DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - Having been scrubbed from his scheduled performance at the pre-race concert for the 2024 Daytona 500, hip-hop star Pitbull has promised to return in 2025. Pitbull, also known by his birth name of Armando Pérez, gave a press conference on Sunday where he gave a handshake agreement with Daytona International Speedway President Frank Kelleher.
The status of the Daytona 500 has been thrown into a state of constant disarray this weekend by the presence of inclement weather. Only one of the weekend's four scheduled NASCAR races ran according to schedule; the Craftsman Truck Series race ran on Friday night, while the ARCA Menards Series race was moved up to Friday after the Trucks, and both the Daytona 500 and Xfinity Series race were postponed to Monday.
Pitbull was set to follow in a long line of star musical artists who've performed before the Great American Race, including Dierks Bentley, Luke Combs, and Florida-Georgia Line to name a few. His connections to NASCAR extend to his business life where he's a part-owner of Trackhouse Racing, the team which field's Ross Chastain's #1 and Daniel Suárez's #99 cars.
“I’ll tell you what, you know I’m old school," he told Kelleher. "No contract, no nothing, just handshake, eye to eye. I will be there.” Like Pitbull, honorary starter DJ Khaled and honorary pace car driver Madison Marsh both had to leave the event before the rescheduled running date on Monday. However, grand marshal Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson stuck around to take part on Monday, a fact he confirmed in a particularly energetic press conference just after Pitbull's.
