NASCAR DFS & Betting Preview: Daytona 500 Odds & Pricing
Hey everyone, welcome to the RotoGrinders daily fantasy NASCAR and betting recap/preview article. This is a new series for the 2022 season.
This week we head to Daytona Beach, Florida for the Daytona 500. The Daytona 500 is the biggest race of the season, which is the exact opposite of most other major sports. The Daytona 500 is Sunday at 2:30pm EST on FOX. The XFINITY Series will kick off their season with the Beef. It’s What’s For Dinner. 300 on Saturday at 5pm EST on FS1. The Trucks are also kicking off this season this weekend. The NextEra Energy 250 is Friday night at 7:30pm EST on FS1.
Race Preview
New car, same Daytona? For a lot of us, we are very interested to see how this new car performs all season, but especially at Daytona. Daytona is unique when it comes to qualifying. Teams will qualify on Wednesday night, but only the top two spots are guaranteed. There are two races on Thursday night that set the rest of the field. The 36 chartered are locked into the field. There will be four open cars that make the field. The best qualifying time from each Duel race and the highest finishing open car from each duel make the Daytona 500. The Cup Series practice on Friday and Saturday after the Duel races, but usually we don’t see much action in those practices. I would focus on what we see early in the week and the Duels.
DraftKings NASCAR Fantasy Preview
DraftKings has a $2,250,000, $1,000,000 to first place tournament posted, which is the biggest fantasy NASCAR contest ever. Daytona International Speedway is a 2.5-mile tri-oval superspeedway. Daytona and Talladega are the only two current NASCAR superspeedways. These two tracks take a much different strategy for DFS.
You typically see a lot of salary left over. You’re focusing a lot more on place differential than dominators. With 200 laps, we’re looking at 140 potential dominator points on DraftKings and 20 laps led points and 20 laps completed points on FanDuel. Usually, 140 dominator points would be important, but Daytona/Talladega are different. If someone leads 100 laps and wins the race, that dominator would be optimal. If someone leads 100 laps and finishes 30th, those laps led won’t matter. Since introducing the 550hp package at superspeedways, only one driver in those six races have more than 20 fastest laps in a race.
The last time the pole sitter won a point paying race at Daytona was Dale Earnhardt Jr. in July of 2015. That’s the only time in the last 20 races at Daytona that the pole sitter has won the race. It’s also the only time a front row driver has won in those 20 races.
Last 6 DraftKings Optimal Lineups at Daytona (Starting Spots)
Coke Zero Sugar 400 2021 – Newman (23rd), Wallace (20th), Preece (24th), Haley (28th), Bilicki (36th), McLeod (30th) – $36,100
Daytona 500 2021 – Hamlin (25th), Chastain (34th), McDowell (17th), Cindric (39th), Elliott (12th), Custer (27th) – $47,600
Coke Zero 400 2020 – Elliott (27th), Gaughan (40th), Byron (6th), Wallace (21st), Hamlin (10th), Poole (32nd) – $49,000
Daytona 500 2020 – Hamlin (21st), Gaughan (39th), Blaney (27th), Ragan (30th), LaJoie (36th), Bowyer (29th) – $46,200
Coke Zero 400 2019 – Haley (34th), LaJoie (30th), Ty Dillon (23rd), Yeley (37th), Tifft (31st), Cassill (33rd) – $31,700
Daytona 500 2019 – Kyle Busch (31st), Jones (28th), McDowell (34th), Hamlin (10th), Chastain (36th), Larson (26th) – $46,300
Daytona 500 Betting Odds
The Daytona 500 is one of my least favorite races to bet on outright winners. With so many potential issues, I don’t think it’s the smartest race to bet on favorites. I like to bet head-to-head matchups, top 10, and top 20 for the Daytona 500. My favorite outright winner at this point in the week, would be Ricky Stenhouse Jr. at 31/1 on FanDuel. My favorite non featured matchup head-to-head bet would be Kevin Harvick over Kyle Busch at -110 on BetMGM. Harvick has an average finish of 8.7 with four top five finishes in the last six Daytona races. In that same span, Kyle Busch has an average finish of 22.2 with only one top five finish.
Fantasy and Betting Recap
The Busch Light Clash was a great race to watch. The fastest cars from practice translated to the favorites in the race, but a few issues with the cars took some strong competitors out of play. I went 1-1 with my early week bets from the article, and 1-1 in the two bets I recommended in the NASCAR Premium package. As far as DFS, huge congrats to subscriber BDruhot for solo shipping the big DraftKings contest. The top five cars in green flag speed were Tyler Reddick, Joey Logano, Kyle Busch, Justin Haley, and Kyle Larson. Fastest laps were spread out, Kyle Busch and Joey Logano were the only two drivers with more than 20. Despite leading 51 laps, Tyler Reddick only had six fastest laps. The optimal lineup for DraftKings was Kyle Busch, Joey Logano, Erik Jones, Austin Dillon, AJ Allmendinger, and Kevin Harvick for 338.4 points and $44,900 salary. On FanDuel, the optimal was Joey Logano, Kyle Busch, Erik Jones, Austin Dillon, and AJ Allmendinger for 291.4 points and $45,000 salary.