One thing that has helped keep the Daytona 500 as the biggest race in all of NASCAR over the years is crossover stars entering.
It has been the one race in the stock car world prestigious enough to draw the attention and desire of not just drivers from other racing disciplines, but various celebrities as well. After all, Mario Andretti and AJ Foyt are both Daytona 500 winners. But also, Parnelli Jones, Dan Gurney, country singer Marty Robbins and stuntman Stan Barrett competed in The Great American Race. Heck, three members of the Unser family did as well. More recently, Travis Pastrana, Jacques Villeneuve, Conor Daly and Helio Castroneves have checked off racing in the Daytona 500.
But that crossover star is missing this year. Every driver who attempted the 2026 Daytona 500 is a familiar face in the NASCAR world. What’s ridiculous is the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Daytona International Speedway this year has bigger crossover stars than the Daytona 500, and that series’ race on the streets of St. Petersburg is shaping up to be the same.
Let’s change that and get some outside star power back into the Daytona 500 in the coming years. Here are 10 drivers who I challenge to attempt the Super Bowl of stock car racing in the near future.
Alex Palou
Wouldn’t it be wild for Palou to follow up his 2025 Indianapolis 500 win with a Daytona 500 win? Palou has won four NTT IndyCar Series championships, including the last three. He is far and away the best current driver that series has to offer. So why not take on the best drivers of NASCAR in its biggest race?
This crossover would’ve been a lot easier back when his IndyCar team, Chip Ganassi Racing, still fielded cars in NASCAR. Palou being a Honda driver may complicate things as well. So I’m not sure what team or manufacturer he would race for.
But this is one of those things that just needs to happen. With FOX being both the broadcaster of the Daytona 500 and the entire IndyCar season (as well as owning part of that series), maybe the network can help orchestrate a deal.
Scott Dixon
At 45 years old, who knows how much longer Dixon will race. It would be cool to see the six-time IndyCar champion and 2008 Indy 500 winner try his hand at the Daytona 500 before his racing career is over.
After all, Dixon was at the Daytona 500 last year and told Frontstretch that he was talking to Jimmie Johnson about competing in it this year. What happened to that?
So the interest is there for Dixon, but I guess somebody has to pay for it. Hopefully this deal can come together in the future.
Will Power
Power is one year younger than Dixon, so it’s kind of the same deal with wanting to see this two-time IndyCar champion and 2018 Indy 500 winner try the Daytona 500 before he retires.
The Australian raced for Team Penske all those years and yet a NASCAR crossover never materialized. Maybe one can happen now that he is with Andretti Global, which has ties to Spire Motorsports. He’s too fun of a personality to not see try this crossover.
James Hinchcliffe
The last driver on this list from the IndyCar world, Hinchcliffe might be a surprise to see given he last raced in the series in 2021. However, he put himself on this list with the news that came out on Feb. 12 that the Mayor of Hinchtown will compete in the Truck race at St. Pete for Spire.
So he’s already venturing into NASCAR with a team that has a Cup program, and one with an alliance to Hendrick Motorsports at that. Rick Hendrick has been a huge proponent of drivers crossing over throughout his time in NASCAR. He fielded the entry for Al Unser Jr. in the 1993 Daytona 500, helped out with Danica Patrick‘s start and end of her NASCAR tenure and allowed current driver Kyle Larson to do the Indy 500/Coca-Cola 600 Double.
So the logistics are there; I imagine Hinchcliffe would just need a sponsor to make it happen. You know FOX would have a field day with him being in the race, as he is one of the color commentators for its IndyCar broadcasts now, so that sponsor would get plenty of TV time. This one feels like the easiest on this list to make happen.
Fernando Alonso
One of the most impressive things I’ve seen in my 20-plus years of watching racing is two-time Formula 1 champion Alonso coming over to IndyCar and leading the Indy 500 before his engine expired in 2017. At the time, it felt like Alonso might turn his attention to trying to race in the Daytona 500. But here we are nine years later, and it still hasn’t happened.
With Alonso’s talent and adaptability, he may be the most competitive driver on this list were he to race at Daytona. But it seems the likelihood of that happening decreases as each year passes.
