During the NFC Championship game between the Detroit Lions and the San Francisco 49ers, the FOX Sports broadcast team announced a bit of NASCAR news regarding the grand marshal for stock car racing’s season-opening event.
FOX, which will also air the 66th running of the Daytona 500 on 18 February, announced that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson will give the command to start engines for the field of 40 racers. With the four most famous words in motorsports, the 51-year-old actor and professional wrestler will get the cars rolling for NASCAR’s crown jewel event.
He once served as the grand marshal for the NASCAR Cup Series race at Texas Motor Speedway in April, 2004, which was won by Elliott Sadler.
It was recently revealed that Grammy-award winner and Trackhouse Racing co-owner Pitbull will perform the pre-race concert for the race.
The Daytona 500 officially kicks off the 2024 NASCAR Cup season with Ricky Stenhouse Jr. returning as the defending winner. But first, 36 Cup Series drivers and teams will head to Los Angeles for the third edition of the L.A. Clash exhibition race at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum.
In 2023, the command to start engines for the Daytona 500 was given by several legends of the sport in celebration of NASCAR’s 75th year. They were Jimmie Johnson, Kevin Harvick, Joey Logano [who all competed in the race], as well as Richard Petty, Jeff Gordon, Bobby Allison, Bill Elliott, Dale Jarrett and Kurt Busch.