The smoke from the Goodyear tires on 2023 Cup Series Champion Ryan Blaney’s #12 Dutch Boy/Menards Ford Mustang has dissipated, and it’s time to see the first official green flag of 2024.
And, what better place to do that than Daytona International Speedway.
The 66th running of the Great American Race starts on Sunday afternoon with 40 drivers and teams looking to claim the vaunted Harley J. Earl Trophy in Ruoff Mortgage Victory Lane.
Races at Daytona feature foot-to-the-floor, pedal-to-the-metal action all while being less than an arm’s length from the car ahead, the car behind, and the cars beside you.
Daytona International Speedway is a behemoth, standing at an imposing 2.5 miles and featuring daunting 31 degree turns that push the drivers and cars to their limits in the heat of the pack.
It’s not uncommon to see the leader only be a little over a second ahead of 30th place whereas at a place like Martinsville or Bristol, 30th is lucky to be a lead-lap car.
This allows for surprise winners, drivers with little-to-no prestige have made a name for themselves by being first to the checkered flag.
The trickiest aspect of this circuit is the trioval, which is also banked at 18 degrees. At the entries and exits of the turns and the trioval, the cars become light, so an ill-timed push can trigger the dreaded Big One.
Because of the nature of Daytona’s full-throttle action, NASCAR lowers the horsepower at these tracks to help keep the cars on the ground in case they get sideways or spin around. This allows the cars to stay bunched together in packs.
Like wolves, all 40 of these roaring mechanical beasts will mash the accelerator all the way around Daytona in a large group, only hitting the brakes when the caution comes out or entering pit lane.
That’s what makes The Draft so integral to these superspeedway races.
Each car creates a turbulence behind it that influences the handling of any car trailing it; at most tracks, this is a detriment to the car behind. But at Daytona, the car behind runs quicker and usually more efficiently because it is pushing through less air.
To master Daytona, a driver must master their ability to make quick decisions in traffic, have the patience to know when to act, and sensing the movement of the air around them.
Derrike Cope infamously passed the ailing car of Dale Earnhardt Sr. in 1990 to claim his first win. 20-year-old Trevor Bayne scored a victory for Wood Brothers in 2011 in just his second Cup start, and Austin Cindric fought off some of the best superspeedway racers of this era in 2022 to notch his maiden Cup victory.
This year’s Daytona 500 field only features seven past 500 winners: pole sitter Joey Logano, Cindric, Michael McDowell, Jimmie Johnson, Denny Hamlin, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., and Austin Dillon.
That means there are 34 determined drivers looking to etch their names into the history books on Sunday afternoon, but they may have to wait until Monday afternoon to finish this event.
Weather
Over the last decade the Daytona 500 has been no stranger to Mother Nature.
A five-year run from 2015-19 saw no delays of any kind, but 2020 and 2021’s editions of the race were significantly delayed with 2020’s race ending on Monday evening and 2021’s race ending after midnight.
Though the last two years have seen no weather-related hiccups, it’s looking more and more like moisture might affect NASCAR’s version of the Super Bowl.
According to the Weather Channel, there is a 98% chance of rain on Sunday with little signs of slowing down as day merges into night. Unfortunately, the same can be said for the entire weekend after Thursday’s Duels.
Sunday will be by far the coldest day NASCAR has had in Daytona in the last 10 years with a high of just 61 degrees and a low of 51 degrees.
Monday’s forecast paints a much more optimistic picture with showers from Sunday continuing into the next morning, but after that, there isn’t moisture projected until next Friday, the 23rd.
Hopefully, NASCAR won’t have to be at the track until next Friday, but after the mist held NASCAR hostage in Texas for just over four days in 2020, nothing is off the table.
If NASCAR is unable to finish the Truck and Xfinity races on Friday and Saturday, that makes Monday even more of a crunch for the teams, so if you’re in Florida for the race, I recommend packing ponchos or rain jackets for your days at the track.
One last little note: Daytona is run counterclockwise, so the backstretch points northeast. Turn 2’s exit could be particularly tricky because the weather patterns are showing winds blowing north until Monday when the current will shift to the north-northwest.
The Odds
The 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season opens this weekend with a host of question marks.
Both Toyota and Ford debuted new models of their NextGen cars, and after a bit of carnage and miscommunication in the Duels, it’s impossible to know how these cars will withstand bumper-to-bumper traffic at 190mph for 200 laps over 500 miles.
As always, Vegas thinks they know the answer to everything, so let’s look at BetMGM‘s top-10 favorites to win the Daytona 500 and break down which drivers are actually contenders.
Note: This is not intended to encourage you, the reader, to make a wager on this race. If you feel you have a gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER for support.
