Daytona Quotes

#1. To be honest with you, I walked into media day (in February at Daytona), and there were two people standing in line to conduct interviews, so from day one of this year, everybody's kind of written us off.

Kevin Harvick

#2. I woke up this morning, and I still don't believe I won the Daytona 500.

Dale Earnhardt

#3. Newman and I were friends. We were great teammates, and he needs to check his trophy case on that Daytona 500 trophy I helped him get years ago.

Kurt Busch

#4. I've got Pacman, Galaga, Galaxian, Daytona 500. Those are the games I grew up playing.

Ray Lewis

#5. My first Indy 500 was one of my high points. I ended up qualifying fourth and I finished fourth. I had a win in Japan a few years later, and then qualifying for Daytona was great as well.

Danica Patrick

#6. A fine timepiece is part of dressing like a gentleman. When I first made a little money, I bought my first watch which was a Rolex Daytona. It was just one of those things that said I was successful.

Brian McKnight

#7. There's a tremendous number of the Daytona Prototypes.

Bobby Rahal

#8. There is no other way to start the season than to win the Daytona 500.

Jimmie Johnson

#9. It was reported in the paper that President Bush received a 'warm reception' from the Daytona 500 drivers. Well sure, the drivers had never met anyone who was sponsored by more oil companies than they were.

Jay Leno

#10. The Daytona 500 is a career-winning race. It defines careers for drivers, crew members, crew chiefs and race teams. It has that power.

Jimmie Johnson

#11. The start of my rookie season when there was so much pressure, so many expectations, and so much excitement surrounding the return of the No. 3 to the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, and then we went out and won the pole for the Daytona 500. That was a very special moment.

Austin Dillon

#12. If you look at the record books, Dale Earnhardt's done everything, except win the Daytona 500. Now they can't have that riding over him. Now they're just going to say, 'Dale Earnhardt, 1998 Daytona 500 winner,' and his shoulders are going to get lighter every time.

Ernie Irvan

#13. When I was 2, I used to put pictures of the Manhattan skyline in a little scrapbook. And I used to wear American 'stars and stripe' vests and Daytona Beach stuff and they used to call me 'The Little Yankee.' Thank you to my producers for having faith in a little nobody from Lancashire.

Tracie Bennett

#14. The most important thing at Daytona is, are you going to have friends willing to work with you during the race as far as drafting? You've got to have friends out there. You can't do it alone. You form those relationships as the race moves along.

Mario Andretti

#15. It's funny how the whole team gets quiet when you're about to win a Daytona 500.

Joey Logano

#16. A lot of the listeners don't realize that the Daytona 24 Hours is the most difficult race in the world. It's 24 hours, a lot of darkness because it's held at the end of January, so you're talking about 13-14 hours of darkness.

Scott Pruett

#17. A lot of musicians put diamonds on things to show they had money. I on the other had felt that Daytona showed I had style and I didn't need to be flashy.

Brian McKnight

#18. To be a driver that can cross off one of those marquee events as a winner, that cements your legacy in motorsports, to be able to win the Daytona 500 is the ultimate dream of a race car driver.

Tony Stewart

#19. I felt like a car that had only been operated by one driver ... a car its new prospective buyer was determined to take to the Daytona 500.

Charlaine Harris

#20. I grew up in Florida in different cities. I was born in Mississippi. My parents moved a lot, so I moved to Tennessee, Alabama, South Carolina, Virginia, all through the South. But my family's roots were from central Florida, like Daytona Beach area, so we ended up moving there.

Diplo

#21. When you've got the Daytona 500 out there at stake and everything riding on the line, guys go for it, and the guys that go for it are the ones that are either going to win or they're going to wreck.

Jeff Gordon

#22. NASCAR and the Daytona 500 are about as American as you can get.

Rick Santorum

#23. The Daytona 500 is a big race, and Darlington is just as big of an event, and a lot of people get excited for it.

Kurt Busch

#24. James Finch has always had pretty stout cars for the restrictor-plate races and I know we'll be very competitive at Daytona.

Kurt Busch

#25. I've been fortunate Daytona is a place I've run better than anywhere else, and that's a big race. Maybe it has to do with attention and pressure and the drive to do well when a lot of people are watching.

Danica Patrick

#26. Growing up, I would say, when we were racing go-karts back in the day, it was always our uncle. We were always looking up to our uncle. I mean, he won the Daytona 500, he's a very well-respected man, and we've always looked up to that.

Amber Cope

#27. I think that when we were younger, the fact of knowing our uncle Derrike won the Daytona 500. We were racing go-karts then, and I think that really kind of motivated us.

Amber Cope

#28. I guess if you're not going to win the championship, you're better off taking the opportunity to win a Brickyard or a Daytona 500 than you are to make the Chase and then fizzle out.

Tony Stewart

#29. I wrote my first real murder story as a journalist for the Daytona Beach News Journal in 1980. It was about a body found in the woods. Later, the murder was linked to a serial killer who was later caught and executed for his crimes.

Michael Connelly

#30. Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida, is the most respected, and probably the largest, commercial flight-training school in the nation, I was informed. It's the Notre Dame of the air.

Frank W. Abagnale