NASCAR is the only sport that begins its season with its biggest event. There may be 36 point races on the 2019 Cup Series, but the one that every driver wants to win the most is the first race of the season at Daytona International Speedway. Sunday’s main event is slated to get underway at 2:30 p.m. on FOX.
Top NASCAR Value Bets – Daytona 500
The betting odds to win this years Daytona 500 offer value across the board. This is one of the most wide-open races of the season with any number of potential winners in the field. Austin Dillon stunned the field last season a year after Kurt Busch won the Great American Race at long odds. With the betting odds set at 5Dimes to win the 2019 Daytona 500, the following three drivers offer the best value to win.
Top Favorite- Joey Logano +900
Logano took full advantage of the opportunity in his final race of the 2018 Cup Series season by winning at Homestead-Miami Speedway to clinch his first career racing title. This was just his third Cup Series win that year, but it was the victory that counted to most. He will once again be driving the No. 22 Ford on Sunday to kick off his 11th season of Cup Series racing. Last year in this race, he managed to steer clear of all the wrecks that day to end up fourth in the final running order.
He has been “hit or miss” at Daytona over the past few years, but you can say that about most of the drivers in the field. Motivated by a strong start in the 2019 title defense along with memories of his Daytona 500 win in 2015, Logano offers the best value among the drivers at the top of the betting board.
Top Contender- Chase Elliott +1200
The hype behind Elliott as one of the top five favorites to win this season’s racing title is well deserved. He broke through last season with three Cup Series victories in his third full-time season racing at NASCAR’s highest level. He also finished sixth in the final point standings after placing fifth the season before. Elliott while driving the No. 9 Chevrolet, his team showed some solid consistency in 2018 with a total of 21 runs in the Top 10 out of 36 events.
Elliott’s limited track record at Daytona is highlighted by three starts from the pole position in six previous events. His last two runs ended in wrecks, so staying clear of the pile-ups this Sunday will be key to keeping pace on the lead lap.
Top Longshot- Jimmie Johnson +2150
It is hard to believe that a driver with a racing resume that includes seven previous Cup Series titles would fade so quickly off the radar screen. That is precisely what happened to Johnson last season. For the first time in his future Hall of Fame career, he failed to win at least one Cup Series event. His No. 48 Chevrolet only made its way into a Top 5 finish twice. He did manage to qualify for the 10-race playoff, but the stay was short lived with a 14th-place finish in the final point standings.
With everything that went wrong in 2018 for one of the most famous NASCAR racing teams, there is one big ray of hope that things will be different this year with last Sunday’s victory in The Clash at Daytona. His recent track record at Daytona in the two Cup Series events each season is filled with four wrecks in his last five runs, but Johnson still offers quite a bit of value at these long odds.