Kicking things off with the odds-on favorite to win the Great American Race, we have Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin (+1100). A three-time winner of the event, Hamlin looks to move into a tie for second place all-time with another famous pilot of the #11, Cale Yarborough.
The FedEx Toyota may not boast a championship, but in his 18 Daytona 500 starts, he’s finished in the top-five eight times, one more than seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson. Hamlin knows how to get to the end of these races, and everyone in the field knows he’ll be a hurdle they have to overcome on the path to victory.
Owner-driver Brad Keselowski (+1200) sits right behind Hamlin, but if you know anything about Brad, he won’t remain second in line for too long. A seven-time superspeedway winner, the 2012 Cup champion finds new ways to lose this event every year with just two top-five finishes in 15 attempts.
The RFK leader is no stranger to the front in Florida, but he needs to learn his lessons from previous visits if he wants to hoist the trophy at the end. That means not turning anyone in a part of the track where you know cars can get light, something he should know with his amount of experience.
Next up is 2015 Daytona 500 champion Joey Logano (+1200). The Connecticut native is starting in his 16th Daytona 500, and he’ll do it from the pole position this time. The Team Penske racer wants to continue adding big pieces to his trophy case after his second Cup title in 2022, and there isn’t a trophy larger than Daytona’s.
Despite his reputation for being overaggressive on superspeedways, Logano rarely gets the short end of the stick by the time the race concludes, earning a wicked 9.3 average finish in the last 10 Daytona 500s. Losing by inches last year, Logano and his yellow submarine look poised to clinch their second win in this historic race.
Finally, there’s the defending Cup Series Champion, Ryan Blaney. Blaney (+1200) came close in his first few attempts, mounting a furious charge in 2017 before coming up short in second to Kurt Busch and getting a win taken away from him in 2020 due to confusing caution rules at the end of the race.
Blaney’s title run truly began at Talladega last season, juking Kevin Harvick on the backstretch on the final lap to score the victory. Behind the wheel of a brand-new Ford Mustang Dark Horse, Blaney needs to exercise the same level of patience to plant his car in victory lane.
Other notables on this odds list are winless in the Daytona 500: Kyle Busch (+1200), Chase Elliott (+1500), Kyle Larson (+1600), Christopher Bell (+1700), Bubba Wallace (+1800), Tyler Reddick (+1800), Martin Truex Jr. (+1800), and Chris Buescher (+2000).
Busch and Larson have hardly come close to winning the event, but their immense driving abilities lead many to believe it’s only a matter of time before they claim the 500 for themselves.
Christopher Bell won his Duel race after a top-five in last year’s 500 while Elliott (2021), Wallace (2022), and Buescher (2020) have each finished in the top-three in the past five seasons on top of winning at superspeedway races in the past.
Reddick snagged the other Duel, defeating the likes of Hendrick teammates Elliott and Alex Bowman, rookie Carson Hocevar, Daniel Suárez, and Erik Jones while Jimmie Johnson pulled off an admittedly sick move on JJ Yeley to grab the final transfer spot after getting caught up in a late caution.
Other interesting options are Jimmie Johnson (+6000), defending winner Ricky Stenhouse (+3500), outside pole sitter Michael McDowell (+2000), 2018 winner Austin Dillon (+3500), and Ross Chastain (+2500).
One driver that’s going completely under the radar is Todd Gilliland.
The third-year Cup driver out of Sherrills Ford, North Carolina takes his third stab at the event for Front Row Motorsports, previous winners of the event with teammate Michael McDowell in 2021.
A rookie in 2022, Gilliland ran a great race by earning stage points in the first two stages before being wiped out in a pileup with 10 laps to go. He claimed stage points again in the 2023 race, but he was once again taken out by something he didn’t cause.
Front Row Motorsports moved up to a Tier 1 Ford partner alongside RFK and Team Penske, the latter of whom FRM has a technical alliance with this season. With better equipment, enhanced data, and more experience, Gilliland looks ready for a big splash to kickoff 2024.
The Writer’s Pick
I am rolling with Ryan Blaney this Sunday. Though he will be moving to a backup car because of a crash in the Duels, I suspect he will methodically move his way through the field before appearing at the front around lap 50 once pit stops have been completed.
Blaney subscribes to the Dale Jr. approach to superspeedway racing: If you stay up front, you control your own destiny and are less liable to get wrecked.
Granted, that hasn’t exactly worked out for him at times, most notably last season in the summer race at Daytona when his Advance Auto Parts Ford pounded the turn 4 wall before the end of Stage 2.
Blaney might have a chip on his shoulder as the first driver to not win the Phoenix finale to clinch the title, so winning his second Crown Jewel in nine months would be a perfect way to tell the detractors to have a seat.
(Top Photo Credit: North State Journal)
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