Petit and Sega Enterprises USA chief of finance Masahiro Nakagawa began negotiations with representatives of the Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway for a license. To lower costs, Sega decided not to negotiate with NASCAR for a license, and so the game does not contain real sponsors, drivers or cars. Development was handed to Sega AM2, a development division headed by Yu Suzuki, who had led development on popular racing games including "Hang-On", "Out Run", and "Virtua Racing". Suzuki served as producer on "Daytona USA" alongside Nagoshi.