2019 Food City 300 Race Picks

NASCAR Xfinity Series Betting Predictions
Friday August 16th, 7:43PM (EST) at Bristol Motor Speedway
by Jay Horne of NASCARWagers.com, NASCAR Handicapping Service

After a successful opening night at Bristol in the Truck Series, we will turn our focus towards the Xfinity Series for another night of racing at the World’s Fastest Half-Mile on Friday in the running of the Food City 300. For the first time in several weeks, several stars from the Cup Series will step down to fight for a prestigious trophy at Bristol Motor Speedway. The Cup Series veterans that will be participating Friday evening include Erik Jones, Joey Logano, and Mr. Bristol himself – Kyle Busch. As we prepare for another action packed night of short track racing, we take the time to provide our expectations and provide our 2019 Food City 300 race picks!

Any time Kyle Busch shows up on an entry list in the lower series’ at Bristol, we know who the favorite is before the race begins. On top of Busch’s 8 wins in the Cup Series at Thunder Valley, he also has an additional 9 victories in the Xfinity Series. In fact if you add another 5 victories stemming from Truck Series competition, Busch is the most decorated driver in Bristol history with 22 career victories among NASCAR’s touring series. To break down the numbers even further, Busch has won 8 of his last 14 starts in the Xfinity Series at Bristol and will undoubtedly be one of the major threats once the green flag falls again late Friday evening.

While Busch will continue to garner most of the attention this week, fellow JGR teammate Erik Jones could emerge as the dark horse Friday evening if you can even call him a dark horse. A former two-time winner at Bristol in the Xfinity Series, Jones is driving the #81 car for XCI Racing this week which has a technical alliance with Joe Gibbs Racing. Personally I did not think the #81 team was a race winning caliber team heading into the week and that was one of the reasons I foolishly too Justin Allgaier in a parlay match-up against Jones. After all, the XCI Racing only participates part-time in both the Cup and Xfinity Series. However, Jones topped the charts in both practice sessions on Thursday proving that this #81 car has legitimate speed and race teams should take notice. Jones was the fastest in single lap times and was also extremely fast on the lap averages charts as well. Therefore, keep an eye on the odds for that #81 car as we get closer to race time because that group has looked extremely tough thus far.

Of course racing at Bristol can be a tough animal to predict. Practice lap times do not mean that much because everything changes in race traffic. However, the driver does make the majority of the advantage at Bristol and it’s hard to ignore some of the heavyweight talents like Busch, Jones, and Logano. Now Joey Logano did not look nearly as strong as Busch and Jones on Thursday. Logano’s lap times in the #12 with Team Penske were solid just not overwhelmingly convincing. Still, Logano is a two-time winner at Bristol in the Xfinity Series and rest assured could easily be a factor if he can keep the #12 out of trouble. My only argument against Logano at this point is the fact that Jones and Busch looked much better in practices judging by lap times.

While these 3 Cup Series veterans will be the top favorites once the green flag waves, don’t for one minute think that an Xfinity Series regular cannot win this race. Despite being winless in 2019, Justin Allgaier is always really strong at Bristol. Christopher Bell has easily been the best of the Xfinity Series regulars this season on the short tracks and captured the checkered flag at Bristol in the Alsco 300 back in April. Additionally Cole Custer, Tyler Reddick, and Chase Briscoe have all proved they are capable of winning on the ovals this season and challenging the Cup Series guys in the process. The only question that should be asked going into Friday is who can we rely on in the Food City 300?

Betting Strategy Options

From a betting standpoint, tomorrow’s Food City 300 boils down to strategy and how you want to approach this event. If you want to create a few parlay opportunities for Saturday night’s Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race, then it would probably be a safe bet to start some parlays with Kyle Busch and Erik Jones. The only problem with that strategy is that you are not going to produce much profit unless you can make up some ground in the realm of H2H match-ups. Now, I have made some nice profit this year by adopting this strategy in Xfinity Series races this season to set up opportunity in the Cup Series race. However normally when I adopt that strategy it is because I think only 2-3 drivers have a legitimate chance of winning the race.