Kimi Raikkonen
The former F1 driver has tried his hand at NASCAR three times now. He raced in Trucks and the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series at Charlotte Motor Speedway and returned in both 2022 and 2023 to drive for Trackhouse Racing at Watkins Glen International and Circuit of the Americas. The latter appeared to have left a bad taste in the 2007 F1 champion’s mouth, as he has not been back to the series since.
However, he still hasn’t competed in NASCAR’s biggest race. Maybe not having that box checked will be enough to draw Raikkonen back to the stock car world. Trackhouse’s Project 91 hasn’t happened since Castroneves in the Daytona 500 last year, but team owner Justin Marks indicated in November that the program will return this year. Perhaps Raikkonen could come back yet again and do the Daytona 500, but it feels more likely that he would do another road course instead.
Daniel Ricciardo
Former F1 driver Ricciardo is retired from driving, so he might not even entertain the idea of coming back for a one-off. However, he is only 36 years old and is now a global ambassador for Ford Racing. He could really do his job and promote Ford by coming out of retirement to race one in the Daytona 500.
Another thing that could lure Ricciardo into doing this is he is a noted NASCAR fan, and chiefly a Dale Earnhardt fan, hence why his cars donned the No. 3. Given the relationship Earnhardt had with Daytona, it would have to be tempting for Ricciardo if the right opportunity came along.
RFK Racing and Front Row Motorsports both have a fourth car attempting the Daytona 500 this year. Maybe one of them could put Ricciardo in that fourth entry next year.
Felipe Nasr
Nasr has some worldwide notoriety from his brief stint in F1, but he’s really come into his own in the IMSA Sportscar Championship, winning three championships. Just a month ago, Nasr won his third consecutive Rolex 24 at Daytona, and all three of those were for Roger Penske’s team.
Want to reward Nasr for that feat, Roger? Give him another race at Daytona in a fourth Penske Cup car. At 33 years old, the Brazilian is still very much in his prime, and maybe he could be the tie to help NASCAR land a race in Brazil. Who knows? Nasr could take off and be the next Shane van Gisbergen.
Kalle Rovanpera
Rovanpera might be the least-known person on this list, but he may have the most upside. The Finland native moved over to Super Formula Championship racing this year after retiring from the World Rally Championship, where he won the 2022 and 2023 championships. Oh, and he’s only 25 years old. He’s already conquered rally cars, and he still has plenty of driving years left.
As a Red Bull athlete, Project 91 would make sense for Rovanpera given Trackhouse’s Red Bull sponsorship. However, he currently races for Toyota, so maybe Legacy Motor Club would make more sense depending on his ties to the manufacturer.
Rovanpera would probably get a race at a road course way before he got the Daytona 500, but maybe he could make a few NASCAR starts over the next couple years and build up to that. Regardless, this feels like an incredible longshot, but he deserves to be on this list due to his accomplishments at such a young age.
Keanu Reeves
Yes, I’m talking about that Keanu Reeves, the star of The Matrix and John Wick movies. Reeves made his motorsports debut two years ago in the Toyota GR Cup Series, driving two races at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The FOX Sports documentary Driven by Speed: Keanu Reeves vs. Cody Jones shows that experience. He was the host and executive producer for the docuseries Brawn: The Impossible Formula 1 Story. He was also at the Indy 500 last year.
It’s no surprise Reeves would have an interest in racing cars given that he’s done a lot of his own stunts on movies. Also, Stanton Barrett was a stunt player on John Wick 3 – Parabellum, so who knows, perhaps they talked about NASCAR racing at some point.
Look, there is like a 0.00000000001% chance we would ever see Reeves in the Daytona 500. He’s 61 years old and has two races in a non-NASCAR series under his belt. Even if he was interested, which is a huge stretch, would NASCAR even approve him? But man, how fun would it be to see Reeves competing in The Great American Race?
Michael Massie joined Frontstretch in 2017 and has served as the Content Director since 2020.
