Speedweeks in Daytona is upon us, folks, with the Busch Clash at the Daytona Road Course coming up first.
With NASCAR opting to go with a condensed Speedweeks schedule this year, we have a lot of action packed into six days. On Tuesday, the Busch Clash will run, and then Daytona 500 qualifying will happen on Wednesday. On Thursday, the Daytona Duel races will lock in the final starting lineup (and drivers) for this year’s Great American Race, and then on Sunday (February 14) the 63rd annual Daytona 500 will take place.
Don’t forget that there are also three practice sessions scheduled across Wednesday and Saturday, and then of course the Xfinity and Truck Series have races going on as well.
But, for now, let’s focus on the Busch Clash coming up on Tuesday.
What Is The Busch Clash?
The Busch Clash is an invitation-only event that used to just include pole winners from the previous season to race for some cash. Now NASCAR has a few more eligibility requirements, but you get the point; only a limited numbers of drivers are even eligible to run on Tuesday. There’s no points on the line, and in previous years, I honestly didn’t think much of this race as far as an importance factor. But with how the “new” 2021 NASCAR Cup Series schedule, Tuesday’s Busch Clash actually could be a little important for these teams.
Why? Because 6 of the 26 regular season races this year are on road courses. And the Busch Clash got moved to…you guessed it…the Daytona Road Course this year! Not to mention, the Cup teams will be at this exact track for race #2 of the season on February 21. This is a great time for teams to get a feel for the road courses coming up this year, and possibly find some things to tweak on as well.
As far as the race itself, the 2021 Busch Clash will be a short 35-lap shootout with one scheduled caution at lap 15. The starting lineup will be determined via random draw on Monday night, with 21 drivers scheduled to race. Those drivers are:
| Aric Almirola | Cole Custer | Erik Jones |
| Ryan Blaney | Matt DiBenedetto | Brad Keselowski |
| Alex Bowman | Austin Dillon | Joey Logano |
| Chris Buescher | Ty Dillon | Ryan Newman |
| Kurt Busch | Chase Elliott | Tyler Reddick |
| Kyle Busch | Denny Hamlin | Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. |
| William Byron | Kevin Harvick | Martin Truex, Jr. |
The Best Drivers on Road Courses
It’s Chase Elliott, a little further back to Martin Truex, Jr., and then everyone else.
Seriously. I’m sarcastic quite often, but those two are by far and away the best drivers on road courses right now. As you can see from the chart below, Chase Elliott won both road course races last year–at the Daytona Road Course and the Charlotte ROVAL–while Truex had the 2nd-best average finish at 5.0. Of course, take these statistics with a bit of a grain of salt, as there were only two road course races in 2020, so one bad race can skew a driver’s numbers a bit.
2020 Driver Stats on Road Courses
| Driver | Avg Finish | Avg Driver Rating | Avg Run Pos Rank | Fastest Laps | Laps Led |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chase Elliott | 01.0 | 132.5 | 01.5 | 33 | 61 |
| Martin Truex Jr | 05.0 | 116.5 | 05.0 | 21 | 10 |
| Joey Logano | 05.5 | 104.4 | 04.5 | 05 | 01 |
| William Byron | 07.0 | 110.4 | 06.0 | 09 | 27 |
| Erik Jones | 07.0 | 94.1 | 08.5 | 01 | 01 |
| Denny Hamlin | 08.5 | 95.3 | 10.0 | 07 | 16 |
| Kurt Busch | 09.0 | 97.8 | 05.0 | 04 | 00 |
| Alex Bowman | 10.0 | 89.3 | 17.5 | 03 | 02 |
| Chris Buescher | 12.5 | 67.6 | 18.5 | 01 | 00 |
| Kevin Harvick | 14.0 | 79.2 | 15.5 | 00 | 00 |
| Tyler Reddick | 15.0 | 69.8 | 21.5 | 00 | 00 |
| Brad Keselowski | 15.5 | 82.5 | 08.5 | 03 | 07 |
| Cole Custer | 15.5 | 76.0 | 20.5 | 02 | 00 |
| Ricky Stenhouse Jr | 16.5 | 67.6 | 22.0 | 01 | 00 |
| Ryan Blaney | 18.0 | 88.1 | 11.0 | 23 | 14 |
| Matt DiBenedetto | 18.5 | 64.9 | 18.5 | 00 | 00 |
| Austin Dillon | 19.0 | 65.0 | 26.0 | 00 | 00 |
| Aric Almirola | 20.0 | 70.1 | 19.5 | 00 | 00 |
| Ty Dillon | 21.5 | 66.2 | 21.0 | 04 | 05 |
| Ryan Newman | 25.0 | 49.1 | 29.0 | 01 | 00 |
| Kyle Busch | 33.5 | 69.1 | 15.5 | 05 | 04 |
2019 + 2020 Driver Stats on Road Courses
We can go ahead and add in the 2019 road course races as well, just to have more races in the data sets. The statistics below include the two 2020 road course races mentioned above as well as the 2019 races at Sonoma, Watkins Glen, and the Charlotte ROVAL.
