Everyone could see the pothole between turns 1 and 2 at Daytona International Speedway during the Daytona 500. What wasn’t so clear was whether or not the damage to the track was preventable.
There were two red flag periods during the Daytona 500 totaling over two and one half hours. (Photo: Getty Images For NASCAR) » More Photos

NASCAR and DIS workers eventually patched the hole, which grew to about 18-inches by 30-inches, after two race stoppages that lasted more than two hours, 25 minutes.

The track was last repaved in 1978, but DIS President Robin Braig said the age of the asphalt wasn’t the problem.

“It’s not unusually long [to not repave] at all because we’re in Florida,” Braig said. “We have the best temperature here. We keep such great care of our track. We walk it. We walked it [Sunday] morning. We walk it before every event.

“We know every inch. We saw no indications. We had two races [Saturday] on that track and we walked it again. This is something we couldn’t see.”

NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston said that the sanctioning body did not have any indication that the heavy rains nor the cool temperatures had compromised the track during any of the other Speedweek races.

“There was no indication in any of the racing prior to the Daytona 500 that there were any issues with the track,” Poston said. “It was very unfortunate. There were no warning signs for this.”

NASCAR’s sanctioning agreement states that it can require a track to make any fixes necessary.

“Obviously their engineers are here, they’re going to make an assessment and we’ll be there with them and try to gain as much knowledge about the track as we can to see if it is a spot problem or a larger problem,” Poston said.

In all likelihood, the track will not be repaved before the NASCAR events on Independence Day weekend. Sister track Talladega
Superspeedway required five months to be repaved, and Daytona still has motorcycle racing scheduled through the first week of March before it could even start the process. There also needs to be ample time for tire testing because repaving would likely require a different tire specification from Goodyear.

Drivers are split on whether or not to repave the track, which would create higher speeds and also put handling at less of a premium.

“If you ask driver opinion, there’s clearly no consensus on repaving,” Poston said. “In fact, there’s probably closer to a consensus not to repave. But NASCAR’s role and the track’s role is to take in the safety and the maintenance of the track and those factors. They’re going to spend this week looking at it.

“The more laps you put down on the track, the more seasons it gets, the better the racing is. Some drivers, crew chiefs and spotters said yesterday may have been the best all-around racing we have ever had at that track. So the assessment needs to be whether there are patches in the track that need to be addressed or they need to repave the whole thing.”

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