LOS ANGELES — Days after a difficult and largely ignored start to its 2024 season, NASCAR is ready to plow into its regular season in its traditional fashion, holding its biggest event first instead of last. The Daytona 500 is set to start the 36-race Cup Series on Feb. 18, two weeks after the unofficial beginning on a quarter-mile track inside the Coliseum in Los Angeles.

The Busch Light Clash at the Coliseum is now in the rearview mirror, thankfully for NASCAR. With the brightest of intentions and a full marketing strategy aimed at Latinos, NASCAR, on a few hours notice, moved the Sunday race to Saturday night after California’s unprecedented weather event made the likelihood of running the race as scheduled impossible. Admission was free, but the crowd was barely visible.

This year, fans will experience NASCAR through the lens of television with FOX and FS1 taking all the races up to June 9, and NBC and USA broadcasting the last half of the year.

Here are four storylines that are expected to dominate NASCAR at least at the start of the season.

Can Chase Elliott rebound?

The most popular driver in NASCAR for the last six years, as voted on by the fans, is Chase Elliott. He has won 18 races in his nine years in the Cup Series. Last year was the first time since 2017 that he didn’t win at all. It was a partial season in that he missed six races after sustaining a broken leg in a snowboarding accident and a seventh after being suspended for aggressive driving. More importantly for NASCAR, when your most popular driver isn’t racing, television ratings drop.

“I kind of started out the (2023) season OK,” Elliott said. “I was happy for the first couple weeks, then I got hurt. Seems like after that there were a lot of ups and downs. And unfortunately, more downs than ups and I never got in a good rhythm.”

Elliott vowed not to give up snowboarding, although minor shoulder surgery in November has kept him off the slopes.

Kyle Larson doing the ‘double’

It hasn’t been done since 2014, but Kyle Larson is going to give it a try, running in the Indianapolis 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 on May 26. Kurt Busch was the last to try it, and he finished sixth in both races, the best by a driver pulling double duty. Others who have attempted it are John Andretti, Robby Gordon and Tony Stewart.

The obvious question is why?

“The Indy 500 is the biggest race in the world and you want to compete in the big ones,” Larson said. “I’ve always wanted to do the double because it’s a cool thing to try and accomplish, to finish both races in two different types of cars, two different states, it’s just really cool. I’ll drive different types of cars throughout the week between my dirt cars, NASCAR and whatever other cars I can run in.”

Of course, he’ll take a plane for the 575 miles between Indianapolis and Charlotte. He’s not expected to drive that, too.

Replacing Kevin Harvick?

There should certainly be some pressure replacing retired future Hall of Famer Kevin Harvick, and that’s the position in which Josh Berry finds himself. Josh Berry? Maybe you remember him replacing Elliott when he was injured in the snowboarding accident. But now the 33-year-old is in the hot seat of replacing Harvick in the No. 4 car on the Stewart-Haas team. He has been in a whopping 12 Cup Series races.

The goal he has in his sights is modest, yet still challenging.

“I think winning rookie of the year is the goal that stands out for us,” Berry said. “I think that would be a great deal. The rookie class will be strong and winning that would be meaningful. … I don’t think there is any added pressure based on what Kevin has accomplished over the last decade. It’s on all of us to dig in and work hard.”

Can RCR win its first title in 30 years?

Richard Childress Racing is one of the iconic names in the sport, having won six Cup titles with Dale Earnhardt, the last coming in 1994. And last year, Kyle Busch left Joe Gibbs Racing to join RCR. Busch has 63 Cup Series wins, the most of any active driver. He is arguably the best driver of his generation. Last year, he won three races, all in the beginning of the season.

So, with one year on his new team, is this the year to bring the Cup championship back to RCR?

“I feel like (last year) we were able to get together … we were able to build pretty good chemistry right out of the gate,” Busch said. “We had some good results right out of the gate and then the way some of the NASCAR procedures changed throughout the year, and some of the rules changes. But the rest of the competition just kind of caught up and it just got tougher from there.”

Busch is confident that things could be very different in his second season with RCR, which could break a three-decade drought.

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