Three to watch, one to avoid for NASCAR's return trip to Daytona

NASCAR is back at Daytona International Speedway this weekend, for the second time in 2024. After the season-opening Daytona 500 ended under caution with a William Byron win, the stars of the Cup Series will be back on Central Florida's high banks for the Coke Zero 400 on Saturday night (pending weather).

In recent years, this race has been held as the final event before the playoffs. This season it's the penultimate regular-season round, with Darlington's Southern 500 still to go a week from Sunday. Given the unpredictable nature of superspeedway racing, though, this trip to Daytona remains the primary opportunity for any driver outside the current field to win their way in.

With that in mind, here are three drivers to watch — a favorite, a contender and a dark horse — as well as one to avoid for the Coke Zero 400.

Favorite: Ryan Blaney (+1100, per DraftKings as of Friday afternoon)

Blaney is not one of those aforementioned drivers who must win his way into the playoffs, but he is the best superspeedway driver in NASCAR. And yet he's not the oddsmakers' favorite. Denny Hamlin and Blaney's teammate Joey Logano are tied for that honor at +1000 each, with Blaney just behind at +1100. While Daytona is always unpredictable, that has to be considered a gift.

Blaney won this race in 2021 and has been victorious three times at Daytona's sister track of Talladega. He just always seems to be in the mix. As long as the 30-year-old driver can avoid any hits such as the one he took in last year's Coke Zero 400, he figures to be the best bet for Saturday.

Contender: Ross Chastain (+2500)

It's going to be very tempting to put your money on a playoff bubble driver this week, for obvious reasons. Chris Buescher and Bubba Wallace both happen to be squarely on that bubble and both happen to be highly successful superspeedway racers, which the oddsmakers have recognized by putting them at +1600.

That's why, should you choose to go that route, you may be wiser in picking the third driver duking it out for one of the last two playoff spots. Chastain is no slouch on the superspeedways himself — winning at Talladega in 2022 and contending in the Daytona 500 this year right until the final lap — and yet at only +2500, he seems to be flying under the radar. It may just be time for the "Melon Man" to remind the NASCAR world what he's capable of.

Dark horse: Todd Gilliland (+3500)

There's a number of different directions to go with this week's dark-horse pick, as any driver in dire need of a win could be considered a threat. So how about Gilliland? Front Row Motorsports has been extremely fast on superspeedways in 2024, with Michael McDowell nearly winning Talladega before an ill-advised block on the final lap, but it's Gilliland who has emerged as the team's star this season as he sits 20th in points.

Gilliland has never won a Cup Series race and there would be no better place for him to get it done than at NASCAR's most famous track, with a playoff berth coming as his reward. He may not be the trendiest underdog pick this week, but at +3500, that's exactly why you should take him.

Avoid: Kyle Larson (+1200)

It's always a risk to throw Larson into this category, because as any race fan knows, he can win anywhere at anytime. The one track type he's struggled to find success at in his career, though, is the superspeedway — due to the natural randomness of pack racing, it's much harder for raw talent to shine through and you need a little bit of luck on your side.

Larson, simply put, has not often had that luck, and while he's bound to win on one of these tracks eventually, it just seems like there's better options if you're going to roll with a favorite. His +1200 odds are tied for fifth-highest in the field and it feels like that's much more of a statement of how good Larson is in general rather than what can be expected of him in this race.