Dale Earnhardt Jr. Gears up for the Daytona 500

FOX in the Fast Lane – FOX News Radio

It’s the Super Bowl of auto racing. The Daytona 500 is this weekend and NASCAR officials taking more measures to protect drivers from concussions.

FOX’s Marghiee teshineh with “FOX in the Fast Lane”:

It will be Hendrick Motorsports leading the pack at this year’s 2017 Daytona 500 with Chase Elliot winning his second consecutive pole position.

Elliot says the team has learned a lot from qualifying but now it’s time to translate that into a win:

(Elliot) “Daytona was certainly a struggle for us last year, just as far as as you getting in wrecks or wrecking and tearing up a lot of cars. So I hope we can just make it to the end of the race.”

Sharing the top row with Elliot, teammate Dale Earnardhart Jr. whose looking back on to past races to pull off a winning strategy:

(Earnhardt Jr.) “I thought we ran great in 2015. So we’ll look at what we did then and what we’re doing now and sorta go through the process of elimination and that’s kinda what we (have) been doing until we fix it.”

And because of Earnhardt’s season ending injuries last year, NASCAR’s new concussion protocol includes drivers going to the infield car center if they get into a wreck and their car goes to the garage. Under the old rules drivers only got checked out if the car was towed from the track.

I’m Marghiee Teshineh, FOX News.

Follow Marghiee Teshineh on Twitter: @LadyTrackside