NASCAR DAYTONA 500 PICKS, PREDICTIONS, ODDS |
The 64th running of the Daytona 500 might be the freshest start to a season we’ve ever seen as NASCAR debuts the Next Gen car which adds more uncertainties than ever before to superspeedway races that already had the randomness of a craps shoot or a roulette wheel. The new car brings more equations to an already difficult process of handicapping the Daytona 500. My first question is how the new engine producing 670 horsepower runs in traffic. I saw a little bit of Tuesday’s practices and it looked like any other year with tandem racing being the quickest around the 2.5-mile high-banked layout.
DAYTONA 500 PICKS & PREDICTIONS
The new car also has one hub instead of lugnuts so I imagine some strategy of pit stops has been taken away. Cars will be waiting for a full tank of gas while the crew watches the gasman finish for a few seconds. Do we say goodbye to the two-tire pit stop now?
And we also have the car number moved off the door and scrunched up near the front wheel to give more key advertising space on the door. I guess I’ll get used to it, but it does give the new car an identity we’ll remember for much longer than the winged spoiler of the Car of Tomorrow.
One of the selling points of the Next Gen car is that everyone has the same equipment so we could deduce that a bunch of new guys will be running up front on Sunday, right?.
“Temper expectations on that,” three-time Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin said Wednesday. “The quote of level playing field is probably overused. Certainly, probably a tighter box from front to back but again it’s just teams find ways. If you look at single car runs yesterday, the same guys that have been on all of the poles (Hendrick Motorsports) have been the fastest.”
Denny Hamlin has won three of the last six Daytona 500 events. (AP)
So the driver is still going to mean as much as the old car, maybe more?
“While technically you’re able to put the same parts off of his car on my car and my car on his car, what really has changed?” Hamlin asked. “Well, nothing really except maybe the motor is different and the body is different but they’re significantly faster. You’re still going to have the team’s resources to find a way to make the car faster than the teams that just bolt it together.”
In other words, those that are good on superspeedways, like Hamlin, are still going to be good. And those elite teams with all the money are still going to be elite and spend the money to stay elite with the new car.
DAYTONA 500 BETTING ANALYSIS
But if the racing is expected to be the same as it has then we still have to consider up to 30 of the 40 drivers as contenders to win the race. Michael McDowell won his first career race last season in the Daytona 500 paying out at 65-to-1 odds.
I’ve got all kinds of new stuff to consider, but in the back of my mind I know who I’m betting and it was the same seven drivers I was thinking before Tuesday’s practices when I got my first glimpse of the teams drafting with the new cars. The Fords had an edge just because their bumpers in front and back line-up better in the draft.
If you’ve been reading this space for the last 23 years, you know I’m a sucker for a great story. So I had to identify the best possible stories I could find and came up with a few to ponder. Such as Brad Keselowski in his first year as driver/part-owner of RFK Racing. He’ll drive the No. 6 Ford that Ryan Newman drove last season. Roush Fords were always a threat in plate races, but not many other tracks. First year, new team, former NASCAR Cup champion, and never won the Daytona 500.
“I’m excited to see this all come together and happy to get this journey going,” Keselowski said. “Daytona is obviously one of the most special places you will ever race, and for us it is a great opportunity to put our stake in the ground early and right out of the gate. For me, the 500 hasn’t always treated me with the best of luck despite bright moments along the way, so I have that fire now, more than ever, to add a Daytona 500 win to my career list of accomplishments, and can’t wait to get down to Florida soon to get the week started.”
Keselowski has a 2016 summer win at Daytona and six other wins at Talladega Superspeedway. Caesars offers him at 16-to-1 to win Sunday.
DAYTONA 500 BETTING RESOURCES
- Date: Sunday, February 14, 2021
- TV-Time: FOX, 2:30 p.m. ET
- Venue: Daytona International Speedway
- Location: Daytona Beach, Florida
I also like the old guys angle as Kurt Busch starts his 23rd Cup season and has a new ride as Bubba Wallace’s new teammate. It seems like yesterday I was watching him win races on the Las Vegas bullring and now he’s on the edge of his career. He has 33 Cup wins and at least one win in each of the last eight seasons. His odds have dropped at Caesars from 20-to-1 down to 17-to-1.
Kevin Harvick enters his 22nd Cup season and is one of the old guys in the series. When he started his first Daytona 500 in 2002, he started against the fathers of three of the starters Sunday – Chase Elliott, Harrison Burton, and Ryan Blaney. He won the 2007 Daytona 500 and wants another as father time is ticking away.
“The superspeedways, in general, are difficult to have everything line up to get a win out of the weekend,“ Harvick said. “For the Daytona 500, it’s our biggest race of the year, but it’s also the one race a year that you have months to prepare for. Every team in the garage has their most prepared car that shows up at the Daytona 500. On top of that, you have the most aggression and enthusiasm to try to take risks and do things that you normally wouldn’t do to win races because the Daytona 500 only comes once a year, and it can make a year and it can also make a career out of winning that race. I think as you look at the Daytona 500, it’s just different than any other race and it becomes difficult to win because of all the risk-taking that you don’t see on a weekly basis.”
Harvick has only two wins in 41 Daytona starts and is being offered at 18-to-1 odds to win by Caesars sportsbooks. He comes off a no-win season following a series-leading nine wins in 2020. My skepticism with him is that co-owner Tony Stewart stretched his time and money into other racing series and by coincidence, only Aric Almirola had a win among the four SHR Fords.
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