2024 Daytona 500 Race Picks
NASCAR Cup Series Betting Predictions
Date/Time: Sunday February 18th, 2024. 2:30PM (EST)
Where: Daytona International Speedway
TV: FOX
Perhaps it’s just my personal opinion but it feels like the 2024 Daytona Speedweeks has been one of the best in recent memory. On Wednesday, Joey Logano won the Busch Light Pole Award with a lap 181.947mph. Not only was it Logano and car owner’s Roger Penske’s first pole in the Great American Race but it also snapped a 11-year streak from the Chevrolet teams who had won the pole for the Daytona 500 each season going back to 2012. Then on Thursday, fans were treated to two fantastic races in the Bluegreen Vacations Duels which featured wins from Tyler Reddick and Christopher Bell in a noteworthy bounce back performance from the Toyota teams after disappointing qualifying results on Wednesday.
Interestingly, both Ford and Toyota manufacturers are debuting brand new body styles for the 2024 season. The Ford teams will be piloting the new Mustang Dark Horse which helped Joey Logano catapult to the top of the charts in Wednesday’s qualifying. While Toyota teams struggled in qualifying trim, the drivers piloting the new Toyota Camry XSE came to life on Thursday in the duel races which is a very promising sign considering the duel races produce nearly identical drafting conditions that will be present in Sunday’s grand finale. Judging solely by the duel races Thursday evening, I would give the Toyotas the edge in outright race speed. While Daytona continued to provide an opportunity for all drivers to run towards the front, it definitely appeared the Toyotas had an edge in the speed department during true race conditions.
Aside from the manufacturer storylines, there were tons of other storylines that emerged throughout Daytona Speedweeks. 7-time NASCAR Champion Jimmie Johnson raced his way into the Daytona 500 in the first duel race and actually looked really strong at times piloting the #84 Carvana Toyota Camry for Legacy Motor Club. While the veteran was impressive in his return to the sport, we also saw a lot of promising talent from the likes of Josh Berry, Riley Herbst, Carson Hocevar, and others who shined as rookies in Thursday’s duel races. Needless to say, the storylines are rampant and the stage is set for NASCAR to return to its biggest stage with the 66th running of the Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway which will officially kick off our weekly grind of delivering the best betting options for each race for the remainder of the year!
Handicapping Strategy
While I know we have a lot of seasoned subscribers, let me reiterate a couple of important tidbits for some of our new subscribers and readers. First off, handicapping the superspeedway races like Daytona, Talladega, and now Atlanta is somewhat a beautiful art that requires a lot of luck and long-term betting strategy. Anyone that tells you these races are predictable are simply lying. These races at Daytona can change in the blink of an eye with wrecks that can take out nearly an entire field. While short-term strategies for superspeedway races are extremely volatile, they can be profitable long-term if we are maximizing our value/ROI with each betting selection. After all, these races provide a greater opportunity to hit extreme long shot style winners. While this will not happen with every superspeedway race, bettors only need to hit a few to be profitable in the long-run.
In terms of making betting selections, I always state that bettors could make a case for every driver at the superspeedways and not be necessarily right or wrong. Typically, my strategy is a combination of analytics which displays the drivers that consistently put themselves in position to run upfront, general observations from Daytona Speedweeks, and most importantly picking the drivers with the most valuable odds based on risk/probability style analysis. Typically, I like to sprinkle a lot of low-risk bets across several drivers to increase the odds of hitting a winner and I think that is also a successful strategy as long as betters maintain their ideal ROI.
However, the race predictions and strategy for the superspeedway races are much different than they will be during the season at the traditional ovals. Most traditional ovals, we will only pick 2-3 drivers for the outright win as opposed to the superspeedways where we may select 6-7 drivers or possibly more for the outright win as long as we are getting justifiable ROI with all of our selections. Another example that differentiates strategy for superspeedways surrounds the fact I rarely bet on H2H match-ups at the superspeedway races because of the volatility with big wrecks. However, H2H match-ups will be a huge portion of our betting focus as we progress throughout the season as we look to take advantage of poorly evaluated match-ups from odds makers.
