Daytona's roll of the dice favors the front-runners

Three months without racing is about to come to an end as NASCAR prepares to start the 2010 season. More than 50 cars have practiced, qualified and are ready for the Gatorade Duel 150-mile qualifiers on Thursday to end a unique week-long format to set the lineup for the Daytona 500.

By the time the 500 starts, fantasy owners will have more raw data at their fingertips than any other event on the calendar, as top drivers will have competed in the Budweiser Shootout, the Nationwide Series race and the Duel races.

And it won't help one little bit.

Despite the overwhelming data, the Daytona 500 is a crapshoot. The ever-looming threat of a crash and the added wild card of the draft mean that a driver running in the top-five on one lap could be at the back of the pack or in the garage before the field crosses the finish line again. There also are the regular threats of engine failure, mistakes in the pits or other mechanical mishaps that can easily sideline a driver, so the best advice is to pick two or three marquee drivers to anchor your team, sprinkle in some dark horses and spread your money around -- then cross your fingers and hold your breath for 500 miles and hope your lineup survives until the end of the race.

Earnhardt Jr.

The Favorites

While a crash can happen anywhere in the pack, simple logic states that the further forward a driver is in the field, the less likely he is to get involved in a crash; there are fewer drivers there to make mistakes. For that reason, this week's favorites will come from the list of leaders and not followers.

Last year was a bitter disappointment for Dale Earnhardt Jr. His fans expected him to rise to the level of teammates Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson, but a myriad of mistakes on the track left him dejected and shell-shocked by the end of the season. Car owner Rick Hendrick pledged to Earnhardt all the resources needed to turn around his fortunes. That was proven by the No. 88's qualifying lap of 190.913 mph that put him on the outside of the front row. In good years and bad, Earnhardt has remained the Pied Piper at Daytona and Talladega and he never has trouble finding drafting partners. This year will be no different. No matter what happens during the Gatorade 150s, teammate Mark Martin will start beside Earnhardt on the front row.

For his mystique, however, Earnhardt is not the driver with the most laps in the top 10 during the past three years; that distinction goes to Kyle Busch. With 964 top-10 laps out of a possible 1,096 during the past three seasons (including laps in the qualification races), Busch has spent 88 percent of the time racing with the leaders. He's converted that strength into success three times in the past five races with a second in the 2007 July race, a fourth in the 2008 Daytona 500 and a victory in the 2008 July race. Last year, he crashed out of the Daytona 500 on Lap 123, but that could play into your favor if it causes the competition to overlook him.

Watch the Duel

The two 150-mile qualifying races will determine the starting lineup for the Daytona 500.

• 2 p.m. ET Thursday on SPEED

Last year's Daytona 500 may have been a gift from Mother Nature to Matt Kenseth, but it wasn't a fluke. He is one of only two drivers who enter the weekend with three or more consecutive top-10s -- and his dispassionate style of racing often keeps him out of trouble in the draft. There is not a lot that fantasy owners can count on in restrictor-plate superspeedway racing, but rest assured that a crash will not be triggered by Kenseth and that removes one very important intangible.

Dark Horses

The other driver with a string of top-10s is Kurt Busch and strictly by the numbers, he should be considered a favorite. His Speedweeks got off to a slow start, however, with accidents in practice and the Budweiser Shootout that have already destroyed two cars. Bad luck can be hard to shake and the team has put in a lot of overtime this week to give him a solid ride, but if he stays out of trouble in his Duel race, he should be in great shape to earn a sixth consecutive top-10 at Daytona.

David Ragan does not have consecutive top-10s at Daytona, but with a single exception in the 2008 Daytona 500, he's swept the top 15. That means a lot because this Young Gun finished fifth in his inaugural 500 after avoiding the last-lap carnage in 2007. He finished fifth in the 2008 July race and was sixth in last year's edition of the Great American Race, so he's liable to be rightly-priced and flying under the radar. Some drivers simply have knack for plate racing.

Speed

Underdogs

The Daytona 500 is filled with Cinderella stories and picking the right glass slipper will help you dominate your league. Unfortunately, these drivers are incredibly hard to identify since they usually come from outside the top 35 in owners' points and must race their way into the show by being one of the two best finishers among their ilk in their qualification race.

You can watch the Duel on SPEED (2 p.m. Thursday) or on your computer with RaceBuddy on NASCAR.COM -- and you're going to want to stay glued to the screen. Any driver who manages to run with the leaders and transfer into the 500 is going to immediately become a strong underdog pick. More importantly, he's going to stretch your salary cap.

In the Duel, pay particular attention to Scott Speed. He already has locked his No. 82 Toyota into the 500 by being one of the three fastest qualifiers among those who needed to make the show on time. He' doesn't have a ton of success at Daytona, but a fifth last spring at Talladega suggests he is capable of staying out of trouble on the plate tracks.