The 2010 Daytona 500 was the first stock car race of the 2010 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. The 52nd Daytona 500, it was held on February 14, 2010, in Daytona Beach, Florida, at Daytona International Speedway, before a crowd of about 175,000 attendees. Earnhardt Ganassi Racing's Jamie McMurray won the 208-lap race from 13th place. Dale Earnhardt Jr. of Hendrick Motorsports finished in second, and Roush Fenway Racing's Greg Biffle was third.
Mark Martin, the event's oldest pole position winner at 51 years and 27 days, led the first four laps before Kasey Kahne passed him on lap five. Martin reclaimed the lead two laps later. The lead changed 52 times between a then-record-breaking 21 different drivers during the race, with Kevin Harvick leading the most laps (41). It was twice stopped because a large pothole developed between turns one and two, due to moisture, cold weather, and heavy cars scraping the tarmac surface as they ran low to the ground for better aerodynamic efficiency. Harvick led on the 206th lap, until McMurray passed him for his first Daytona 500 victory, and the fourth of his career.
Because this was the first race of the season, McMurray led the Drivers' Championship with 195 points, followed by Earnhardt in second place who had 175 points and Biffle in third with 170 points. Clint Bowyer and Harvick were fourth and fifth with 165 and 155 points, respectively. In the Manufacturers' Championship, Chevrolet led with nine points, ahead of Ford with six points. Toyota with four points, and Dodge with three points with thirty-five races left in the season.
Background
The 2010 Daytona 500 was the 1st of the 36 stock car races in the 2010 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, and the 52nd edition of the event. It was held on February 14, 2010, in Daytona Beach, Florida, at Daytona International Speedway, The layout used for the Daytona 500 is a four-turn, superspeedway. Daytona's turns are banked at 31 degrees, and the front stretch—the location of the finish line—is banked at 18 degrees.
NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. conceived the Daytona 500, which was first held in 1959; it is the successor to shorter races held on beaches in Daytona Beach. The race has been the opening round of the NASCAR season since 1982, and from 1988, it is one of four events that require cars to run restrictor plates. The Daytona 500 offers the most prize money of any American auto race. Winning the race is considered equal to winning either the World Series, the Super Bowl or The Masters.
For the 2010 race, NASCAR announced that it would stop policing bump drafting after responding to a growing resentment from its fan-base and drivers about the lack of on-track aggression and emotion. It came as the organization gradually controlled, and ultimately outright prohibited, bump drafting at the 2009 AMP Energy 500. Furthermore, NASCAR kept the yellow-marked out-of-bounds line at the bottom of race circuits because drivers opposed its removal. Furthermore, the four restrictor plate opening were expanded to their greatest size since the 1989 Daytona 500 of 63/64-inches for greater horsepower. NASCAR's vice-president of competition Robin Pemberton said that the changes would give control back to the drivers, "'Boys, have at it' and have a good time." NASCAR later changed the green–white–checker finish rule to allow for a maximum of three (not one) attempts to end the race if it would otherwise conclude under caution.
Following an investigation of the circuit's safety barriers and a collision that sent Roush Fenway Racing's Carl Edwards into the catchfence at the 2009 Aaron's 499, track workers raised the height of the Daytona International Speedway catchfences from to . The cost was not stated, and the work was completed in mid-January 2010. An spokesperson for the track's owner and operator International Speedway Corporation said, "Whenever we have an incident that impacts any of our systems, we take that opportunity to more closely scrutinize it and look at it across the company. Whatever we learn in these analyses, we’ll look and see where it can be applied to other tracks. The challenge is each track is different in terms of banking and speed, so our primary focus right now was on Talladega and Daytona."