Massie, a Richmond, Va., native, has covered NASCAR, IndyCar, SRX and the CARS Tour. Outside of motorsports, the Virginia Tech grad and Green Bay Packers minority owner can be seen cheering on his beloved Hokies and Packers.
Agree Will Power and Danny Ric (sounds like a superhero team) would both be a blast to see race. Palou and Dixon are both so calm natured and surgical in their driving, I tend to guess they wouldn’t enjoy the madness of the 500. Alonso seems to be somewhere in between.
I’d love to see Max Verstappen try it, though he’d probably wind up in a straight jacket due to the rage he tends to have while driving, even in the comparatively gentlemanly world of F1. Then again, he may find he loves being able to drive more aggressively, and his comments about the new F1 cars indicate he’s not happy with how much technical fiddling is required.
As for big celebrities outside of auto racing, none come to mind, at least not for a race like Daytona. With little experience, they’d either wreck near the beginning of the race trying to stay in the draft, or be a moving chicane all day, just making laps.
Not an A list celebrity, but I suppose an argument could be made for Frankie Muniz. He’s not been at all competitive in trucks, but with a decent car and the bit of drafting experience he has, I could see him contending, given the draft means anyone who can keep pace while avoiding wrecks can have a good finish. If he just rode at the back until stage three, he theoretically could fare well, when the front runners inevitably break out their clown shoes and the big one ensues.
I was going to go down the road MarkM did stating reasons against, but it’s Friday and I got to thinking this was more of a fun “what if” article. So I decided to, as Sergeant Hulka put it, “Lighten up, Francis.”
Daytight made some good points, but I think Palou and Dixon’s precision, calm under pressure, make no mistakes driving style would suit Daytona 500 very well. Drafting in that pack for hours requires laser focus and rewards the taking of well calculated risks. Impatience often leads to massive wrecks. I think they would do very well if they could avoid “the big one”.
I’m surprised Josef Newgarden wasn’t mentioned. He’s only an oval-track Ace on the Indy Circuit – anyone will agree if you’re going to win on an oval in Indycar you have to beat Newgarden to do it. This is a huge miss on this list, IMO.
Scott McLaughlin could do very well too, given his V8 Supercar experience paired with how he’s improved on ovals in Indy over the last couple of years (nevermind the pace lap incident in the Indy 500 last year).
Has Romain Grosjean tried any NASCAR races? Don’t recall, but he could be a good fit.
Let’s give another youtuber not named Cleetus a chance! How about Derek Bieri of Vice Grip Garage? His racing credentials include winning the 2.4 Hours of Le Mullets at the Freedom Factory in 2024.
McLaughlin is a natural fit. Great call. Can’t believe I didn’t think of him!
Thought about Grosjean…he’s aggressive enough he might take to it. Also thought about Kevin Magnussen.
I’d agree that Palou and Dixon would likely run clean races. I just can’t see either of them wanting to.
Jeremy, you and I agree on most things, and luckily this is a fun and silly one to argue about. Let’s NOT give any YouTubers a chance, or if we absolutely must, let’s grab one of the hot shoe streamers from iRacing, to see how their skill set translates.
I’d rather see NASCAR award a 42nd spot to a random fan than an existing YouTube personality. Make them pass a physical, send them to Daytona a month or two early, and make a documentary of their training, with retired drivers teaching them the basics.
Starting from the fan’s provisional in 42nd, Jeremy from Frontstretch, in the #07 Chicken Pit Ford, The Fastest Chicken In The South! THAT I would pay to see.
Who’s #10? lol
Know what NASCAR doesn’t need? Letting another “name” driver from a different series, with no prior NASCAR experience, race in the Daytona 500 automatically, like they did with Helio Castroneves last year. Dude ran in three races at Dayona last February, & he wrecked in all three of them. And I’m not saying he’s untalented, because obviously he’s talented, but he was completely inexperienced with these cars & had no business in the 500 without some prior NASCAR experience on a track 1.5 miles or larger. He was a wreck waiting to happen in all three events. The whole disaster was totally ludicrous & potentially dangerous.
Guys like Foyt and Andretti had already made their names in stock cars before running Daytona, but the names mentioned here would probably just be in the way without some previous experience driving stock cars.