Did You Notice? … 45 drivers have showed up to make the 2025 Daytona 500? It’s a record-high number since the NASCAR Cup Series developed its charter system in 2016, a move that guarantees 36 cars a spot on the grid each week.
That leaves nine teams left fighting for just four open spots. (There’s a potential fifth available for one driver, but we’ll get to that). They each have a less-than-50% chance to make the race, making the Duels at Daytona International Speedway a must-watch instead of a test session for teams that know the draft minimizes the importance of where they start in the lineup.
Here’s a closer look at these open teams, their chances and whether we’ll see them popping up more as the year goes on.
Corey LaJoie (No. 01 Rick Ware Racing Ford): After running full time in Cup for the last six seasons, LaJoie is stacking pennies toward a part-time schedule tailored to his strengths. At the top of the list are the drafting tracks of Daytona, Atlanta Motor Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway: all four of his career top-five finishes have come at those tracks.
Despite a recent move to join Amazon Prime as an analyst for its Cup races, LaJoie doesn’t want to hang up the helmet just yet. A disappointing 2024 season culminated in a surprising divorce from Spire Motorsports, a rare late-race trade with RWR so Spire could get replacement Justin Haley a few races early. The move worked well for both sides, LaJoie quietly notching two top-15 runs at intermediate tracks down the stretch to keep himself in the mix of drivers for this car entering 2025.
It’s why you shouldn’t knock LaJoie’s chances despite equipment unlikely to get him in the race on speed. A master at drafting through the Duels, Daytona’s the best audition LaJoie could get all year to stay on the radar for future driving gigs. He won’t be afraid to get aggressive and has little to lose with his career on the line. Odds To Make the Field: 50%.
Justin Allgaier (No. 40 JR Motorsports Chevrolet): The reigning NASCAR Xfinity Series champion for JRM was rewarded with a one-off Cup opportunity. It’s a tall order: JRM has never attempted to make any Cup race, let alone the sport’s crown jewel after nearly two decades running NXS.
The Traveller Whiskey-sponsored car allows both Allgaier and JRM to dip their toe in the water while they ponder a long-term play of buying a charter. The support of Hendrick Motorsports engines will help but makes qualifying crucial: two of the four spots for open cars are guaranteed through speed, not Duel finish.
If it comes down to the qualifying race, I’m skeptical. Allgaier hasn’t made the 500 since 2015 and his NXS record is spotty: just one career Daytona win in 28 NXS starts. The monkey is off his back after winning a title, likely leading to a more aggressive Allgaier in 2025 but this is the type of race where a lifetime’s worth of awful racing luck can come back to bite you. Odds To Make the Field: 45%.
JJ Yeley (No. 44 NY Racing Chevrolet): Another whiskey-sponsored car (Green River) is helmed by Yeley, the 48-year-old Cup journeyman who ran eight races with this underfunded effort in 2024. None of them inspired confidence; the team failed to finish four times and had just one lead-lap performance, a 23rd at Atlanta last fall. Its biggest news story all year was how Yeley got the ride; former driver Greg Biffle says the team never fully paid him.
A late entry after those issues last February led to a Daytona 500 DNQ. The field of drivers is too strong this time, and NYR’s history too weak, to see a change in fortune come 2025. Odds To Make the Field: 5%.
Martin Truex Jr. (No. 56 TRICON Toyota): Truex starts his post-retirement NASCAR career right where he left it: on the racetrack. This entry is race one of a part-time schedule that may see him pair up with 23XI Racing as the year goes on. A nice little wrinkle: former championship crew chief Cole Pearn comes out of retirement to pair with his old friend.
Truex wants badly to check the Daytona 500 off his racing resume: he’s 0-for-20 with just one top-five result, losing to Denny Hamlin by inches in a 2016 photo finish.
Since losing by .01 of a second, Truex hasn’t so much as smelled the top 10 in this race since. It’s why he’s not a lock having to qualify through his Duel: TRICON has never attempted a Cup race before and Toyotas typically don’t showcase the one-lap strength to qualify a car in through speed.
If there’s hope for the 2017 Cup champion, it comes in how other recently retired drivers, like David Ragan, have made a living coming back part time and then overachieving in the 500 itself. But to do that, Truex needs to squeak through to Sunday first. Odds To Make the Field: 60%.
Anthony Alfredo (No. 62 Beard Motorsports Chevrolet): This longtime part-time effort stuck with Alfredo, a 2021 Cup Rookie of the Year candidate who put together a phenomenal sixth-place finish with this group at Talladega last April. He also qualified for the Daytona 500 last year with the No. 62, one of two drivers to make the race on speed.
It’s unlikely Alfredo can do the same in 2025 with much stronger competition. So can this Richard Childress Racing-backed team keep up in the Duels? It struggled at times to simply hang onto the draft last year, but part of that for small-time efforts like this one is strategy. You hope for a wreck, then put your best foot forward at the end knowing you’ll stay on the lead lap while waiting. This team also focuses purely on the drafting tracks and will do so again in 2025: it comes into each of these races well prepared, a slight advantage despite its funding.
