Imagine the World Series in April. Or the NCAA Tournament in November. It's counterintuitive for a sport to hold its signature event at the beginning of the season. But that's what makes NASCAR so unique.

The Daytona 500 will be run at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday at the Daytona International Speedway. The Great American Race is a national institution that features an impressive display of danger, death and drinking. The race is considered the Most Prestigious and Most Significant on the NASCAR calendar even though it's run at the beginning of the year. Think of it as the hood ornament on a Bentley.

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I hate to say it, but I generally find auto racing incredibly monotonous and boring. Besides that, there's also the extreme corporate whoring. At least basketball and baseball players take time off from pimping their gear or rap album to actually perform in their sport. These racecar drivers can't divorce themselves from it. I mean, it's like a freakin' four-hour commercial for Viagra and Jiffy Lube.

Wait. What happened? I think I blacked out there. Like I was saying, if you're like me and find racing to be boring, you could liven it up by dropping a little loot on the outcome. I mean, it's Daytona.

Below I've listed a few trends to keep in mind when wagering on the Daytona 500, as well as a breakdown on some of the drivers that will be involved and Daytona 500 odds. Yeah, I spend my time looking this stuff up so you don't have to. Enjoy:

1) Chevrolet rules the beach. Ten of the last 13 years the winner has been driving a Chevy. That includes four wins in the last five years.

2) There has only been a repeat winner three times in the 46 years of racing at DIS. The last was Sterling Marlin in 1994 and 1995.

3) Dale Jarrett in 2000 and Jeff Gordon in 1999 are the only drivers since 1988 to win the race from the pole position.

4) Here's a breakdown of where the victors have started since the Daytona 500's inception in 1959:

Start -- # of wins
1 -- 9 times
2 -- 7 times
3 -- 3 times
4 -- 6 times
5 -- 1 time
10+ -- 11 times

5) Mike Waltrip and Ward Burton each started 19th in 2001 and 2002 and won. Derricke Cope started 12th in 1990 and Jeff Gordon began in the 15th position in 2005 and they both took the checkered. Other than that, no one outside the top eight starters has won at Daytona in the last 25 years (that's 84 percent of the time the winner starts in the top 8).

Checkered Flag (here are the drivers with the best chance of winning on Sunday along with their Daytona 500 odds)

Tony Stewart (9-to-2) - Stewart won twice here last year - claiming a victory in one of the Gatorade 150's and then at the Pepsi 400 last fall. He's the defending Series champion, and has had plenty of near-misses in the 500, finishing seventh last year, third in 2004 and seventh in 2003. Also, his complaining about bump drafting should keep other cars off of him this Sunday.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (9-to-2) - DEI's flagship team has owned restrictor plate races over the last three years. Junior has earned one win (2004) and three top-three finishes in six Daytona 500's, and has won nine times in 35 overall starts at DIS. He also finished second in the Bud Shootout, despite only posting a qualifying speed in the 30's.

Kurt Busch (22-to-1) - Love him or hate him, this boy can roll. Busch has been knocking on the door over the last several years, finishing in the top four in three of the last four 500's. These are outstanding odds for a driver of this caliber.

Jeff Burton (55-to-1) - The pole hasn't been lucky lately, but it still pays 20 percent of the time in Daytona 500 history. Burton had last Sunday's fastest qualifier with his Richard Childress Chevy posting a time of 189.151. The drawback: he hasn't won a race in four years and he placed just 11th at Daytona in 2005.

Black Flag (drivers that seem like a decent bet, but could be trouble)

Jeff Gordon (9-to-2) - Gordon has been nasty at Daytona, winning three times in the last nine years. However, he gets a yellow flag mainly because there have only been three repeat winners. Gordon already bucked the odds by winning last year at Daytona despite starting outside of the top ten. I don't expect him to beat the odds again.

Sterling Marlin (Field: 18-to-1) - Anybody driving the "Waste Management Chevrolet" doesn't have a prayer. Marlin is a two-time Daytona 500 champion, and did manage to cross the line 8th last year. He's considered one of the best restrictor plate racers in the business, but in each of the two 500's prior to that that he finished at least 10 spots lower than he started.

Bill Elliot (22-to-1) - Elliot is basically saddling up in order to get his sponsor a little airtime. Elliot is a former Daytona champion (1985 and 1987), but that was a long, long time ago. He hasn't run here since 2003, when he placed just 32nd.

Bobby LaBonte (60-to-1) - I hate putting LaBonte on this list because he is my mother's favorite driver. But that's about all he's going to have going for him on Sunday. LaBonte drives a Dodge, which has won only one time at the 500 since 1975 (Ward Burton, 2002). His highest finish in the last five years in this race was 13th. He crashed three other times and mixed in a 20th place run last year.

Yellow Flag (here are some intriguing prospects, but proceed with caution)

Dale Jarrett (12-to-1) - The 2005 pole sitter put up the third-fastest qualifying speed in his Robert Yates Ford. However, last year he only earned a 15th place paycheck. Jarrett did place in the top 10 in both 2004 and 2003 he managed to finish in the top ten.

Martin Truex Jr. (15-to-1) - This guy is a sleeper pick based on reputation more than any kind of substantive data. What I mean by that is that I saw two articles pegging him as the winner, so I'll toss him on my list sight unseen. At these odds it might be worth taking a flyer on. He did start 10th last year, but he didn't finish.

Jimmie Johnson (7-to-1) - Much like Busch, Johnson is just one of those guys who is always lurking around the lead late at Daytona. He won the pole on this track in 2002 and has placed in the top five in each of the last three years. He posted the fifth fastest qualifying speed, but was sent to the back of the pack after his car failed post-qualifying template inspection. The furthest back a winner has ever come is 33rd, so I don't know that Johnson's odds will drop low enough to warrant a "Why Not?" bet.

Questions or comments for Robert? E-mail him at robert@docsports.com or check out his Insider Page here.

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