Which NASCAR Track Pays the Most to the Teams?

The world of racing centers around the Daytona International Speedway every February for the Daytona 500. Every NASCAR season has kicked off with this inaugural race since 1982. The 500 mile race is an important event not only for fans but for the teams and drivers as well. Joe Gibbs Racing president Dave Alpern has given a reason as to why it is so.

Advertisement Answering a fan’s question recently, Alperan detailed to the JGR media team how it was the highest paying race on the calendar. He mentioned the difference in money from the Daytona 500 to other events was so wide that the race could decide how the rest of the season went for teams. In his words, Advertisement In 2023, the ‘Great American Race’ was reported to have an overall prize money package of $26,934,357.

This figure was distributed amongst all the teams with the winner grabbing the biggest share of the pie. However, the exact breakdown figures remain a mystery since NASCAR does not reveal the intricacies of the payouts anymore. According to veteran reporter Bob Pockrass, the winner would have received somewhere around $2.3 million considering all the variables.

Since the turn of the century and the advent of the charter system, the payout from the Daytona 500 has rocketed high. Dale Earnhardt was the first to win more than $1 million for the race in 1998. Loading embed tweet https://twitter.com/bobpockrass/status/1625603953919463424?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw The last time NASCAR officially let out breakdowns was when Joey Logano took the flag in .

He was reported to have received $1,586,503. The history of the highest paying race on the NASCAR calendar It all when a few men thought it would be a good idea to race their horseless carriages across Daytona Beach at the beginning of the 20th century. Racing evolution came into play at Daytona and the carriages were soon replaced with cars.

A mechanic in the locale, Bill France, had taken an affinity for speed and races around the 1930s. Advertisement After dabbling around for a decade in the 3.2 mile city beach course, he took a leap of faith and created NASCAR in 1947. Within a few years, he realized that developing these races into something bigger wasn’t a possibility without a more permanent race track.

Plans for a 2.5 mile trip oval circuit were drawn up and France found the sponsors for it. The track was completed in 1959 and the first Daytona 500 came into existence on February 22 as a crowd of over 40,000 watched on. 59 cars raced that day for a prize money of less than 70 grand. The rest, as they say, is history.

Advertisement.