Daytona 500 Buildup Begins With NASCAR Media Day

NASCAR’s annual “Media Day” prior to the Daytona 500 is the surest sign the new racing season is about to start.

But for fans who just saw media coverage of the drivers at preseason Daytona testing, followed by the week-long preseason media tour in Charlotte, “NASCAR Media Day” seems a bit confusing. Didn’t all the drivers just talk to the media a couple weeks ago?

Yes, they did. So if you’re wondering what the difference is, let us try and explain.

The Daytona version of Media Day is unique, because NASCAR asks the drivers to knock out a bunch of media-related obligations all at once.

At Media Day, the drivers don’t participate in a big press conference; rather, their time is divided up into a series of chores that serve to benefit various forms of media.

Each driver has roughly a three-and-a-half-hour window of responsibilities, expertly scheduled by NASCAR’s public relations department. And it all happens in one massive white tent that sits just outside the Daytona International Speedway frontstretch grandstands.

In some order, the drivers will mark off the following before they can leave: A group interview with print reporters, sit-down interviews with ESPN and Speed, a red carpet-style series of interviews with local TV affiliates, a yearbook-style photo session for headshots and, finally, assorted obligations to MRN, PRN, NASCAR.com’s live online stream – among others.

Separately from the Media Day schedule, many drivers will also go outside the tent to film commercial “bumps” for Fox and TNT (like the ones you see when the driver looks at the camera and crosses his arms, or acts silly to show viewers he’s having a blast).

It’s organized chaos in some ways, but NASCAR mostly has the timing down to a science and things run fairly smoothly. Of course, it’s not always that way.

As you can imagine, the day wears down some of the drivers. Speaking from experience, several of the drivers’ moods have gone downhill by the time they reach the print media (especially if they’ve done everything else first).

The grumpiest interview I can remember was in 2008, when Tony Stewart (who seems to despise Media Day) was more than 30 minutes late for his scheduled session. Stewart was in a foul mood by the time he reached reporters – and he wasn’t the only one.

As you can guess, the interview didn’t go very well.

That 2008 Media Day was notable for at least one other reason, too. The alternative version of the official Getty Images headshots that year used some sort of unflattering light and lens, and the results were a bit strange.

Artistic? Yes. Did the photos tell a story? Yes. But did the drivers look good? Not so much.

So before we begin with Media Day ‘11, let us not move on without first saluting these headshots from ‘08.