Photos for Headline Surfer® / Austin Dillon in the No. 3 Chevrolet has the pole for Sunday's Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida.

DAYTONA BEACH -- Sunday's line-up for the Daytona 500 features the traditional and the non-traditional.

For example, the No. 3 is on the pole. That's tradition, as it was the number of NASCAR's greatest driver, Dale Earnhardt, the 1998 Daytona 500 winner, tragically killed on the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500.

Joe Gibs racers sweep nighttime races

Videos uploaded from YouTube /

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Joe Gibbs Racing swept the inaugural nighttime running of the Budweiser Duel at Daytona with Matt Kenseth and Denny Hamlin finishing atop the scoring pylon in their respective 150-mile qualifying races on Thursday night at Daytona International Speedway.

Kenseth, who led a race-high 31 laps in the first qualifying race, was the victor in a three-wide finish at the checkered flag, edging out Kevin Harvick by .022 seconds with Kasey Kahne a close third.

DAYTONA BEACH – Marco Rubio, the Republican junior senator from Florida and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Select Committee on Intelligence, issued a statement today from Washington regarding the ongoing crisis in Ukraine and condemned Russian influence and corruption that he sees as a hindrance to the sovereign peoples in the former Soviet republic.

Report Card Grade: F

Photo for Headline Surfer® / Term-limited Volusia County Councilwoman Pat Northey of Deltona who has taken the unprecdented political step of trying to wrest fellow Democrat Joyce Cusack's at-large seat from her in this year's elections in a three-way race that includes conservative Republican Webster Barnaby, puts outr a nine-page 'newsletter' on the county's website that reads like a campaign press release. The 24/7 internet newspaper has written to Supervisor of Elections Ann McFall as to whether Northey's Volusia County Council District 5 County Council Update violates campaign protocol or election law. The latter appears at the end of this report card notebook.

DAYTONA BEACH -- All that's missing from term-limited County Councilwoman Pat Northey's latest newsletter is the fine print: "Political ad paid for and approved by Patricia Northey, candidate for Volusia County Council at-large seat, 2014 elections."

DAYTONA BEACH -- Speedweeks will bring heavy traffic to Volusia County with Thursday's Budweiser Duel races at Daytona International Speedway, and calumniating with Sunday'a running of the Daytona 500, which will impact Votran bus services.

Photo for Headline Surfer® / Kandas Baker is shown here in a Volusia County jail mug following her arrest in December on meth lab-related drug charges.

OAK HILL -- A tip to narcotics agents led to the discovery of a meth lab in the home of a 43-year-old Oak Hill woman.

Agents with the East Volusia Narcotics Task Force responded Dec. 10 to Kandas Baker’s home on Bills Hill Road to investigate a complaint about drug activity.

They asked Baker if there were drugs or anything else illegal inside the home. Baker said there wasn’t and agreed to let agents come in and look around, Sheriff's spokesman Gary Davidson said.

"When they got to Baker’s bedroom, they found all the makings of a meth cooking operation, including digital scales, lithium batteries, battery cutters, Sudafed, coffee filters, Coleman fuel, lithium strips, drain opener, rubber tubing and plastic bags containing approximately 4 grams of meth," Davidson said.

Photo for Headline Surfer / Randell Holley, shown here in this jail mug, was  arrested in August  on charges of defrauding customers along his mail route.

NEW SMYRNA BEACH, Fla. -- Some residents near New Smyrna Beach had been relying on the services of one particular mailman for several years and had developed a trusting relationship with him.

But Randell Holley, 67, stood accused in August of using that trust to essentially steal from his customers in a scheme that goes back to at least 2010.

Volusia County Sheriff's investigators arrested Holley Aug. 8, and charged him with organized scheme to defraud. 

The alleged criminal activity lodged against the mailman comes in at No. 67 in the Headline Surfer® countdown of the top 100 stories of 2013.

Headline Surfer videos by Henry Frederick / Christmas on Canal features Santa Claus, the lighting of the CRA Christmas tree and horse drawn carriage rides. The five-year holiday tradition has run up a tab of $120,000. Cindy Jones, a Canal Street merchant, pushed for the artificial tree's purchase in 2009.

NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- It's called "Spark the Spirit on Canal," but each year the CRA-sponsored event draws lesser crowds with the tree lighting and political speeches, parents tugging their little ones into a hut to have a photo taken with Santa, perhaps a horse-drawn carriage ride and then the mad dash home -- in an about 20 minutes or so.