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Betting the Daytona 500 may be a bigger crapshoot than normal this year.
Daytona and Talladega typically provide the most parity on the board because of the ability for mid-pack teams to be in contention at the end with some good crash fortune. But with NASCAR’s new car debuting for real in Sunday’s Daytona 500, we’re not sure what to expect on Florida’s coast this year.
The 2022 Daytona 500 (3:06 p.m. ET, Fox) is the first points race for NASCAR’s totally revamped car. This car is very different from the cars that teams raced in 2021, down to the suspension, steering and transmission. Not only will the cars look significantly different when you’re watching the race on Sunday, they’ll be driving very differently too.
Inventory may also play a factor in how teams approach the Daytona 500 too. As teams are building new cars from the same parts vendors — the universal vendors are another new experience for NASCAR teams — they are facing a car shortage. Everyone has a car for Daytona; but the backup cars available for some teams may be ticketed to race in the next few weeks and prepped for those races.
The last Daytona 500 with a new car build was in 2013. Jimmie Johnson won that race after Matt Kenseth led 86 of the first 149 laps before his engine blew up.
The 2013 race was relatively tame by modern Daytona standards. Will 2022 be tame? We’re not sure. It certainly could be if drivers and teams are more cognizant of keeping their cars intact than they normally would be. Or it could be chaotic as drivers figure out ways to push and pass each other over the course of 500 miles in their new cars.
If you’re going to bet the Daytona 500, stick with the drivers and teams that have track records of success across the Cup Series. While the 2022 season could bring parity at the start because of the new car, we trust the teams with the most resources and history to be better than others right away.
Here’s our advice for betting Sunday’s race, though it may be no better than blindly throwing darts at a dartboard. All odds are from BetMGM.
The favorites
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Denny Hamlin (+800)
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Kyle Larson (+1000)
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Chase Elliott (+1000)
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Ryan Blaney (+1200)
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Joey Logano (+1200)
Hamlin is the favorite as he’s the only driver in the field with multiple Daytona 500 wins. Hamlin has won the Daytona 500 three times and won the race in 2019 and 2020. It’s hard to make a compelling argument against him among the favorites.
Logano is the only other driver at +1200 or better who has won a Daytona 500. The Hendrick cars of Elliott and Larson should have some serious speed and be contenders. But Larson, the 2021 Cup Series champion, has never finished in the top five at Daytona and has just five top-10 finishes in 15 starts.
Good mid-tier value
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Alex Bowman (+1800)
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Christopher Bell (+2500)
Bowman enters Wednesday night’s qualifying session with four consecutive front-row starts. He’s got the worst odds of any of the four Hendrick drivers and that makes him the best value play among them all. Bell is also No. 4 among his Joe Gibbs Racing teammates and has worse odds than Aric Almirola and the same odds as Austin Cindric. That’s also pretty good value.
Looking for a long shot?
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Michael McDowell (+6600)
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Chase Briscoe (+6600)
McDowell likely isn’t going to go back-to-back as a Daytona 500 winner. Last year’s win was his first career Cup Series victory. But he’s worth highlighting here because he has worse odds than drivers like Daniel Hemric and Greg Biffle (+5000) each. Neither Hemric nor Biffle is guaranteed a spot in Sunday’s race. They need to race their way in. And Biffle is driving for a team that is making its first Cup Series start in four years and has never, ever been competitive.
Briscoe could be a breakout driver of the 2022 season and is worth a flier. You can’t often get a driver for a championship-winning team at these odds.
Don’t bet this driver
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Brad Keselowski (+1600)
Keselowski has proven himself to be one of the better drivers at Daytona and Talladega and was less than a half-lap away from a potential win in the 2021 Daytona 500 when he collided with teammate Joey Logano while making a pass for the lead.
But Keselowski was at Team Penske then. He’s now at the revamped Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing. And we’re wondering if there will be an adjustment period for both team and driver at the start of the 2022 season. Keselowski is the No. 7 favorite on the board along with Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick — though Busch and Harvick are entering the race with their longtime teams. Keselowski is more than capable of winning on Sunday. But his new circumstances make us wary, especially at such low odds.
