Diez: NASCAR opens, not closes, with its Super Bowl

By the time you read this, the field will be set for the Daytona 500 (this was written prior to the running of the 150-mile Duel races). I can tell you that the front row was locked in on Wednesday evening, with Joey Logano just edging 2021 winner Michael McDowell for the pole. The 36 franchise teams are guaranteed one of the 40 starting positions, and two non-franchise teams went home after the Duels. The two non-franchise drivers who made the field in Wednesday’s qualifying were Anthony Alfredo and David Ragan in a third RFK Ford. Jimmy Johnson was one of the drivers who had to race his way in on Thursday.

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Unlike other sports, NASCAR’s Super Bowl is the first race of the season, not the last. The Daytona 500 is the biggest, most prestigious race on the calendar. Not only is it the race every NASCAR driver wants on their resume, it’s also the most lucrative. This year the total purse for the 500 is a record $28,035,991, and the winner will get the biggest chunk of that purse. There are five past winners in the field, and four of them are not prolific winners. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. scored one of his three wins in the Cup series in last year’s 500. The 2022 500 win is the only Cup victory so far for Austin Cindric, while McDowell has only two Cup wins to his credit. Austin Dillon won in 2018, one of his four Cup victories. The exception to this rule is Denny Hamlin, whose three wins put him in a four-way tie for third in most 500 wins. One more and he will be tied with Cale Yarborough for second-most, but he has a long way to go before catching up with Richard Petty as a seven-time Daytona 500 champion.

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Hamlin’s Clash victory two weeks ago was a good start to his 2024 season. Could this be his year to finally win the elusive NASCAR Cup championship? His career win total sits at 51 including his three 500 wins, three Southern 500 victories, and a win in NASCAR’s longest race, the Coca-Cola 600. In addition, he has 18 wins in what is now the Xfinity series and two Craftsman Truck wins. He holds the dubious distinction of eclipsing the records of two Hall of Fame drivers without a championship, Mark Martin and Dale Earnhardt Jr. Martin scored 40 Cup wins, 49 in Xfinity, and seven in Trucks while Junior has 26 Cup top finishes and 24 in Xfinity. But while those two have retired, Hamlin is still very much in the mix year after year, and a championship would be the cherry on top of a distinguished career. 

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So, it’s no surprise that three-time winner Hamlin tops the odds at press time for the big race at 9-1. Kyle Busch is 11-1 and 2023 Cup champion Ryan Blaney shares 12-1 odds with Brad Keselowski. Four drivers are tied at 14-1 odds: Kyle Larson, Joey Logano, Chris Buescher, and Chase Elliot. William Byron is 16-1 and Bubba Wallace is 18-1. Martin Truex Jr., Eric Jones, and Christopher Bell are tied at 22-1. 

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The Craftsman Truck series ran Friday evening, and today’s action continues on FS1. Final NASCAR Cup practice airs at 7:30 a.m., followed by Xfinity qualifying at 8:30. The ARCA race is at 10:30 and the Xfinity United Rentals 300 airs at 2 p.m. Fox will broadcast the Daytona 500 on Sunday at 11:30 a.m.