It’s time for NASCAR and the season gets underway with the Daytona 500 on Sunday. The Great American Race is one of the most popular on the circuit.
Daytona 500 Info
Date: Sunday, February 18, 2024
Time: 2:30 p.m. ET
TV: FOX
It’s also one of the trickiest to handicap. The race is wide open and favorites have a tough time winning here. Last year, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. won and paid off at +4000. Austin Cindric won in 2022 and was +3000. Michael McDowell captured the 2021 Daytona 500 and was a +6600 longshot.
BetQL.com took a look at this year’s race and have provided five drivers to look at for Sunday’s event, outside of the four drivers tied as favorites. Brad Keselowski, Ryan Blaney, Chase Elliott, and Denny Hamlin are all favored to win at +1100.
Chris Buescher
Odds to Win: +1500
Flipping a coin often results in heads coming up multiple times in a row. The odds for the next flip are still 50/50, but it does tend to draw attention. Buescher’s victory in last year’s Coke Zero 400 came on the heels of a fourth in the Daytona 500. Moreover, along with teammate Brad Keselowski, Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing (RFK) had one of the best Speedweeks in the field. Buescher was also in the top five in one of the two Talladega races and with slightly higher odds than the No. 6 this weekend, he is a minimally more profitable bet.
Joey Logano
Odds to Win: +1300
Logano has long been one of our favorites on plate tracks, even without long streaks of top-fives to make it apparent why he is so well regarded. That’s why we watch the race, however; Logano tends to spend more time in the lead pack than anyone else. He has been accident prone at times. Occasionally he is the trigger and occasionally he is the victim but when he survives the melee, he is capable of winning. Logano won in overtime at Atlanta Motor Speedway last year in a drafting pack, came up one position shy of victory in the Daytona 500 and swept the top five at this track.
Alex Bowman
Odds to Win: +3500
Bowman is not getting a lot of respect from the traders this week; with consensus odds of +3160, he’s ranked 21st. To be honest, he’s escaped our attention occasionally as well and that was costly in the 2023 Daytona 500 when he salvaged a fifth-place finish in the Great American Race. Bowman came back to this track and scored a sixth in the summer event. He’s a solid bet for the Hendrick Motorsports (HMS) driver.
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Kyle Busch
Odds to Win:+1400
Busch lacks the patience to be a great plate racer, but he occasionally finds his way to the front with sheer determination. Last year he won the Geico 500 as part of a four-race streak of top-10s on this course-type. Unfortunately, his season was bookended by a 19th in the 500 and a 25th in the YellaWood 500. In 37 Daytona starts, he’s earned nine top-5s which equates to a .243 average. Don’t wager anything more than couch cushion money on the No. 8.
David Ragan
Odds to Win: +6000
Ragan first has to qualify for the race in the non-chartered No. 60 car, but with only 41 cars showing up for the 2024 Daytona 500, that’s a relatively good bet. And once he’s in the show, it’s unlikely you’ll find 100/1 odds anywhere for a former Daytona winner. Ragan won the 2011 Coke Zero 400 racing for the same team that entered him this year. The bottom line is that RFK has the power and Ragan has the skill. Even more impressively, Ragan scored a fourth-place finish in 2020 while racing for the lightly-funded Rick Ware team.
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