"The semis are parking today and the garage opens for inspection tomorrow morning…"

For a NASCAR racing fan, these words are as sweet as when a baseball fan hears about pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training.  The sport that you love is just around the corner.

The latest incarnation of a NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series season rolls out this week in Daytona Beach, Fla.  It's the 14th time that the circuit's teams and drivers have gathered for a season-opener.  After a one-year run as part of the Copper World Classic in Phoenix, the Truck Series has opened the campaign in Florida for 13 consecutive years.  After bouncing back-and-forth between the Homestead-Miami Speedway and the Walt Disney World Speedway for four years (1996-99), the truck opener moved to Daytona International Speedway in 2000.

It's been a wonderful marriage.

Daytona has provided the series with a high-profile opening event while giving Daytona's Speedweeks some of the best finishes in recent history.  From the debut season in 2000, when Mike Wallace came out on top of a five-truck scrum at the checkered, to last year's three-wide, you-pick-'em battle won by Jack Sprague, the trucks at Daytona have been anything but boring.

This year's lid-lifter, the Chevy Silverado 250, has all the potential to be just as good as the previous Daytona events.  Now, it's often said that you can learn by studying history.  So, if we look at the previous 13 openers, especially those eight at Daytona, what do we see in the cards?

For one thing, the entitlement rights holders might not end up happy. A Chevrolet hasn't won a season-opening race since Ron Hornaday pulled the trick at Disney in 1998.  Yep, that means Chevy is zero-for-Daytona in eight tries.

Ford owns bragging rights with four Daytona wins and seven season-openers overall.  Dodge has three victories at Daytona and overall.  Chevy owns a pair of season-openers.  Toyota holds a single Daytona win, last year's Sprague triumph.

A second thing to know is that youngsters likely aren't going to leave Daytona too happy.  Carl Edwards was 24-years-old when he pulled into the Daytona victory lane in 2004, but he was already a veteran.  Edwards had 32 career truck starts prior to that win.

Otherwise, openers in general and Daytona especially have belonged to the experienced.  The list of opening-event winners if a laundry-list of veteran drivers:  Mike Skinner, Dave Rezendes, Joe Ruttman, Ron Hornaday, Jr., Mike Wallace, Robert Pressley, Rick Crawford, Bobby Hamilton, Mark Martin and Jack Sprague.

The semis are parked and the garage will be open soon.  The season is just around the corner.  Sometime late Friday, another driver will put a truck into victory lane at Daytona and join that list of winners. 

Now that truly is a sweet thought.

- Tim Stephens, The Inside Line
   Special to TruckSeries.com

You may contact Tim Stephens directly at tim.stephens@truckseries.com