Superspeedway Analytics
As stated earlier, both the Ford and Toyota teams have brought new chassis bodies into the 2024 season which may present benefits and/or challenges to the superspeedway packages. While it may be later into the season before all of these benefits and/or challenges are known, Daytona is one of the superspeedways where the driver can make a big impact by simply being aggressive and blocking runs from behind. If we look at our dynamic averages for the superspeedways which aggregates loop data from the last 5 races at the superspeedways, we can get an understanding of the drivers that have run upfront on a consistent basis. While these metrics do not guarantee anything in the highly volatile art of superspeedway racing, it does shed light on those “drivers” that are typically able to get to the front and hold their track position for greater lengths of time compared to others.
As you will see in the dynamic averages, 6 of the top 7 drivers over the last 5 superspeedway races have originated from the Ford camp with Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano posting the two best average driver ratings by a healthy margin. I have been saying for the last several years that Blaney and Logano are the best two superspeedway talents in the sport despite Denny Hamlin potentially having the better resume, especially at Daytona. I believe these stats help illustrate my argument and you can never go wrong by having betting anchors like Blaney or Logano in your betting lineups. However, don’t overlook some of the other less polarizing names that have produced strong analytics coming from drivers like Austin Cindric (2022 Daytona 500 Winner) and Chris Buescher (2023 breakout candidate).
Aside from our dynamic averages, I also compiled loop data stats from the last 4 races at Daytona International Speedway to provide a glimpse of similar analytics that are specific to the high-banks of Daytona. As you will see below, Joey Logano, Chris Buescher, Austin Cindric, and more similar names also emerge in our Daytona loop data. Therefore, we can see clear linear data that points to these drivers putting themselves in winning position constantly at Daytona. Does that guarantee bettors’ results for Sunday? Absolutely not, however it is still part of the overall handicapping equation that goes into making these predictions.
| Driver | Avg. Rating | Avg. Start | Avg. Mid Race | Avg. Finish | Avg. Pos. | Pass Diff. | Fastest Lap | Laps Led | Total Laps |
|---|
| Joey Logano | 97.8 | 10.0 | 12.0 | 10.0 | 11.5 | 62 | 15 | 36 | 731 |
| Chris Buescher | 94.0 | 8.0 | 12.3 | 12.0 | 11.5 | 6 | 11 | 35 | 712 |
| Austin Cindric | 88.5 | 10.3 | 11.5 | 16.0 | 14.8 | -94 | 3 | 34 | 665 |
| Brad Keselowski | 84.9 | 12.3 | 11.0 | 17.0 | 15.3 | 16 | 18 | 115 | 606 |
| Martin Truex Jr | 84.7 | 14.0 | 17.0 | 15.0 | 12.8 | 31 | 17 | 29 | 736 |