Fortunately, I do not think that is the case on Friday. I sincerely believe 6-7 drivers can win this race on pure talent alone. If you were paying attention to the UNOH 200 in the Truck Series Thursday, you may have noticed some late race strategy calls that mixed up the running order on several occasions. The strategy call that piqued my interest was Grant Enfinger’s decision to stay on the track at the end of stage 2 and run over 140 laps on the same set of tires. If not for several late race cautions, the strategy would have likely won Enfinger the race. Instead, Brett Moffitt was eventually able to get by and cruise to victory. Still the strategy calls proved that tires give the big advantage in terms of lap speed and we saw similar strategy situations unfold back in April. If that happens again like I expect on Saturday, look for some of the Xfinity Series regulars to play the track position game. Even if it does not work, it may produce some chaotic racing that could easily get a few of the top guys in trouble. As a result, I am not going to back away from targeting some of the drivers with better betting odds and play a slightly more aggressive strategy this week.

Drivers to Target

I don’t want to provide a false narrative when I make a few predictions on drivers to target. Erik Jones and Kyle Busch are the biggest threats to win on Friday. With that being said, I am convinced that both Christopher Bell and Cole Custer could spoil the party. Luckily, I got Custer at great (11-1) opening odds this week in our early plays. Custer posted the best 10 lap average in Happy Hour and Bell led all drivers on the 15 lap average charts. Both drivers have improved significantly since the last time we saw them battle Cup Series competition on the short tracks and I am expecting both drivers to hold their own on Friday. Again if we are going with the strategy that will produce better odds on our race picks, Bell and Custer provide better upside than the odds for Busch and Jones yet pretty similar probabilities.

In terms of fantasy or H2H betting match-ups, I have a few guys that have emerged as potential targets. I expect Justin Haley to run within the top 10 once things get going on Friday. I know the top 10 does not sound overly impressive but we are comparing drivers in match-ups to the drivers that they will be paired against. If Haley captures a top 10 finish, he will win the majority of his match-ups and that is what I am expecting to happen. Likewise, I believe Noah Gragson has really good long run speed. If Gragson can stay out of trouble, he should come on strong especially in the final stage when we will likely see drivers stay on the track for extenuating periods of time. Another name that I will throw out for both fantasy and H2H match-ups includes Jeremy Clements. I really like Clements in low-tier match-ups because the drivers he will be paired against will not be as good. Additionally, Clements could also provide some fantasy upside depending on his qualifying effort early Friday. So keep these guys on your radar as we move forward.

Drivers to Fade

I did not label any drivers as “must fades” after practices on Thursday. I did not see any team/driver that just missed the setup or was completely awful off the truck. So I am not going to make up any names to fade just for the sake of conversation. However, I will say that I am still convinced that fading Brandon Jones is a smart move going into Friday. I faded Jones in an early match-up with Austin Cindric and I wish I would have waited just to get better odds on that particular match-up. On the stopwatch, Brandon Jones looked very solid on Thursday but I just don’t think he thrives well in close racing environments.

We have seen Jones’ look great on the speed charts multiple times this year and fall back once the racing heats up. At Bristol, Jones has produced just 1 top 10 finish in his last 5 starts. Jones finished 6th in that race (spring 2018) after leading 106 laps which is the most of any race in his professional career. However, that was because Jones was able to take advantage of track position and keep that track position throughout the race. In all other events at Bristol, Jones has struggled immensely and I believe that is because he is simply not nearly as good in side by side racing at this venue. I studied this trend early this week and I am sticking to my findings. Therefore, I am going to stand by the fading Jones prediction against the majority of his match-ups this week, especially when you consider this #19 team’s current form in recent weeks.

2019 Draftkings Food City 300 Optimal Lineup

2019 Food City 300 Race Picks

*Final*

Christopher Bell +600 (1.25 units)
Cole Custer +1100 (1 unit) *early play
Justin Allgaier +2000 (.5 unit) *early play
Chase Briscoe +4400 (.5 unit) *early play
Austin Cindric +6500 (.25 unit)

Team Team Parlays

Kyle Busch +125 wins Food City 300
Team 2 – Open
Risking 1.25 units to win: TBD

Justin Allgaier +135 over Erik Jones *early play
Team 2 – Open
Risking 1.25 units to win: TBD

H2H Match-Ups

Austin Cindric -120 over Brandon Jones (2 units) *early play
Cole Custer +140 over Joey Logano (2 units)