Frankie Muniz, Hailie Deegan and SVG: The Daytona Xfinity Series race has plenty to watch

DAYTONA BEACH — It's raining in Daytona. And grass is green.

But whenever the Xfinity Series opener, the United Rentals 300, finally gets underway on Monday, it promises to be a good one. And with plenty of things to watch and monitor.

Hopefully, good things really do come to those who wait. The race, originally scheduled for Saturday at 5 p.m., was moved to Monday at 11 a.m. due to rain, though qualifying went off without a hitch, setting the lineup for Monday's early race. That weather persisted into Sunday morning with NASCAR making an early call to move the 66th Daytona 500 to 4 p.m. on Monday, creating the first Monday doubleheader in the history of Daytona International Speedway.

HOW TO WATCH: What channel is the Daytona Xfinity race on today? Start time, TV for United Rentals 300

As of early Monday morning, well, rain was still making its presence felt, necessitating another change in the schedule with the start of the United Rentals 300 being pushed back to 9 p.m. But once the start does arrive, there's nothing minor about the intrigue surrounding NASCAR's secondary series in Daytona. Here are five things to watch:

Hailie Deegan begins her first full-time Xfinity Series season

After three years in the Craftsman Truck Series, Hailie Deegan will begin her full-time career at the Xfinity level on Monday at Daytona. She was signed by AM Racing and will drive the No. 15 Ford Mustang.

Deegan, voted the Truck Series' most popular driver in all three of her seasons, struggled to find footing in terms of results — she finished 17th, 21st and 19th in points from 2021-2023. In 69 Truck Series starts, she managed just five top-10 finishes and never finished inside the top five.

She has one Xfinity Series start under her belt and it was an encouraging one as she finished 13th at Las Vegas while driving for SS-Green Light Racing in 2022.

SVG looks for a better, longer Xfinity race at Daytona

While Deegan has at least one Xfinity start to fall back on, New Zealander Shane van Gisbergen will ake his series debut. That after running in Friday night's ARCA Menards Series race, an event in which he was swiftly collected in a crash.

Van Gisbergen came away with one of the biggest Cup Series upsets of all time last summer, winning the inaugural Chicago Street Race in a one-off start with Trackhouse Racing.

That victory led to another start with the team at the Indianapolis Road Course, and after another top-10 finish, expressed interest in making NASCAR a full-time thing. The man known as SVG was soon signed to run a full-time Xfinity season in the No. 97 Chevrolet for Kaulig Racing. He will also make at least seven Cup starts, though it is unknown whether those will come with Trackhouse or Kaulig.

Despite 81 wins, three championships and 508 starts in Aussie Supercars across 17 seasons, the 34-year-old has never run a superspeedway race. So, as a precaution, NASCAR mandated van Gisbergen run in the ARCA opener, where he ran the No. 28 Pinnacle Racing Group Chevrolet.

Frankie Muniz will attempt Xfinity Series debut

Also attempting his series debut will be former sitcom star of "Malcolm in the Middle," Frankie Muniz, who ran a full-time ARCA Menards Series season last year, finishing fourth.

Muniz will start on the back row in the No. 35 Joey Gase Racing Ford and will run a part-time Xfinity schedule with the team, via announcement last week. The car was split between Gase and Patrick Emerling in 2023.

Muniz finished 11th in the spring Daytona ARCA race last February.

Austin Hill, Cole Custer, Riley Herbst lead list of Daytona favorites

Any talk of possible winners in Monday's race has to start with Austin Hill, who will enter having won each of the last two United Rentals 300s in the No. 21 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet. Counting Atlanta along with Daytona and Talladega, Hill has won four races at superspeedways in the last two seasons. He qualified second on Saturday alongside RCR teammate Jesse Love, who took the pole in the first race of his Xfinity rookie season.

After being demoted within Stewart-Haas Racing from the Cup Series to the Xfinity Series prior to last season, Cole Custer answered the bell to say the least, winning three races and his first NASCAR series championship. Custer has never won a race at a superspeedway.

Speaking of Stewart-Haas, no driver in the series finished stronger than Custer's teammate Riley Herbst, who finished in the top four in each of the final five races of the year including his first Xfinity win at Las Vegas. Herbst will also run in the Daytona 500, making his second consecutive start in the Great American Race. He finished 10th for Rick Ware Racing last year.

Allmendinger, Nemechek, Suarez to run in Xfinity race

Herbst is hardly the only driver slated to run all 800 miles of racing on Monday.

John Hunter Nemechek and Daniel Suarez, both full-time Cup Series drivers, will also run in the United Rentals 300. Nemechek finished fourth in the Xfinity Series points standings last year before signing on to drive the No. 42 Legacy Motor Club Toyota in the Cup Series this year. He'll pilot the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota in Monday's opener.

Suarez is entering his fourth season in the Cup Series for Trackhouse Racing and made one start in the Xfinity Series in 2023, finishing 10th at Pocono for Kaulig Racing. He'll run the No. 14 SS-Greenlight Chevrolet.

One more driver, Anthony Alfredo, will run the Xfinity/Cup Series doubleheader this weekend. Alfredo locked himself into the Daytona 500 field via qualifying on Wednesday, registering the best time among the six open cars in the No. 62 Beard Motorsports Chevrolet. He will drive the No. 5 Our Motorsports Chevy full time in the Xfinity series this year.

Daytona Beach radar

What channel is the Daytona Xfinity race on?

Monday's United Rentals 300 is set to air on FS1.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Daytona 500 Xfinity race: What to watch in the United Rentals 300