| Ricky Stenhouse Jr | 83.2 | 25.3 | 14.0 | 21.3 | 17.8 | 87 | 26 | 27 | 640 |
| Chase Elliott | 81.8 | 11.0 | 14.8 | 20.3 | 16.0 | -3 | 13 | 33 | 619 |
| Kyle Busch | 81.0 | 21.5 | 11.0 | 10.5 | 13.8 | 80 | 21 | 46 | 735 |
| Bubba Wallace | 79.6 | 16.3 | 24.3 | 11.3 | 15.5 | -22 | 20 | 19 | 734 |
| Ryan Blaney | 78.7 | 9.5 | 14.3 | 15.8 | 20.0 | -5 | 5 | 41 | 661 |
| Alex Bowman | 76.6 | 11.0 | 20.0 | 12.3 | 18.3 | 0 | 16 | 23 | 728 |
| Erik Jones | 76.2 | 18.3 | 20.5 | 25.3 | 16.8 | -12 | 16 | 25 | 620 |
| Michael McDowell | 75.3 | 16.3 | 12.0 | 20.0 | 17.0 | -46 | 19 | 2 | 673 |
| Christopher Bell | 73.8 | 9.3 | 32.5 | 22.3 | 21.0 | -10 | 4 | 20 | 557 |
| Denny Hamlin | 72.3 | 21.5 | 26.0 | 26.3 | 18.8 | 19 | 10 | 31 | 574 |
| Ryan Preece | 71.6 | 14.5 | 8.0 | 33.5 | 16.5 | -6 | 11 | 4 | 336 |
| A.J Allmendinger | 69.2 | 23.0 | 23.5 | 17.5 | 22.5 | 20 | 13 | 9 | 372 |
| Kyle Larson | 68.2 | 2.8 | 18.8 | 28.5 | 19.8 | -71 | 14 | 7 | 576 |
| Ty Gibbs | 66.8 | 20.3 | 32.3 | 24.3 | 22.7 | 40 | 7 | 0 | 462 |
| Harrison Burton | 66.7 | 14.8 | 20.3 | 28.0 | 20.8 | 7 | 6 | 17 | 572 |
| William Byron | 66.6 | 22.0 | 20.8 | 28.5 | 21.0 | 31 | 16 | 3 | 528 |
| Chase Briscoe | 64.9 | 16.5 | 18.0 | 24.8 | 19.3 | -16 | 14 | 72 | 663 |
| Tyler Reddick | 63.5 | 16.8 | 16.0 | 25.3 | 20.5 | 6 | 11 | 13 | 591 |
| Daniel Suarez | 63.1 | 17.8 | 22.5 | 17.3 | 19.5 | -37 | 15 | 6 | 711 |
| Todd Gilliland | 62.1 | 27.5 | 20.8 | 28.8 | 20.5 | 19 | 14 | 0 | 667 |
| Ross Chastain | 60.3 | 19.8 | 26.5 | 24.8 | 23.3 | -3 | 13 | 25 | 538 |
| Riley Herbst | 60.1 | 22.0 | 21.5 | 24.0 | 29.0 | -17 | 6 | 0 | 306 |
| Corey LaJoie | 59.5 | 26.0 | 24.0 | 17.5 | 23.0 | -16 | 16 | 6 | 713 |
| David Ragan | 59.0 | 34.0 | 30.0 | 8.5 | 24.5 | -5 | 11 | 0 | 361 |
| Daniel Hemric | 58.7 | 30.5 | 22.5 | 19.0 | 23.0 | -5 | 9 | 0 | 338 |
| Austin Dillon | 57.9 | 26.3 | 22.3 | 23.0 | 23.0 | 27 | 12 | 11 | 661 |
| Justin Haley | 56.3 | 24.8 | 19.3 | 26.0 | 22.8 | -18 | 14 | 8 | 701 |
| Noah Gragson | 53.2 | 32.7 | 22.7 | 20.0 | 22.0 | 56 | 17 | 0 | 560 |
Daytona Intangibles
If we are simply going by analytics, then we could make a strong case for the several of the Ford drivers previously mentioned and perhaps call it a day. However as stated before, we have to consider the intangibles as well. As I mentioned earlier, the Toyota teams looked great in race conditions on Thursday and flexed their muscles again on Friday in practice. While we can never rule out anyone from winning at Daytona, I think we can come to a logical conclusion that the Toyotas have an apparent speed advantage which improves the stock for guys like Martin Truex Jr, Tyler Reddick, Bubba Wallace, and Christopher Bell among others. While some of those guys may not have the best superspeedway statistics, they are more than capable of winning Sunday’s Daytona 500 especially if they are aided with track position from a fast Toyota Camry XSE!
