DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — NASCAR’s new charter system was introduced as a monumental moment in auto racing – a triumphant merger between a one-time dictatorship and a group of team owners finally organized enough to demand their fair share of the financials.

The franchise-type model introduced days before teams arrived at Daytona International Speedway has been celebrated for a series wracked with instability because of an independent-contractor model that forced competitors to heavily rely on sponsorship.

Now the owners are guaranteed a bigger chunk of the pot and 36 slots in the field every week.

The drivers? Well, most aren’t so certain how good a deal this is for their bottom line.

“I think anyone would like to know before the terms of their employment change, but that is not the situation,” Brad Keselowski said. “I am aware of the fact that I am a race car driver and no matter what happens, I am still going to be OK. I am not looking for anyone to feel bad for me. On the other side, it is not ideal.

“It would be like if your employer just said, ‘Hey, don’t worry about it, you will get paid.’ That is kind of where most every driver is.”

The charter system has completely overhauled how drivers will be paid. Drivers typically negotiated individual contracts with team owners in which they were promised specific salaries and percentages of each week’s purse.

The new system has set aside a fixed portion of the purse for the 36 charter teams, and an additional portion that goes to charter teams based on a performance scale. Starting with last weekend’s exhibition race at Daytona, the race winnings and total purse were not publicized as had been the norm. NASCAR had touted transparency in the charter agreement, but now the public – and some drivers – won’t know how prize money was distributed.

Drivers said that when the final charter deal was signed by NASCAR and team owners, the language around their method of payment differed from what they had been led to believe. Most are now scrambling to renegotiate the driver compensation part of their contracts.

“I think that everyone will have to have something redone within their contract,” Denny Hamlin said. “There’s verbiage in stuff that has changed how drivers get paid from the purse. There’s not one common standard that one driver or team offers that’s going to be the same. It’s up to the individual driver and owner to work out those details.”

THE PROJECT was such a massive undertaking that architects had to account for the curvature of the Earth.

It included 31 million pounds of steel, 101,000 new seats, 40 escalators, 17 elevators and stretched nearly a mile. It took 21/2 years to complete and had its own nickname: Daytona Rising.

It was a mammoth, $400 million makeover to NASCAR’s most famous track, a ground-up restoration that turned some old, rickety grandstands into the world’s finest motorsports stadium.

The Daytona International Speedway renovation is complete and ready for its official debut – at the season-opening Daytona 500 on Sunday.

“We want people to be blown away when they come to this property,” track president Joie Chitwood III said. “You think about the history and the heritage, the legends of our sport made their name here, and now this property really matches that.”

Daytona Rising has turned heads and left visitors in awe since its completion last month. It boasts vibrant colors, grandiose displays and unique exhibits – and that’s just outside the stadium walls.

Inside, the finished product is home to more than 100,000 square feet of fan engagement space.

“It’s like a football stadium, but taken to the next level and magnified 20 times,” former Daytona 500 champion Jamie McMurray said.

Daytona Rising was designed to meet the ever-increasing demand to improve the fan experience. Twenty-year-old stadiums are considered outdated. Burgers, hot dogs, pretzels and beer are no longer enough at sporting events.

High-definition televisions have made it even tougher to get people to leave the couch and pay for expensive tickets.

International Speedway Corp., NASCAR’s sister company that owns a dozen tracks including Daytona, took all of those factors into account when it started planning the redesign.

“It doesn’t make sense in this day and age to sell a subpar experience. And if you sell a subpar experience, you would expect the fan to not come back,” Chitwood said.

“When you look at what it takes for a customer to come to Daytona – airfare, hotel, gas – they’re making a big investment. I think we have a property now that justifies that investment. I think you can make a case we probably weren’t making a good case for that investment in years past.”

ROUSH FENWAY Racing teammates Greg Biffle and Trevor Bayne will start in the back of the field in their Daytona 500 qualifying race Thursday.

Both of their teams changed rear gears Wednesday, an adjustment that caused them to lose their qualifying spots for the Cam-Am Duels.

Biffle and Bayne are in the first of the two races. They will join 2007 Daytona 500 winner Kevin Harvick in the back of the field.

Harvick and Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Brian Vickers were forced to the back of the field after NASCAR officials determined the track bars on their cars were not in compliance with specifications following pole qualifying Sunday.

Vickers and Martin Truex Jr., who failed to make a qualifying lap Sunday, will start in the back of the second race.