Nostalgia is a big part of NASCAR, so it's no surprise that stock car racing's governing body is once again trying to recreate the sport's glory days.

In 2010, on the eve of the opening of the Sprint Cup season, all the talk was about NASCAR's "have at it, boys" policy that encouraged drivers to settle racing disputes on track - within reason, of course. It hearkened back to the days of Cale Yarborough and his 1979 Daytona 500 battle with Donnie Allison.

That practice has been abandoned - safety first was the rationale - but there will still be an old-time feel to Sunday's season-opening Daytona 500.

This season NASCAR modified the restrictor plate, made the spoiler smaller and adjusted the radiator on the cars. It has also banned driver-to-driver communication through in-car radios.

The changes don't make the cars look any old-timier, but they were made in an effort to reduce the two-car drafts that had come to dominate superspeedway racing.

The drafting may have created interesting dynamics as drivers tried to find partners among their friends and enemies in the field and there's no doubt it produced some unpredictable results - see Trevor Bayne's win at Daytona last year - but the consensus was the races were becoming boring as the style became perfected.

The two-car drafts aren't dead, but the new setups mean drivers can no longer stay hooked up for long stretches.

The new package was first put to the test on Saturday night at the Budweiser Shootout. If what happened in the pre-season race is any indication of what's to come once the results start counting, drivers on Sunday will be bunched in packs with the inevitable big crash (or two, or three) a probable result.

Only 10 of the 25 cars that started the Shootout finished on the lead lap and 12 drivers were forced to retire due to accidents.

"It's interesting for sure considering sometimes we're three, four, five rows deep all pushing each other because we don't know what's going on in front of us so we're trying to make that lane go and it's not going anywhere already," Kyle Busch, driver of the No. 18 M&M's Brown Toyota said of what it was like in the Shootout. "Then guys get impatient and just run over somebody and can cause a wreck. It can be like an accordion effect and somebody spit out the middle - all in all it's exciting for the fans."

Exciting is the operative word.

More drivers are close to the lead in pack racing and the front of the field shuffles more often. The moment one car wiggles, everyone from fans to crew chiefs to broadcasters collectively holds their breath hoping the driver can save it before taking out a good chunk of the field.

The new rules may also lessen the tactic of hanging out at the back of the pack for much of a superspeedway race, which had become common recently.

"I feel like if you're up front you have a little better shot of staying up there. I like that," driver Jeff Gordon said after the race. "That kind of takes me back to when I first started in this series."

As a side benefit, the big pileups will also get exposure on highlight reels across the continent, giving rubbernecking fans a reminder the season is back.

None of the drivers were injured in the trio of chain-reaction crashes in the Shootout, which is a testament to the safety improvements made over the years.

If NASCAR is going to encourage a racing style that is going to precipitate big wrecks, it has a duty to keep those behind the wheel as safe as possible.

"That's the first time I've been upside down and you always worry about when you're rolling like that, what it's going to be like," Gordon said after he and his No. 24 Drive to End Hunger Chevrolet rolled three times before coming to rest upside down late in the Shootout. "And that was the easiest part of the entire event. The big hit into the wall was much more severe . . . that is a true testament to the safer barrier and the Hans device and the structure of the cars and the seatbelts that we're running. It's pretty impressive. I hate that it happened altogether, but we sure were having fun up until that point."

• He said it: "Coming down here, I didn't really consider the pole something that was a possibility. This is huge." - Carl Edwards, driver of the No. 99 Fastenal Ford, after securing the pole for the Daytona 500.

• This week: The green flag drops on the 2012 season at Daytona International Speedway. The Drive4COPD 300 on the Nationwide Series is up first on Saturday (noon ET, TSN2). The granddaddy of all NASCAR races, the Daytona 500, goes Sunday (noon ET, FOX, TSN2).

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