Kyle Petty analyzes what makes a NASCAR Cup Series driver a great superspeedway racer and the possible difference between 'blocking' and 'controlling' a race.
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00:00 All right, the 2024 Daytona 500 is in the books and it's only fitting that they ran
00:06 it 24 hours later and the 24 car of William Byron wins it.
00:11 But I don't want to talk about all that.
00:12 I don't want to talk about the numbers.
00:13 The only number I want to talk about is blocking and how many wrecks we have because of blocking.
00:19 It seems like if we go back to the qualifying race with Ryan Blaney who pulled 50-some G's,
00:24 60-some G's after that accident, it seems like every time there's a block, there's an
00:29 accident that takes out multiple cars, not one or two.
00:32 I'm talking about 15, 18 like yesterday.
00:36 That wreck happened because of a block.
00:38 The 24 car of William Byron was making a move.
00:41 He was turned by his teammate.
00:43 He was turned by Alex Bowman into Brad Keselowski who in turn turns into the 22 car of Joey
00:49 Logano and all heck breaks loose and they all end up down on the apron in turn three.
00:54 They never even made it to turn three.
00:55 They were running in a straight line which seems to how all things work when it comes
01:00 to blocking.
01:01 You only block in a straight line.
01:02 We didn't see it as much through the travel until the end of the race.
01:06 But there's a difference between blocking and controlling a race and I don't quite understand
01:10 it because when Joey Logano leads a race, they say, "Oh my gosh, Joey Logano's the greatest
01:15 at controlling the outside lane, the inside lane, two or three lanes at the same time."
01:19 He's a magician.
01:21 But yesterday as Ross Chastain controlled the race in my opinion, they called it blocking.
01:26 So I don't know what the difference between blocking and between controlling a race is.
01:30 I wish they would explain it better.
01:32 It's part of racing now.
01:34 Not a part in my day.
01:35 In my day, if you blocked, you ended up in turn three having to fight the Allison brothers.
01:39 That's just the way it was.
01:41 There was no blocking then.
01:42 Now it's a part of the sport that these guys have to live with.
01:45 But I want to talk about William Byron.
01:47 William Byron takes Rick Hendrick to victory lane.
01:50 Forty years Rick Hendrick has been in this sport and he's won Daytona a 38-year spread.
01:57 That's amazing.
01:58 That shows how relevant, how big that team is and what that team means to this sport.
02:03 I think this is a stepping stone, a springboard for William Byron to be one of the greatest
02:08 drivers of all time.
02:10 And let me tell you something.
02:11 I'm excited because the guy that won the Daytona 500 this year is going to go on and win more
02:15 races this year and maybe the championship.