For those scoring at home, Best Bets featured A.J. Allmendinger at +2000 and he won at Indianapolis. Last week, Best Bets had Ryan Blaney as a +1800 winner and he came through at Michigan. Will Daytona make it three in a row and will the pay outs continue to be big?
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Joey Logano to Win (+1200)
Every drivers has lucrative odds in a plate race because any driver can win — Michael McDowell won the Daytona 500 at +8000. Logano’s winning payout is low compared to the rest of the field, but the reality is that not every driver can win. Yes, McDowell won at Daytona in February, but Brad Keselowski won at Talladega in the spring. The underdogs always make it close, but they rarely pull it out. The big names always win the place races, but there are quite a few big name drivers that can win a pate race, so very good racers — even very good plate racers — have odds that pay well.
Joey Logano is one of — if not the best — plate racers in NASCAR. His four plate track wins places him one shy of Denny Hamlin and several short of the seven wins held by the most recent plate track winner, Brad Keselowski. That’s very good company and although four does not seem like a lot over a decade, it clearly is if he ranks third in plate wins among active drivers. The reason that it feels like Logano should have more is because he should have more. He is usually there at the end, battling for the win, and that’s all a bettor can ask for in a plate race.
Ryan Newman to Win (+3000)
Now, to the long shots. Newman has better odds of flipping than winning, but there is more to that than a flippant joke. When it comes down to the final laps, some drivers are too passive. They’ll settle for a top 10 and leave bettors empty handed. Some drivers will wait for a push that never comes or a line that never forms. Newman is not that driver, he’ll force the issue — that’s why he ends up upside down. It has been a very long time since Newman won a plate race. His last and only plate track win was the 2008 Daytona 500. With his contract ending at the end of the year and limited options on the horizon, this could be Newman’s last chance at a win and possibly his last race at Daytona. If under normal circumstances, Newman is willing to risk his life for a win, then what will he do win in what might be his last shot at a win?
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Ross Chastain to Win (+3500)
In similar spirit to the Newman pick, Chastain is another driver that is not laying up. In 2019, Chastain burned a lot of bridges and became the most hated driver in the garage in the Truck Series. Before he was made to pay for his aggressive driving, he fled to the Xfinity Series where he again became the most hated driver in the series. Once again, he failed upward, and the aggressive driver — some will call this good old fashioned racing, but the stat sheet says otherwise — landed in the Cup Series, and wouldn’t you know it, he’s the most disliked driver in garage. That’s all well and good, but bettors want winners, not efflorescent TV personalities. Chastain is a checkers-or-wreckers driver, especially at plate tracks. In the Xfinity Series, he won two plate races, and he almost won a third, but got greedy on the final lap and wrecked himself and his teammate. Think about that, Chastain wanted to win so bad, that he wrecked his teammate at Daytona on the final lap. It doesn’t get much more aggressive than that.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. to Win (+2200)
Everyone knew this one was coming. Cue up the gif of the sailors shoveling money into a fire. Stenhouse is a wild man, and like the drivers listed above, he’s a 10 of 10 crazy when it comes to plate racing. His aggression has led to some destroyed race cars, but more often than not, he earns decent finishes. His average finish of 17th makes him the third-best plate racer in terms of consistency. Yes, Stenhouse is one of the safest drivers, but bettors don’t want safety, they want wins. He has two wins, and the positive spin on his safety is that a driver has to be in the race at the end in order win.
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