Here’s a crash course — a cheat sheet, really — for the 67th running of the Daytona 500

Maybe you’re new to the sport, have a casual interest or are just coming around to the edge-of-your-seat wrecks, the thrilling finishes and the stars that make up the Daytona 500 field. Daytona Beach became the unofficial “birthplace of speed” in 1903 when two men argued over who had the fastest horseless carriage and decided to settle things in a race on the white, hardpacked sand along the Atlantic Ocean. Since then, the region has become a motorsports mecca, and the first Daytona 500 was held Feb. 22, 1959, in front of a crowd of more than 41,000.

Trump orders US to ditch the penny. What’s its connection to NASCAR’s most impactful Daytona 500?

Cease production of the penny, let collectors gobble up what's left of the 1 cent coin, and there will still be one eternally glued to Dale Earnhardt’s old Chevrolet, the luckiest piece of loose change in NASCAR history. The penny was doomed into obscurity after President Donald Trump this week directed the Treasury Department to stop minting new ones, citing the rising cost of producing the coin. The memories that linger of Earnhardt, 24 years after his death in the 2001 Daytona 500, and of the penny given to him by a 6-year-old girl ahead of his 1998 Daytona 500 victory, are priceless to those who were there for one of NASCAR’s seminal moments.