2020 Racing Lovers 250 Race Picks

NASCAR Xfinity Series Betting Preview
Saturday September 12th, 2020 2:00PM EST at Richmond Raceway
by Jay Horne, NASCAR Handicapper, NASCARWagers.com

The Xfinity Series will prepare for a quick turnaround early Saturday with the running of the Racing Lovers 250 at Richmond Raceway. Earlier tonight, Justin Allgaier held off Justin Haley in the final laps to score his 2nd victory of the season. With very few cautions, tonight’s race was decided by long-run speed and Allgaier managed his tires to perfection to get the victory despite having the 2nd fastest car. Tomorrow, the Xfinity Series will reset for an encore performance. Instead of racing at night, the Xfinity Series will wave the green flag at 2:00PM (EST) before the Cup Series takes center stage for night racing in the Federated Auto Parts 400. Take a look as we provide tomorrow’s best bets in our 2020 Racing Lovers 250 race picks!

Admittedly, tonight’s race did not go as planned though I had Allgaier in my line-up at 11 to 1 odds. Several of the guys I expected to run well, that checked off all the boxes you look for at a place like Richmond, simply struggled. Specifically guys like Harrison Burton and Riley Herbst were never a factor. Last week’s race winner Brandon Jones struggled to stay on the lead lap for most of the night and this year’s wins leader in Chase Briscoe even fell off the lead lap during the final stage. Meanwhile, guys like Justin Haley and Ross Chastain were stronger than most would have expected. I was personally not surprised to see Chastain run well due to his tendency to run well for the underfunded team at JD Motorsports in recent years. Justin Haley was a much bigger surprise. If you look at Haley’s performance a year ago at Richmond and on similar layouts, Haley was the biggest surprise of the night and nearly pulled off the upset.

Obviously in this era of no pre-race practices, it is hard to identify those potential outliers before they take the green flag. I have made the comment several times that practices do not normally tell you which drivers to bet on but are useful towards telling your drivers to avoid. Needless to say, a few of my H2H choices clearly missed the mark in tonight’s race. The good news is that tomorrow’s quick turnaround should yield minimal significant surprises. Obviously the track will be different in the daylight which means tire wear and slick conditions will be intensified. Still, we have a pretty good baseline of expectations from tonight’s race as we look forward to tomorrow’s Racing Lovers 250.

The Favorites

Justin Allgaier was among my favorite targets entering the weekend and he remains at the top spot following tonight’s victory. However, we should not expect things to be identical on Saturday. Rest assured teams are going to make changes and we will see a different race tomorrow. With that being said, Allgaier’s driving style suits Richmond very well and he will be one of the top threats again. If we are mentioning potential targets, it would be foolish to ignore the speed of the Kaulig Racing cars following tonight’s performance. Both Haley and Chastain were extremely strong throughout the night even after both cars suffered slight damage in the opening stage. One of the factors that caused me to originally fade Haley in Friday’s race is the fact he has rarely shown long-run speed at the high wear tracks. Both Chastain and Haley were aggressive in Friday night’s event and while they did experience some fall off, they both displayed “winning” speed.

The other driver that remains high on my radar is the #22 of Austin Cindric. At times early in Friday’s race, Cindric was extremely fast leading several laps early on. Cindric just simply could not maintain his pace for long runs and started falling off pretty sharply after about 30-40 laps. The take-off speed from the #22 team was really impressive and mirrored the raw speed the team has shown all season. If the team can make a few adjustments to get the car a better balance for long-runs, Cindric remains a legitimate threat.

Betting Targets

Without Kyle Busch in the field on Saturday, expect win odds to take a significant hit when they are reposted. I am forecasting a conservative strategy towards win bets because I am expecting minimal value on guys like Allgaier, Cindric, and Chastain. Depending on the odds of Justin Haley, Brett Moffitt, and Harrison Burton, I may consider a couple of dark horse style bets. I’m sure Haley will be close to the favorites after his performance earlier tonight. Meanwhile, Brett Moffitt came away with the most impressive run of the true dark horses. Moffitt drove the #02 to a 6th place finish which is remarkable considering the equipment.

I was smart enough to have Moffitt in my optimal fantasy line-up this week because this track was a good stylistic setup but was not smart enough to target the #02 in betting match-ups. If Moffitt has another huge betting number beside his name, I would consider him as a live underdog. Meanwhile, I’m not giving up on Harrison Burton despite a subpar performance. All of the JGR cars struggled on long-run speed and Burton admitted to being confused as to why their cars fell-off so hard because the balance was solid. If they can figure out what is yielding the fall off, Burton has the skill set to thrive at Richmond and remains one of my favorite bounce back candidates.

Drivers to Fade

I am not basing fade candidates solely on Friday night’s performance. Going into the weekend, I expected Brandon Jones would likely struggle as this type of layout and while I expect the JGR cars to be better on Saturday, I still believe Jones faces an uphill challenge compared to his peers. Meanwhile, I have similar reservations for Chase Briscoe. Briscoe’s talent and skill set is much better than most competitors in the field. However, I just don’t believe the #98 car was in the right ball-park in terms of long-run speed. Even with adjustments in the right direction, Briscoe will likely be 2nd fiddle to the likes of Allgaier and Cindric which he remains paired against in betting match-ups.

Draftkings Racing Lovers 250 Optimal Lineup

2020 Racing Lovers 250 Race Picks

*Final*

Justin Allgaier +500 (1 unit)
Justin Haley +1500 (.75 unit)
Brett Moffitt +20000 (.25 unit)

Two Team Parlay

Riley Herbst +155 over Brandon Jones
Team 2 – Open
Risking 1 unit to win: TBD

H2H Match-Ups

Justin Haley -110 over Brandon Jones (4 units)
Austin Cindric -135 over Chase Briscoe (2 units)