NASCAR Daytona 500 betting odds, preview, and value picks

The Daytona 500 – the Super Bowl of stock car racing – is set for Sunday (2:30 p.m. ET, FOX) at Daytona International Speedway.

Denny Hamlin – who has won three of the last four renditions of “The Great American Race” – is the +800 favorite. Not even Richard Petty was able to win four Daytona 500s in a five-year span, so this race seems ripe for an upset. Let’s go looking for some value with a trio of picks for the 2021 Daytona 500.

Joey Logano (+900)

It’s difficult to find a driver who’s had worse luck at Daytona lately than Joey Logano.

He’s been in the Top 10 in eight straight stages over this course and has led 93 laps. Yet Logano has just one Top 10 result in a four-race span – a fourth in the 2019 Daytona 500. The No. 22 car has been involved in wrecks in two straight starts on this oval.

Logano is hoping to get back to his past performances over this course, like his 2015 victory in the Daytona 500. “Sliced Bread” got off to a hot start in 2020, winning two of the first four races before the COVID-19 shutdown, so it would not be shocking to see Logano up with the leaders from start to finish on Sunday.

Ryan Blaney (+1200)

Ryan Blaney has been somewhat star-crossed at Daytona for most of his career, and his last-lap accident in Tuesday night’s Busch Clash on the road course did not auger well. However, we can point to his 2020 performances as reason for encouragement for Blaney going into this year’s Daytona 500.

The No. 12 Ford driver just missed the win in last year’s “Great American Race,” finishing second to Hamlin. He followed that up in August with a sixth-place finish in Daytona’s Coke Zero Sugar 400.

Blaney managed to finish the race at Daytona just four times in nine previous tries, but an average finishing position of eighth in those four full-race results suggests he’ll be in the picture late with a little luck.

Martin Truex Jr. (+1600)

Martin Truex Jr. is one of the NASCAR Cup Series’ most high-profile drivers without a superspeedway win, let alone a Daytona 500 score. He could change that with some good fortune on Sunday.

Truex came as close as 0.010 seconds away from victory in the 2016 Daytona 500, losing to (you guessed it) Hamlin in one of the closest finishes in NASCAR history. He’s found the Top 5 just twice in nine races at Daytona since, but it’s not often you get these kind of odds on the No. 19 Toyota driver.