The Gatorade Duels are over, and with the starting lineup finally set for the 2011 Daytona 500, we know that Columbia native Carl Edwards will start from the 22nd position in The Super Bowl of Super Bowls racing. Kurt Busch, who won the Bud Shootout, is the de facto pole-sitter after Dale Earnhardt Jr. wrecked his car in a practice on Wednesday.
Sunday’s race will be Edwards’s seventh Daytona 500. His best finish to date is ninth, in last year’s race; before that he’s finished 12th, 18th, 19th, 23rd, and 43rd, which came after an early crash in the 2006 race, in which he started from the fifth position.
If you’re looking for something other than a regional reason to root for a driver in the Daytona 500 of Car Races, I’d like to recommend the compelling story of Brian Keselowski, as written by our own Jeff Gluck. It’s a story so filled with brotherly twists, elbow-grease, and against-all-odds glory that Disney has lodged a plagiarism complaint with real life.