports, dominate again on Daytona 500 pole day

Alex Bowman captured his third Daytona 500 pole and sixth straight front-row starting spot by speeding to the pole in Wednesday night's qualifying at Daytona International Speedway. The s

Bowman, in the No. 88 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports, averaged 181.686 mph around the 2.5-mile trioval. Bowman's lap time was 49.536 seconds, less than two tenths of a second faster than Hendrick teammate Kyle Larson, who averaged 181.057 mph.

"Just proud of Hendrick Motorsports, all the guys," Bowman said. "This Camaro is obviously really fast."

Behind Larson, with the third fastest time, is another Hendrick driver, William Byron, followed by Aric Almirola and Joey Logano.

Second round of qualifying underway

The 10 drivers to advance into the second round of Daytona 500 qualifying:

Alex Bowman, William Byron, Joey Logano, Chase Briscoe, Aric Almirola, Kyle Busch, Kyle Larson, Austin Cindric, Harrison Burton, Ryan Blaney.

The two fastest will lock in front-row starts in Sunday's Daytona 500.

Jimmie Johnson, Travis Pastrana can relax, they're in Daytona 500

About halfway through pole qualifying, Harrison Burton and the Wood Brothers' No. 21 Ford is atop the scoring pylon at a tick above 180 mph.

Bigger news, though, came a few slots down. Jimmie Johnson, former Daytona 500 champ and seven-time Cup Series champ who's coming back to NASCAR (part-time) after two years in IndyCar, claimed one of four starting spots for non-exempt teams.

The other went to "action hero" Travis Pastrana, who will race his first Daytona 500.

"I tell you what, qualifying for the 500 is literally a dream come true. This is bigger than big," Pastrana said.

With 25 of the 42 cars completing their qualifying lap, Johnson is 10th and Pastrana 12th. Whatever happens in Thursday's qualifying races, they clinch Sunday starts as the two fastest qualifiers among the non-charter teams here for the race.

World's biggest stock-car race, but no practice for Travis Pastrana, others, before Daytona 500 pole qualifying

Travis Pastrana, motocross and rally-racing superstar, is attempting to get into the Daytona 500. One path is to post one of the two fastest qualifying speeds Wednesday night among the six teams in town without a guaranteed starting spot.

Just his luck, this is the first year NASCAR hasn't scheduled a practice session (or two) before pole qualifying.

"For me, I’ll find out in the first turn what my balance is like," Pastrana said. "But it sure would be nice to have more than one turn to figure that out."

As both driver and team co-owner, Brad Keselowski recalls his reaction upon seeing this week's schedule with that glaring omission.

"Oh, it definitely surprised me," Keselowski said. "But you know, the sport’s always changing. I’ve gotten to a point where I try not to be surprised, but that one got me."

Will it matter in the long run?

"I’d like to have hindsight to answer that question," Keselowski said. "Can I have until Sunday night to answer that one? I’ll be a lot smarter then."

The theory is, modern engineers, particularly when armed with modern simulators, can dial in a car for Daytona without so much as putting in a mile on asphalt.

"I think it’ll be fine," Alex Bowman said. "It’s obviously stressful. I came down here not locked in once, or twice, but it’s the same for everybody. Just gotta go do your job."

That's assuming the engineers did their jobs, and Bowman feels they'll have no trouble getting the cars perfectly ready to roll off the haulers and into Turn 1.

"As close as you can possibly get," he said. "They’re really good at what they do."

Ross Chastain OK with NASCAR enforcing the rule against his Martinsville "Hail Melon"

Remember Ross Chastain's unimaginable, last-lap, wall-hugging dash at Martinsville? The video-game move that sent him past several competitors and into the playoffs?

Well, it turns out, there is an old rule against such things, and now NASCAR says it will enforce that rule if the situation arises again.

For his part, Ross the Boss says he's fine with putting that move away for good.

"I’m proud of what it accomplished for us and we were able to do it in a meaningful way in a race that mattered," he said Wednesday at Daytona. "In the life-changing aftermath, going and fighting for a championship and coming up 235 feet short is something I’ll always be proud of.

"But I’m OK with not letting us do it anymore."

Larson still working to figure out superspeedways

A few times in the past, Kyle Larson came out of a race at a superspeedway feeling like he finally had that style of racing figured out. Then, he returned for the next race, and inevitably, something snapped him back to reality.

