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DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — After a winter slumber, Saturday night's Budweiser Shootout proved a good way to open the NASCAR Sprint Cup season, but fans should be careful in expecting to see exactly the same type of racing in this week's Daytona 500.

That's not to say the Daytona 500 will be a snoozefest — hard to imagine that with as sideways as these cars can get — but the constant side-by-side racing Saturday night that ended with Kevin Harvick winning the event for the second year in a row will be more difficult to repeat.

Listening to the desire of fans to start races earlier, this year's Daytona 500 will begin and end during the day. In recent years, the 500 had finished at night when temperatures were cooler. Cool temps mean a cooler track surface and makes handling less an issue. With early forecasts calling for temperatures in the high 60s for the Daytona 500 — about 20 degrees warmer than Saturday night's race — it will put a premium on handling.

"I like that the (500) is running all during the day and there's no swing into the nighttime where the track grips up and everybody's car just suddenly turns into the super-duper grip machine," Dale Earnhardt Jr. said last week. "It's going to be fun when we're out there trying to win that race sliding around on that hot, slick asphalt.

"If it's slick and hot like that, it's going to be important to be up front in clean air because after about 10 or 15 laps, it becomes more and more challenging to pass the leader as you get further into the tire run.  I think it's going to be important to put yourself in that position all day, not just at the end."

A couple of changes that could help keep the cars closer longer, though, is the larger restrictor plate and some minor aerodynamic changes to the car.

"You just are able to get really big runs," said Jamie McMurray, who finished third Saturday. "The racing is not dramatically different, but it is in that way because we were never able to get runs without having two guys hooked up. I like the package they have. I think it's going to put on a great show Sunday."

The larger restrictor plate pleases drivers. That extra 15 horsepower or so proves helpful in the draft.

"I thought there was a little more throttle response," Brian Vickers said after finishing eighth Saturday. "I felt like if you got shuffled back or got in a bad spot, it was easier to recover."

That extra horsepower also provided a benefit for Harvick.

"It sure felt we were going pretty fast compared to normal," he said after earning $202,357 for the victory. "But they were very forgiving as well. You could be very aggressive. Even when the thing would get dead sideways, you could stay late in the gas. You could steer the thing and drive the car.

"That's probably not the way you want to drive it every lap, but (Saturday) you were just going 25, 50-lap increments so it didn't really matter."

Yes, things will be different Sunday. Just how different remains to be seen. Regardless of track conditions, fans will likely have something to talk about after this weekend's race, just as they could debate Harvick's win, Carl Edwards' early dominance, Greg Biffle's wreck at the end and Mark Martin causing Kurt Busch to wreck.

It's always something. No doubt it will be after the Daytona 500 as the conversations from race fans will cover a wide range of topics.

Contact Dustin Long at 373-7062 or dustin.long@news-record.com