Of course some of what I am describing is essentially an eye test, drivers that look far better than previous results, stats, or any other analytics would yield. In terms of the eye test, there were some drivers from the Chevy camp that appeared to have solid speed. In the duels, Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott displayed strong speed. Meanwhile, Kyle Busch and William Byron also displayed promising signs before getting caught up in an accident during duel #2. Among less known names, I can’t help but mention drivers like Michael McDowell, Riley Herbst, Jimmie Johnson, and Carson Hocevar as drivers that could yield betting value as potential dark horses primarily in prop bet formats. McDowell is a former Daytona 500 Champion and has consistently run well at the superspeedways throughout his career. More importantly, Front Row Motorsports appears to be reaching heights as an elite team in the garage which strengthens the argument for McDowell, who by the way, qualified in the 2nd position. While McDowell may not be considered a long shot any longer, Herbst, Hocevar, and even Jimmie Johnson are considered huge underdogs for Sunday’s 500. Should I point out the fact that underdogs have won the last 4 races at Daytona and also won the last 3 Daytona 500 events? Needless to say, bettors need to have underdogs in their lineup on Sunday in some form or fashion.
Daytona Random Facts and Trends
- Ford drivers have won 4 of the last 6 races at Daytona.
- There have been 7 or 8 cautions exactly in 5 of the last 6 races at Daytona.
- Rookie John Hunter Nemechek has finished 11th in both prior starts at Daytona.
- Bubba Wallace has the best average finishing position (12.9) among active drivers at Daytona.
- Joey Logano and Chris Buescher finished in the Top 5 in both Daytona races last year.
- Martin Truex Jr has the most stage wins (3) at Daytona in the Next Gen Car.
- Brad Keselowski has led the most laps (115) at Daytona in the Next Gen Car.
- Daniel Suarez has just 1 top 10 finish in 13 career starts at Daytona and a 26.9 average finishing position.
- Denny Hamlin and Jimmie Johnson are tied for the most wins (3) at Daytona among active drivers. Austin Dillon and Ricky Stenhouse Jr are the only other drivers with multiple wins at Daytona!
Betting Targets
In terms of making selections, betting value must be able to justify our selections. We don’t want to overload our lineups with heavy favorites which increase risks and negates our ROI. Rather, we should stagger bets across all betting odds ranges and leverage wager size in accordance with probability/risk analysis. With those things in mind, I have placed several more selections than normal this week for the Daytona 500. Simply put, I was able to stretch numerous bets across several drivers who I believe have solid betting value and still maintain a solid ROI. Keep in mind, most of the drivers below are outside of the betting “favorite” category in order to keep our ROI target.
Personally, I am gravitated to guys like Kyle Busch, William Byron, and Martin Truex Jr. Despite the win numbers at Daytona, they have been among the best drivers at Daytona in recent years and are getting solid premiums for their betting odds simply because of their results in the duels on Thursday. Truex had one of the fastest cars but was caught in a pit road speeding penalty. Meanwhile, both Busch and Byron looked strong before getting caught up in an accident in duel #2. Simply put, have much higher ceilings than current betting odds suggest. Aside from those drivers, I also like the numbers on guys like Tyler Reddick, Erik Jones, and AJ Allmendinger. Reddick and Jones have the Toyota advantage that I have spoke about throughout this preview. Not to mention, Jones is a former winner at Daytona and underrated superspeedway talent. Meanwhile, Allmendinger has posted solid results in each of his prior trips to Daytona after returning to the Cup Series. These drivers almost have too much value to ignore!
2024 Daytona 500 Betting Picks
**Rain will be a factor and could push this event to Monday. However, weather conditions do not impact our betting predictions for Daytona**
*More plays may be added. Keep checking back until “Final” status is displayed.*
Kyle Busch +1200 (.75 unit)
Michael McDowell +1800 (.5 unit)
William Byron +2200 (.5 unit)
Martin Truex Jr +2200 (.5 unit)
Tyler Reddick +2500 (.5 unit)
Erik Jones +3000 (.5 unit)
Alex Bowman +4000 (.25 unit)
Josh Berry +5500 (.25 unit)
A.J. Allmendinger +6000 (.10 unit)
Riley Herbst +9000 (.10 unit)
H2H Match-Ups and Props
Chris Buescher +380 wins Group B (Larson, Elliott, Logano) (1 unit)
A.J Allmendinger +600 finishes Top 5 (.5 unit)
Riley Herbst +350 finishes Top 10 (.5 unit)
