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On silver plates and inscribed into eternity, the Harley J. Earl Trophy is a collection of names of those who have prevailed in NASCAR's greatest race and earned the right to be forever called a champion of the Daytona 500. Through the ages, it is a trophy that has been handed out to the very greatest stock car racers ever, though not exclusively.

As much as the Daytona 500 elicits memories of names like Petty, Earnhardt, Yarborough and Gordon, it also evokes the image of those like Tiny Lund, Pete Hamilton, Derrike Cope and Trevor Bayne. Through over 60 years, the Daytona 500 has a notable and celebrated history of upset winners who arrived for Speedweeks in Daytona Beach as longshots among the pack and then found themselves taking the checkered flag out in front, rolling into Victory Lane and entering a glory that for these men persists to this day.

The past few Daytona 500s have seen several longshot winners prevail, including Michael McDowell in 2021, Austin Cindric in 2022 and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. in 2023. Ahead of this year's Great American Race, here are five longshot drivers to keep an eye on and their accompanying odds of winning this race (odds via DraftKings).

Zane Smith (+8000)

One year ago, the No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford was the creme de la creme on superspeedways, winning five out of six poles with Michael McDowell and consistently running up front and contending for wins. But Front Row's No. 38 Ford was no slouch either.

With Todd Gilliland behind the wheel, the No. 38 led 16 laps in last year's Daytona 500, sat on the outside pole in August and led 81 laps total in superspeedway races. With Gilliland inheriting the No. 34 from McDowell, Zane Smith now takes over the No. 38, and he has won at Daytona twice with back-to-back victories in the Craftsman Truck Series race in 2022 and 2023. Not only that, but he's been remarkably consistent across his three Cup starts at Daytona -- he's finished 13th all three times, and his ceiling at this track is far higher.

As a matter of fact, Smith was the fastest of the Front Row Motorsports cars in time trial qualifying on Wednesday night, clocking in 11th at a 49.505 compared to Gilliland in 14th and Noah Gragson in 23rd.

Ty Dillon (+8000)

Speaking of drivers who turned heads in time trials, Ty Dillon burst out of the pack to get everyone's attention with the lap he put down. The younger of the Dillon brothers, now back in Cup with Kaulig Racing after a year in the Truck Series, was fast enough to contend for a front row spot in the opening round of qualifying, then clocked in at 49.460 in the final round to earn the fifth-fastest qualifying time.

It was a very strong showing for Dillon, whose No. 10 team had two top-10 finishes in superspeedway races a year ago with Daniel Hemric behind the wheel. Hemric had finishes of ninth at both Daytona and Talladega, and Dillon has some superspeedway chops of his own. Of Dillon's seven career top-10 finishes in Cup, three have come at Daytona and two have come at Talladega by virtue of working the draft and finding the front of the field by race's end.

John Hunter Nemechek (+9000) 

While the 2024 season was a very difficult one for Legacy Motor Club, they were at least able to hang their hat on a select few performances by John Hunter Nemechek. The son of longtime Cup Series driver and 1992 Xfinity Series champion Joe Nemechek, John Hunter started 10th and finished seventh in last year's Daytona 500, then ran up front in Daytona's August race and had a shot to win late in the race before his attempt to get to the lead on the final lap led to him getting hung out to dry and dropping back to 15th. Nemechek also led 20 laps at Talladega in April.

Nemechek is best known for having contended for championships in the Xfinity and Truck Series, but there is an anecdote that shows he could very well win the Daytona 500 if circumstances fall in his favor late in the race. Back in 2020, Nemechek almost made the winning move coming to the checkered flag at Talladega but got shoved into the wall, blunting a massive run he had that looked like it was going to take him to the lead. Nemechek still finished eighth in that race, one of seven top 10s he has earned as he continues to try and establish himself as a Cup-level talent.

Anthony Alfredo (+15000)

The nickname "Fast Pasta" suits Connecticut's Anthony Alfredo, particularly given that he's in a very fast car. A full-time driver in the Xfinity Series, Alfredo has once again been tabbed as the driver of the family-owned Beard Motorsports No. 62, which focuses on bringing a strong car to NASCAR's superspeedway races instead of spreading itself thin and trying to run an expanded schedule. This approach has paid off, as the Beard team was fast enough to time its way into last year's Daytona 500 and then earned two top-10 finishes in four starts, first with a sixth place finish for Alfredo at Talladega, and then at Daytona in August when Parker Retzlaff pushed Harrison Burton to the win on the final lap before finishing seventh.

Alfredo as a longshot for the Daytona 500 comes with an important qualifier in that he first needs to qualify. As an "Open" car not guaranteed a spot in the field, Alfredo is competing with seven other drivers for one of the two remaining spots in the field in Thursday night's Duel qualifying races. Unlike last year, Alfredo did not run fast enough in time trials to fall back on his qualifying speed and must be the top finishing Open car in his Duel race if he wants to make his third Daytona 500 start on Sunday.

Cody Ware (+15000) 

Do you know which full-time Cup Series driver has the third-best average finish at Daytona since 2022? It isn't a driver who's won the Daytona 500, nor is it a driver who's contended for playoff spots and Cup championships. It's actually Cody Ware.

Driving for his family's race team, Cody Ware boasts an average Daytona finish of 10.3 since NASCAR's Next Gen car was introduced in 2022, which sits behind only Bubba Wallace and Kyle Busch's 9.3 (albeit a smaller sample size, as Ware has made four starts compared to six for most others). Ware's finishes of sixth and fourth in Daytona's August race have helped that average the most, but he's never finished outside the top 20 in the Daytona 500 during that span with finishes of 17th in 2022 and 14th in 2023.

It certainly helps that Rick Ware Racing is aligned with Ford Performance, which has given them strong speedway cars to aid Cody's development into a capable superspeedway racer. In addition to his success at Daytona, he also finished 12th in NASCAR's last superspeedway race at Talladega last fall. When asked about that average finish by CBS Sports during Daytona 500 Media Day, Ware credited that as well as the abilities of crew chief Billy Plourde.