What is the average speed at the Daytona 500? All you need to know

The Daytona 500 is NASCAR's biggest race, which takes place every year at the Daytona International Speedway. The 'Great American Race' covers 200 laps on a 2.5-mile track, totaling 500 miles. The average speed of winners at the Daytona 500, from 1959 to 2024, has been about 150 mph.

Buddy Baker had an average speed of 177.602 mph at the 1980 Daytona 500. The 19-time Cup race winner set a record and won the race with five caution flags. However, seven years later, Bill Elliott won with an average speed of 176.263 mph.

The race used to take about 2 hours and 49 minutes to finish back then because restrictor plates were not required, which allowed cars to go faster. NASCAR introduced restrictor plates in 1987 to slow down the cars and improve safety. Since then, cars have not reached the speeds they did before.

Moreover, the Daytona 500 can be delayed or have extra laps, for example, the longest Daytona 500 was in 1960. It took 4 hours to finish because of crashes.

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What is the fastest pole speed at the Daytona 500?

In 1987, Bill Elliott qualified for the race with a speed of 210.364 mph with a 42.782-second lap, driving Melling Racing's No. 9 Ford. The two-time Daytona 500 winner also holds the track record for fastest qualifying speed at Talladega at 212.089 miles per hour.

However, the pole speeds at the Daytona 500, which ranged around 180-190 mph between 1988 and 2000, have reduced in recent years. Cars have become slower since NASCAR introduced the Next-Gen car. Kyle Larson posted the slowest pole speed in about 56 years at 181.025 mph in 2023. Last year, Joey Logano had a similar speed of 181.947 mph.

"Somebody will ask about those speeds back then, and I guess now it sounds crazy. I mean, we were going really, really fast." Bill Elliot said in 2017 (via ESPN).

"If you'd come to me the year before and said we could come back and top 210, I would have laughed at you. But when I came back in from running those laps, it was like, 'Man, wow. That was phaste,'" he added.

The change started after a crash at Talladega Superspeedway in 1987. Some fans suffered minor injuries when Bobby Allison's car blew a tire, tore the fence and crashed at over 200 miles per hour. The incident made NASCAR start limiting car speeds for safety, and restrictor plates were added to slow down the cars.

NASCAR added stage breaks to the race in 2017. Now, the race has three stages: the first two are 65 laps, and the final stage is 75 laps.