“Like, ‘OK, no I don't (have it figured out),’” he said. “It’s unique. It’s hard to study for because it changes. Almost every time you go, you go back to a place where setups evolve, cars evolve, so it's hard.”

Despite being a 19-time Cup Series race winner, Larson has never won at a superspeedway. He’s winless in 32 career starts at Daytona International Speedway including the Duels.

Last year, he finished 32nd at the Daytona 500 after getting involved in an accident and 37th at the Coke Zero 400.

“I'm sure at some point in my career the stars will align,” Larson said. “I need to do a better job of putting myself in the right spot. I used to always say, ‘Oh, I've got bad luck at these places.'

“I don't think those guys that are always in contention have better luck than me. I think they're putting themselves in a better position to avoid crashes. I seem to always find my way to around 10th, and that's kind of where you get swarmed up in a crash. Just got to continue to try and evolve and figure it out quickly to be up front.”

Kevin Harvick's parting gift to Austin Cindric: Two Clash punts

Kevin Harvick is retiring at year's end, and defending Daytona 500 champ Austin Cindric was asked for his thoughts on the 2014 Cup champion.

"Well, he dumped me twice at the Clash. I sure didn't spin on my own," Cindric said Wednesday. "I remember I got an ass-chewing from him last year at COTA."

As for Harvick's final season, which happens to be Cindric's second as a full-time Cup driver ...

"I don’t think he’s gonna care about anyone else all year," he said. "I expect it to be full throttle all year, for sure."

Bubba Wallace taking positives away from "gut punch" second-place finish in 2022

After placing as the runner-up in the Daytona 500 for the second time in his career last year, Bubba Wallace felt dejected. It was a “gut punch,” he said last February.

Wallace crossed the finish line just 0.036 seconds after winner Austin Cindric. It was the third-smallest margin of victory in Daytona 500 history. And it took a day — or two or three — to move on.

“I was over it probably Monday night,” Wallace said Wednesday before pausing. “Eh, maybe Tuesday morning.”

Another pause.

“Eh, I don’t know.”

Now entering his sixth season in the Cup Series, Wallace has established himself as a consistent contender at Daytona International Speedway. He has four top-5 finishes at the track.

“You look at the glass half full, glass half empty,” he said. “I mean, we finished second in the Great American Race. We made a good run there without a right front fender. It could’ve went wrong — way wrong. But it didn’t, and we survived. You take the good with the bad and try to move on, and you learn from it.”

Alex Bowman, Daniel Suarez, pack some security in their trunks

A pair of popular racers have been given contract extensions on the eve of NASCAR's 75th Cup Series season and the 65th Daytona 500, which kicks off that season Sunday afternoon.

Alex Bowman, coming off an abbreviated 2022 season, has received a three-year extension at Hendrick Motorsports, taking him through the 2026 season.

His main team sponsor, Detroit-based Ally Financial, has inked a five-year extension with Hendrick, through 2028.

Bowman missed five races late last season due to concussion symptoms following a crash at Texas in Week 30. He returned for the season-ending race at Phoenix and finished 34th. In five full seasons, he has seven wins, with four of them coming in 2021.

Daniel Suarez and Trackhouse Racing also announced a contract extension for the veteran racer, who's beginning his third season at Trackhouse and his seventh overall in the Cup Series. Details were withheld on Suarez's deal.

The Mexico native got his first Cup Series win last year, on the road course at Sonoma (Calif.). He came to the big-league Cup Series in 2017 after winning the 2016 Xfinity Series championship with Joe Gibbs Racing. His Cup entry came earlier than originally anticipated, due to the sudden retirement of Gibbs driver Carl Edwards before the 2017 season.

Ticket, weather info for tonight at Daytona 500 qualifying

While the longer-term forecast looks promising for race week at Daytona, the short-term prognosis is downright glorious. Temps in the mid to upper 70s throughout the day dip a bit to the upper 60s, with light southeast winds as qualifying cranks to life at 8:15.

Grandstand tickets for qualifying, which sets the two-car front row for Sunday's Daytona 500, are $20. It's the cheapest ticket of the week.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: DAYTONA 500: Alex Bowman on pole; Travis Pastrana, Jimmie Johnson are in