Please note: Chase Elliott’s average finish of 8.2 over these five races isn’t quite as impressive, but he won four of the five races and just had a bad race at Sonoma in 2019. Also note that Tyler Reddick and Cole Custer only have data from the two races in 2020, as last season was their rookie years.
| Driver | Avg Finish | Avg Driver Rating | Avg Run Pos Rank | Fastest Laps | Laps Led |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Martin Truex Jr | 04.0 | 121.6 | 03.8 | 70 | 71 |
| Chase Elliott | 08.2 | 129.8 | 04.4 | 99 | 179 |
| Denny Hamlin | 08.8 | 94.9 | 10.8 | 16 | 20 |
| Kevin Harvick | 08.8 | 97.0 | 08.8 | 15 | 34 |
| Alex Bowman | 10.0 | 83.7 | 15.4 | 03 | 02 |
| Ryan Blaney | 10.4 | 94.3 | 09.2 | 28 | 14 |
| Matt DiBenedetto | 11.6 | 82.4 | 12.6 | 01 | 00 |
| William Byron | 12.0 | 99.5 | 07.8 | 31 | 71 |
| Kurt Busch | 12.2 | 87.0 | 10.6 | 04 | 00 |
| Brad Keselowski | 12.6 | 87.6 | 09.6 | 07 | 10 |
| Erik Jones | 13.2 | 85.4 | 14.6 | 03 | 01 |
| Joey Logano | 13.4 | 87.3 | 11.6 | 17 | 05 |
| Chris Buescher | 14.4 | 71.6 | 17.2 | 01 | 00 |
| Tyler Reddick | 15.0 | 69.8 | 21.5 | 00 | 00 |
| Aric Almirola | 15.0 | 77.9 | 15.0 | 02 | 00 |
| Cole Custer | 15.5 | 76.0 | 20.5 | 02 | 00 |
| Ricky Stenhouse Jr | 17.2 | 68.8 | 20.2 | 01 | 00 |
| Ryan Newman | 22.8 | 59.9 | 21.8 | 01 | 00 |
| Ty Dillon | 23.0 | 57.4 | 23.4 | 04 | 05 |
| Kyle Busch | 23.4 | 82.9 | 14.2 | 19 | 07 |
| Austin Dillon | 24.3 | 53.3 | 26.3 | 01 | 00 |
The Favorites
Chase Elliott – In case you missed that little tidbit I bolded in the last paragraph of text, Chase Elliott has won four of the last five road course races, with the only exception being Sonoma in 2019, when he had an engine problem. Hell, the guy even drove head-first into a wall at the Charlotte ROVAL in 2019 and STILL came back to win. He’s that good at this track type, and it’s no wonder sports books have made him the heavy favorite at around +180 odds. And if Chase starts up front thanks to the random draw qualifying, you can expect those odds to get even shorter.
Martin Truex, Jr. – If Chase wasn’t winning all of these road course races, we’d probably see similar stats out of Martin Truex, Jr. He won the race at Sonoma in 2019 where Elliott had engine problems, and over the last five road course races, Truex’s worst finish is 7th. His average driver rating over the last five races on this track type is 121.6, which is 2nd-best behind Elliott’s 129.8–and those are the only drivers in this Clash field to have an average rating above 100.
Underdogs
If this was a normal road course race, you’d really only consider underdogs for fantasy sports games. Definitely no in the betting world, because honestly, that’s how much of a stranglehold the top guys have on this type of track. The Busch Clash is a bit different, though; with it being a 35-lap shootout, a random draw deciding the starting lineup, and the race really meaning nothing when it comes to the actual season, we could easily see some guys go for broke on Tuesday night.
William Byron – If you’ve read any other Daytona Clash content lately, you’ve probably heard about Byron quite a bit. Some sports books have him as long as 18-to-1 odds, which is a great value if you consider the fact that he ranks 3rd in average driver rating over the last five road course races, with only Chase Elliott and Martin Truex, Jr. running better. Byron also ranks 3rd in total fastest laps over those five races. The only knock you can have against Byron’s potential here on Tuesday is the fact that he has never posted a top 5 finish on a road course in Cup Series action. It’ll likely come this year, but for how much people are talking about Byron heading into Tuesday night’s Busch Clash, it might be a better decision strategy-wise to go with someone else in fantasy and DFS games. More on that in a later article, though.
Ryan Blaney – I can understand the allure of William Byron and his 18-to-1 odds, but I’d rather roll the dice with someone like Ryan Blaney, who was listed as high as 15-to-1 to win the Busch Clash as of the time of this writing. Don’t forget: Blaney won the first race at the Charlotte ROVAL back in 2018, and although he finished 31st here at the Daytona Road Course last season–he has a speeding penalty and more issues late in the race–Blaney still has three top 5s and four top 8 finishes over the last five road course races.
Busch Clash Betting Odds
As of Saturday afternoon, DraftKings Sportsbook had the following odds listed to win the Busch Clash. Don’t be surprised if there is some line movement on Monday night after the starting lineup is determined via random draw.
| Chase Elliott | +175 |
| Martin Truex, Jr. | +350 |
| Denny Hamlin | +850 |
| Kevin Harvick | +1000 |
| Kyle Busch | +1100 |
| Ryan Blaney | +1400 |
| Brad Keselowski | +1400 |
| Joey Logano | +1600 |
| William Byron | +1800 |
| Alex Bowman | +2000 |
| Kurt Busch | +2200 |
| Erik Jones | +2500 |
| Matt DiBenedetto | +4000 |
| Aric Almirola | +5000 |
| Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. | +6600 |
| Ryan Newman | +8000 |
| Chris Buescher | +10000 |
| Cole Custer | +10000 |
| Austin Dillon | +10000 |
| Ty Dillon | +10000 |
| Tyler Reddick | +10000 |
