Feb. 16 marks the 67th running of the Daytona 500. As always, key drivers are looking to take home the Harley J. Earl Trophy. These are the sport’s champions —those who have won the season championship but have yet to check the box of the Great American Race.
Kyle Larson has 11 starts in the Daytona 500 and an average finish of 18th. Larson won the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series Championship dominantly. However, his debut race with Hendrick Motorsports at Daytona was not a part of his ten wins.
He has finished seventh twice in the 500. However, Larson’s best effort at Daytona was his 2017 effort with Chip Ganassi Racing. Larson’s No. 42 led 17 laps as the sun set on Daytona. However, leading on the final lap, exiting turn two, Larson ran out of fuel, allowing fellow champion Kurt Busch to walk away with the win.
The way that 2012 NASCAR Cup Series Champion Brad Keselowski loses the 500 is almost as shocking as the number of times Keselowski has entered the race. In 15 tries, Brad has an average finish of 23.3 and a best finish of third in 2014.
As he has gotten older, his effort to win the race has statistically improved; since 2020, Brad has led over 30 laps on three occasions. Most impressive of all was his 2022 debut as an owner-driver. That weekend, Brad won his Daytona Duel in the No. 6, started third, and led 67 laps. However, it was his former car, the No. 2, driven by rookie Austin Cindric, that took home the checkered flag, with Brad finishing ninth.
The 2025 Daytona 500 will be Kyle Busch’s 20th try to win a Harley J. Earl Trophy, much like fellow RCR legend Dale Earnhardt Busch, who is coming off a shocking winless season. In his 18 tries at Daytona, Busch has lead laps in 14 races but averages 18.7 finish.
While it will be his 20th year to attempt the race, it will be the 19th he has started, as in 2015, his championship year, after qualifying 4th, KFB was injured in the Xfinity Series race on Saturday. Matt Crafton took over driving duties in the No. 18, finishing 18th.
Busch’s best effort at Daytona, however, came in his 18th attempt in 2023. In his debut race with RCR, Busch was the car to beat, leading just six laps but in prime position to win before a late caution took that away. Following the overtime restart, Busch crashed on lap 212, leaving Rowdy in 19th.
NASCAR’s most popular driver looked like a favorite to win the race early on in his career. This was thanks in part to his back-to-back poles in 2016 and 2017.
In his ten Daytona 500 starts, Elliott has an average finish of 21.8 and a best finish of second in 2021. However, in the three races since then, Elliott has just one top-ten finish in the Great American Race. He led
His best career effort was, like that of his now-teammate Kyle Larson, the 2017 Daytona 500. After starting on the pole, Elliott led what is still a career-high 39 laps before he and Larson ran out of gas with three laps to go.
Ryan Blaney is the most recent addition to this small club of elite drivers. After his 2023 Cup Series Championship, Blaney started 32nd in the 500 after involvement in a multi-car accident on lap 49 of his Duel Race.
While Blaney starts the race on average at 15.2, he has had good runs, with five top tens in his ten starts. He has two second-place finishes in the race, finishing second to Kurt Busch in 2017 and Denny Hamlin in 2020.
His best effort was the 2018 race won by Austin Dillon. In his debut in his now iconic Menards No. 12 for Team Penske, Blaney won his Daytona Duel, giving him the third starting spot in Sunday’s race. He didn’t lay back and wait on Sunday, leading a race-high 118 laps. However, the one thing he couldn’t control was the chaotic end of the race, where Blaney finished seventh.
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