The annual Bluegreen Vacations Duels in Daytona (6 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN) at the World Center of Speed will set the lineup for 40 drivers at this Sunday's Daytona 500. Covers Experts' Auto Racing Advisor has broken down the field for our best Daytona Duels picks and long-shot predictions to get you set for tonight's races.
Daytona Duels provide a great opportunity for NASCAR betting and these qualifying races are a fun lead-in to betting on Daytona 500 odds. From favorites like Denny Hamlin to value picks like Ricky Stenhouse Jr., let's take a look at the starting lineups and betting trends for this event.
Daytona Duels 1 favorites
Chase Elliott (+500)
He’s won two Duels and has scored a Top-8 finish in five of his six tries.
William Byron (+700)
He won a Duel in 2020 as well as the Coke Zero Sugar 400 later that year. He had a great car in last year’s Duels, leading 34 laps before getting caught up in a crash.
Ryan Blaney (+750)
He won a Duel in 2018 and has scored five Top-6 results in seven Duels starts.
Daytona Duels 1 best value picks
Kyle Larson (+850)
He’s never had a Top 5 in 26 career points-paying superspeedway starts but does have six Top-8 finishes in eight Duel tries, including a third-place result in 2020.
Kurt Busch (+1,100)
Never say never. Busch has six Top 5s in his last nine Duels, including 16 Top-9 finishes overall in 21 tries. He was third, third, fifth, fifth, eighth and ninth respectively in his last six tries.
Daytona Duels 2 favorites
Denny Hamlin (+500)
You can never count him out. Hamlin has won three total Daytona 500s — two of which coming in the last three years — and has two Duels wins overall since 2014 too, with five Top 10s in that time frame.
Joey Logano (+700)
He’s won a Duel in two of the last three years to go along with seven straight Top-8 finishes. Furthermore, he’s actually finished in the Top 4 in eight of the last nine years.
Kyle Busch (+950)
Three of his last five Duels have seen him finish outside of the Top 10. But, he also has six Top 5s since 2015, including a win in 2016 and fourth last year.
Daytona Duels 2 best value picks
Aric Almirola (+1,000)
He’s a good superspeedway racer and won last year’s race. Worth a look.
Kevin Harvick (+1,500)
He’s had just one Daytona 500 win over his career, but Harvick has done his best work at Daytona in the Duels. The Stewart-Haas Racing driver has seven straight Top-6 finishes in these qualifying races, including a third-place effort in 2017, a runner-up in 2018, a win in 2019, and third last year.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (+1,800)
He had a car capable of winning the 2020 Duel, but as the pole-sitter that year for the Daytona 500, he elected to keep it somewhat conservative so he didn’t get caught up in a crash. He was 11th last year.
Daytona Duels betting trends
- Over the last 31 Daytona Duels, only once has the pole winner won the race.
- Eight of the nine Duels have been won from the third starting spot on back.
- The last 13 Duels have been won from a starting spot in the Top 4 Rows.
- 15 of the last 16 Duels have been won from a Top-10 starting spot.
- 21 of the last 26 Duels have been won from Row 2 on back.
