LOS ANGELES — Days after a difficult and largely ignored start to its 2024 season, NASCAR is ready to plow into its regular season in its traditional fashion, holding its biggest event first instead of last. The Daytona 500 is set to start the 36-race Cup Series on Feb. 18, two weeks after the unofficial beginning on a quarter-mile track inside the Coliseum.

The Busch Light Clash at the Coliseum is now in the rearview mirror, thankfully for NASCAR. With the brightest of intentions and a full marketing strategy aimed at Latinos, NASCAR, on a few hours notice, moved the Sunday race to Saturday night after California's unprecedented weather event made the likelihood of running the race as scheduled impossible. Admission was free, but the crowd was barely visible.

It was the last year of a three-year contract to hold the exhibition in Los Angeles and a renewal seems less likely, although NASCAR has not announced any decision. Coupled with the closure and plans to rebuild the Fontana track, next year could be the first time since 1996, with the exception of the COVID year, that Los Angeles has not held a Cup Series event in the region.

All of which means auto racing fans will experience NASCAR through the lens of television with Fox and FS1 taking all the races up to June 9 until NBC and USA broadcast the races the last half of the year.

Along the way will be the usual intrigue and feuds along with mostly competitive racing with enough stops during the race to make sure no one runs away with a thing.

So, here are five storylines that are expected to dominate NASCAR at least at the start of the season.

Can Chase Elliott rebound?

The most popular driver in NASCAR for the last six years, as voted on by the fans, is Chase Elliott. He has won 18 races in his nine years in the Cup Series. Last year was the first time since 2017 that he didn't win at all. It was a partial season in that he missed six races after sustaining a broken leg in a snowboarding accident and a seventh after being suspended for aggressive driving. More importantly for NASCAR, when your most popular driver isn't racing, television ratings drop.

"I kind of started out the [2023] season OK," Elliott said. "I was happy for the first couple weeks, then I got hurt. Seems like after that there were a lot of ups and downs. And unfortunately, more downs than ups and I never got in a good rhythm. I did think toward the end of the year … we started to identify some areas that I wanted to continue to work through.

"I think a lot of those things are going to start to carry. As we go into this year, we just need to keep our heads down. It's a marathon and we understood that and we're ready to get back to work."

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