Dale Earnhardt Jr apparently likes the view from the front and the winners circle as he won the qualifying race Thursday and will be one of the favorites when the flag drops on the Daytona 500. Junior left DEI just for chances like these and he knows he must make the most of his opportunities especially with the teammates he now has.

Denny Hamlin drove his Toyota to victory in the second qualifying race and is another driver you will want to watch. Tony Stewart is a guy that is always a threat, but some names that you do not think would miss is are going home and one guy who you thought was is not going home. Kenny Wallace making the Daytona 500 shocked me while guys like Bill Elliott, Boris Said, and Sterling Marlin are going home. This is how competitive the Daytona 500 is and it seems to get worse every year.

This years dual qualifying races at Daytona should be something to see as many drivers such as Dale Jarrett and others might not even make it to the big race. They cannot make it on qualifying time so they need to get into the field during this race. This means many drivers will be beating and banging each other cars.

Making the Daytona 500 is extremely big especially for a sponsor who is paying the bills so you can race. The Daytona 500 has a big audience and getting to this race can help set the tome for rest of the year and maybe grab you a sponsor for rest of the year and not just a few races. Watching them should be very interesting and we will see who is in and who is out which is the way it should be anyway.

This could be a very interesting start to the season when they drop the flag at the Daytona 500. Many storylines will jump at us right away. One of the first is will Jimmie Johnson three peat or will another Hendrick driver step up and take it away from him. With Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr as teammates Johnson will have plenty of pressure put on him.

As for the others who are the guys who could in the end dethrone Jimmie Johnson. I like Jeff Burton who has been doing well lately and he is a guy to watch. Don’t count out Tony Stewart, Matt Kenseth, Carl Edwards, Clint Bowyer, Ryan Newman, Kurt Busch or about 10 others. As you can see so many drivers really do have a shot and this is the mass appeal of Nascar. Can’t wait until we get this season going. It promises to be a very wild ride indeed.