Its driver, Alfredo, is better than the results show. It’s just a tough mountain to climb. Odds To Make the Field: 10%.
Chandler Smith (No. 66 Garage 66 Ford): Smith has seemingly gone from the penthouse to the outhouse this year. After a full-time ride with Joe Gibbs Racing in the Xfinity Series last season, many thought it was a precursor to bigger things coming his way in Cup.
Instead, Smith struggled after two wins in his first six races with the team. Overlooked for Truex’s No. 19 ride, he wound up in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and will run full time for Front Row Motorsports in 2025. That leaves him in a Garage 66 Ford trying to make the 500, Carl Long‘s perennially underfunded team that runs part time when sponsorship allows.
It’s a group that has not made the big race since 2020 and may struggle to simply keep up with the pack. If there’s anyone hoping for a Big One in Thursday’s Duels, this team would be it. Odds To Make the Field: less than 5%.
BJ McLeod (No. 78 Live Fast Motorsports Chevrolet): McLeod scaled back to a part-time schedule last season, utilizing the money from his charter sale to focus on tracks where he thought his No. 78 could be highly competitive. It worked to a degree, posting a 19th-place finish at Daytona while leading five laps at Talladega and jostling at the front of the pack.
Problem is, none of that improvement came in qualifying. McLeod didn’t start a race higher than 36th all season long. It makes him a must-advance-through-the-Duel guy against drivers like Truex, LaJoie, Allgaier and Jimmie Johnson, like a 16 seed competing against a 1 in the NCAAs.
Do those upsets happen? Yes. There’s speed for McLeod to keep up in the draft. But when the stretch run comes, it feels like those drivers listed above will have friends the No. 78 team simply will not have. Odds To Make the Field: 10%.
Jimmie Johnson (No. 84 Legacy Motor Club Chevrolet): The seven-time Cup champ continues his part-time effort with a team he now majority owns in Legacy Motor Club. You would think his history of past success, combined with Toyota resources, makes his Daytona 500 qualification a mere formality.
It doesn’t. Legacy was the most disappointing team on the Cup circuit last year, posting one combined top-five finish among all drivers. Johnson himself, now 49 years old, hasn’t been able to figure out the nuances of the Next Gen chassis. His return to Cup since retiring full time in 2020 has been tough to watch: five DNFs in 12 starts and no finish inside the top 25.
Add in Toyota’s one-lap qualifying woes and Johnson is likely put in the position of qualifying through his Duel. A recent history of Next Gen contact is why some of these lesser-funded teams have a shot; all it takes is one bad bump to leave one of the sport’s iconic drivers spending Sunday on top of the pit box. Odds To Make the Field: 55%.
Helio Castroneves (No. 91 Trackhouse Chevrolet): Castroneves is the biggest wildcard, running for Trackhouse as part of a promise made years ago during the now-defunct Camping World SRX Series he would get a Daytona 500 ride. At 49 years old, the four-time Indy 500 winner will now attempt to make his first NASCAR start in the sport’s biggest race, guaranteed a new open exemption provisional based on his past history in open wheel.
The option of that provisional relieves the pressure in the Duel race; Castroneves will be in the field no matter what happens. But that doesn’t mean he can’t qualify the hard way like everyone else, and it’ll be interesting to see what happens in Daytona 500 qualifying Wednesday night (Feb. 12). The Chevy teams typically have front row caliber speed, and Castroneves putting up a one-lap effort inside the top 10 would all but guarantee him one of the non-provisional open spots on the grid.
That, in turn, puts pressure on the Truex-Allgaier-LaJoie-Johnson quartet and ensures one of them isn’t going to make the race. Castroneves beating any of them in the Duel feels impossible but we are at the Great American Race, right? Stranger things have happened, especially when you consider the top-caliber equipment and support Castroneves is being provided. Odds To Make the Field Without a Provisional: 50% (He’ll be in the field no matter what).
Follow Tom Bowles at @NASCARBowles
The author of Did You Notice? (Wednesdays) Tom spends his time overseeing Frontstretch’s 40+ staff members as its majority owner and Editor-in-Chief. Based outside Philadelphia, Bowles is a two-time Emmy winner in NASCAR television and has worked in racing production with FOX, TNT, and ESPN while appearing on-air for SIRIUS XM Radio and FOX Sports 1's former show, the Crowd Goes Wild. He most recently consulted with SRX Racing, helping manage cutting-edge technology and graphics that appeared on their CBS broadcasts during 2021 and 2022.
You can find Tom’s writing here, at CBSSports.com and Athlonsports.com, where he’s been an editorial consultant for the annual racing magazine for 15 years.
Good analysis. JJ , and I like him, was good driving one style of car only. He won’t make this race but I guess he’s having fun so good for him or anyone doing something they enjoy. Go for it all of you.
Why can’t there be 43 starters? Oh, wait! More money to pay out!
I’ll be hoping that JJ doesn’t get in. No Knaus or HMS behind him.