How to watch, stream, listen to NASCAR’s biggest race. What makes the Daytona 500 special

Kyle Busch felt the excitement of the Daytona 500.

He remembers stepping foot on the Daytona International Speedway infield for the first time as a Cup Series driver in 2005. A rookie for Hendrick Motorsports, it took the NASCAR veteran years into his career for this to feel like any another race on the schedule.

“It’s a big deal,” Busch told reporters. “This is a big race. This is a big moment. This is butterflies — all that sort of stuff, those feelings — especially when you get down toward the end.”

EXCLUSIVE: Richard Petty talks life, death and the Daytona 500

Busch, the multi-time Cup champion who currently drives for Richard Childress Racing, joined Joe Gibbs Racing after three seasons at Hendrick.

Around the fifth year of his career, as he started feeling more comfortable at JGR, he realized he couldn’t let the meaning of this race impede his ability to drive well. The Nevada native feels he did that when he raced at Las Vegas.

“I went to Las Vegas, my home track, I watched that place be built, all that,” Busch said. “I put so much pressure on winning an Xfinity race there that I crashed every year, did stupid stuff and was spinning out at the checkered flag and whatever. Finally we won that thing and it was a relief — it was like, wow, you didn’t have to do as much. You have to put all the right pieces in the right places.”

For most NASCAR drivers, a Daytona 500 checkered flag may be even more significant than winning at Las Vegas to Busch. And they’ve raced like that.

The past three Daytona 500s have yielded particularly unexpected winners. Michael McDowell won the first race of his Cup career on that stage in 2021 after a last-lap crash. Austin Cindric won it as a rookie, but it remains his only Cup win. And then it was Ricky Stenhouse Jr. who emerged victorious after overtime.

No race seems to yield greater pressure to win than Daytona. Some drivers at media day mentioned the purse, which will pay the race winner more than $28 million this year.

“I mean, every race is its own race, but Daytona just is another magnitude,” said Brad Keselowski, the 2012 Cup champion who has never won a Daytona 500. “You have months of preparation, the biggest purse, biggest rating. It’s a race that people remember — in a season of races that, inevitably, there’s going to be some forgettable ones. You want to make that memory a good one. At the end of the day, Daytona is one of those places where you don’t just have a good points day.

“It just doesn’t happen. You either win it or you don’t. And that’s tough, right? Because there’s only going to be one, and there’s going to be 39 that went home unhappy. So it’s just hard to explain the feelings of this place. You know, that feeling of leaving the tunnel when you haven’t won, it’s not a good feeling. But you try to take pride in the things you did right and you move on.”

So, who are this year’s favorites?

Joey Logano is the favorite to win the Daytona 500 at +1000 odds on Hard Rock Bet, followed by Keselowski (+1100), Denny Hamlin (+1100), Ryan Blaney (+1200), Chase Elliott (+1400), Christopher Bell (+1400), Busch (+1500) and Bubba Wallace (+1600).

Last year, Stenhouse, of JTG Daugherty Racing, was a +3000 longshot on DraftKings. Hard Rock Bet, Florida’s only legal sportsbook that recently became an official partner of Daytona International, has a number of specials for the Daytona 500, including +100 odds that a driver from Hendrick, JGR or Penske wins the race.

How to watch and stream the Daytona 500

• Race: Daytona 500

• Place: Daytona International Speedway (Daytona Beach, Fla.)

• Day/Time: Monday, Feb. 19, 4 p.m.

• Purse: $28,035,991

• TV: FOX

• Streaming: Fox Sports

• Radio: MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR

• Distance: 500 miles (200 laps)

• Stages: Stage 1 ends on Lap 65; Stage 2 ends on Lap 130; Final Stage ends on Lap 200.