Gatorade Duel Brief history

Gatorade Duel is a yearly race event that comes up February at the Daytona International Speedway. It's the NASCAR SPRINT cup event and qualifier for the finals referred to as the DAYTONA 500. It is currently a 150 mile race and the end result determines the final line up for the DAYTONA 500. The first ever Gatorade Duel race was held in 1959 and started off as two 100 mile races, in 1968 it was revised to 125 miles but could not hold as a result of heavy rains. In 1969 the new distance rule was upheld. During all these time, points were counted for the Grand National Championship.

In 1972, points stopped being used for the Grand National Championship and the races were run at 250 miles. The race is still kept as a non- points event. During the early 80's the press started covering the race and for the first time in 2001, races were aired on television. In 2005, the races were given the new name Gatorade Duel after the race was increased to 150 miles (240km) and the race format was revised. Prior to that change, the game had been referred to using various terms such as 100 mile qualifying race, 125 mile qualifying race, UNO twin 125 Qualifiers, 7-eleven Twins, Twin 125 Qualifiers, Gatorade Twin 125 Qualifiers.

In recent times, qualifying races are usually held a week to Daytona 500, a two lap attempt is made by each car separately. The highest speed in a lap is recorded as the qualifying speed. The pole position is won by the fastest speed and the outside pole is won by the second fastest. The qualified drivers are locked in the Daytona 500 field alongside previous top 35 drivers from previous season. In the early years the rules for the game was different. Since 2005, that the race was named Gatorade Duel, it has produced four winners of Daytona 500, with two of them winning the event for two consecutive years. Dale Eahnhardt has previously won the old Twin 125 races ten years consecutively and for a total of twelve times in all. The corporate sponsor for the Twin 125 race event is PepsiCo.