America 250 Florida Duel at Daytona 2026

The history of motorsports at Daytona Beach reaches back to the early 1900s, when the region’s hard sand beaches were used for land speed records; between 1904 and 1935, numerous land speed records were established here. On March 8, 1936, the first official stock car race took place on a 3.2-mile course made of asphalt and sand. After World War II, local driver and promoter William “Big Bill” France Sr. founded NASCAR, and the Beach Road Course became the defining racing venue of the young series in the late 1940s and 1950s.

By the mid-1950s, increasing development, tidal issues, and growing crowds made racing on the beach impractical, so France planned a permanent high-speed facility. On November 25, 1957, construction began on the 2.5-mile tri-oval course designed by Charles Moneypenny and France. On February 22, 1959, the Daytona International Speedway opened with the first Daytona 500, which ended in a legendary photo finish between Lee Petty and Johnny Beauchamp; Petty was declared the official winner only 61 hours later.

Today’s track measures 4.023 kilometers and consists of four turns with a banking angle of 31 degrees, while the frontstretch is laid out as a tri-oval with 18 degrees of banking and the backstretch is nearly flat. The enormous banking allows Cup drivers to take the turns at full throttle, making drafting, side-drafting, and the interplay of multiple racing lines decisive for the race outcome. The abrupt transition between the racing surface and the flat asphalt apron is considered one of the greatest hazards and promotes the feared mass crashes known at Daytona as the “Big One.”

Numerous great names have etched themselves into the Daytona International Speedway winner’s list, most recently Ryan Blaney in 2025. The official track record has been held since 2020 by Erik Jones with a time of 0:43.682, evidence of the enormous speeds generated by the steep banking. Between 2013 and 2016, the facility was modernized as part of the approximately 400 million dollar “DAYTONA Rising” project and transformed into a stadium with over 101,000 seats, without altering the character of the banking curves.