I find this quote rather interesting.

" If a team had been able to make all 36 Cup races last season and finish in the least-paying position, it would have won $2,880,640 in purse money."

Too bad their is this thing called expenses.

yea and they spend 50mil trying to finish last

There are a couple of teams that survive by just showing up, running a few laps and then pulling into the pits. They can't afford to change tires or engines so they just run until the first set of tires is worn down and then they call it a day. If they don't wreck and don't spend too much money they can pay their bills and have a little money left over for dinner.

You've got to qualify to get that far.

There was an article about this in the last Car and Driver magazine.

no you don't have to qualify. you just have to stay in the top 25. you can qualify with a speed on 1 mph as long as your in the top 35 you make the show

Absolutely correct. And how do you stay in the top 35 after the first race (assuming you qualify for Daytona) if that's all you do?

This doesn't really apply to Daytona or any of the Cup races, there are too many quality entries to pull this off. As the article in C&D said, there are several teams such as Derrick Cope and Sterling Marlin that will qualify 2 cars in the Nationwide series and park at least one to earn the $20K last-place money. This helps cover the MINIMUM $10K expenses for the weekend.

Cope said in the article that he needed the money to cover the $3200 entry fee (non-refundable) for the few Cup races he attends.

Pretty easy to see why NHRA tries to copy them