2021 Buschy McBusch 400 Race Picks

NASCAR Cup Series Betting Preview
Sunday May 2nd, 2021. 3:00PM (EST) at Kansas Speedway
by Jay Horne of NASCARWagers.com

Last week, Brad Keselowski scored his 6th career victory at Talladega Superspeedway to tie the likes of Dale Earnhardt Jr and Jeff Gordon for the 2nd most victories all-time behind Dale Earnhardt’s 10 victories at Talladega. Despite Keselowski’s status as one of the top drivers in the sport, it was his first victory of the season and extended the Cup Series’ trend of parity which has now produced 9 different winners through 10 races. On Sunday, the Cup Series returns to Kansas Speedway for the first time this season in the running of the Buschy McBusch 400 in what could be another prime opportunity to produce another 1st time season winner.

Before we get too deep into analytics and performance trends, I want to point out a couple of factors to set the stage for this Sunday’s green flag. For starters, Kansas Speedway is among the numerous 1.5 mile ovals. Unlike Homestead-Miami Speedway and Atlanta Motor Speedway where Cup Series teams competed in March, Kansas Speedway does not produce the significant tire wear as compared to those tracks. Kansas Speedway produces medium level tire wear that is consistent with the likes of Las Vegas and possibly Kentucky for comparison reasons. Because of the banking and grip level, I have always considered Kansas Speedway a performance track meaning we give less focus to long-run speed and tire wear while putting more focus on the teams producing the better aerodynamic raw speed in terms of trending performance.

I will break down some of the performance trends below that should help our handicapping method this week. From a betting standpoint, Kansas Speedway has typically favored the top drivers and fastest cars over its 20 year history. Current points leader Denny Hamlin has won 2 of the last 3 races at Kansas Speedway including last year’s version of the Buschy McBusch 400. Despite not winning this season, Hamlin has posted a remarkable string of 8 top 5 finishes and has been the most consistent frontrunner all season. With this year’s current performance and recent history at Kansas, I have to think Hamlin will be a top threat for the victory this Sunday.

Even if you go back to last October’s race won by Joey Logano, Hamlin was in position to win his 3rd straight victory at Kansas. After winning stage 2, Hamlin got into the wall which forced the team to make an unscheduled pitstop. If not for that mistake, Hamlin could have secured the Kansas hat-trick. Therefore when I think of how strong the #11 team is performing, this Sunday’s race at Kansas is a perfect opportunity for Hamlin to secure his first victory of the season.

Kansas Loop Data

I have compiled the loop data for the last 5 races at Kansas Speedway which I do every week for the current track. For this week’s race, I also have provided a weighted average calculation that is aimed to determine current performance on the 1.5 mile venues. This Sunday’s race at Kansas will be the 4th race at a 1.5 mile speedway. I have combined the average driver ratings for all 3 of those races and provided a weighted average. I put heavier (50%) weight to the Las Vegas race because that venue is most similar to Kansas in layout and design. Meanwhile, the races at Homestead and Atlanta received 25% of the calculations. Granted, this is a small sample size which means that one great/bad result can swing the pendulum in a certain direction. However, I do think this view provides a solid baseline of expectations in terms of performance.

In the Kansas loop data, Kevin Harvick leads all competitors over the last 5 races with a 116.8 average driver rating. Obviously, these numbers do not reflect Stewart-Haas Racing’s early 2021 struggles where Harvick has just one top 5 finish (Homestead) on a non-superspeedway. Behind Harvick, we have a relatively large logjam of drivers including Chase Elliott, Brad Keselowski, Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin, Martin Truex, and Kyle Larson that all support 100 plus ratings. All of those drivers, with the exception of Larson, are former Kansas winners. Therefore when I look at the top ratings along with the rest of the Kansas loop data, I don’t see any significant outliers that truly grab my attention.

In the bottom table, we have a weighted average around the 3 prior races at 1.5 mile venues. As you can see, Kyle Larson gets the prominent nod due to his dominant victory at Las Vegas which carries the bigger weight (50%). Behind Larson, teammate William Byron fills in the #2 position with a collective 115.3 average rating. Personally, I believe Byron and the #24 team are producing the sharpest value for match-ups and props. Since Byron’s win at Homestead, the #24 team has not finished worse than 8th in the last 7 races. Simply put, this is one of the best performing/most improved teams in the garage and bettors should take notice. In terms of the rest of this weight average performance, I would point to the outliers like Kevin Harvick (80.6) and Joey Logano (85.8) who have vastly underperformed at the 1.5 mile venues as another notable for H2H match-up purposes.

*Last 5 races at Kansas Speedway

Driver	Avg. Rating	Avg. Start	Avg. Mid Race	Avg. Finish	Avg. Pos.	Pass Diff.	Fastest Laps	Laps Led	Total Laps
Kevin Harvick	116.8	9.6	7.2	8.0	7.0	35	159	274	1349
Chase Elliott	111.2	14.2	9.4	5	7.2	62	87	141	1346
Brad Keselowski	105.7	5.6	6	6.4	8	8	99	76	1332
Kyle Busch	104.3	12.2	13.4	10.2	8.4	41	123	57	316
Denny Hamlin	104.2	12	7.2	9.4	10.4	36	76	268	1349
Martin Truex Jr	102.8	12.8	11	8.4	9.6	58	75	77	1232
Kyle Larson	102.4	22.3	16.0	8.3	9.7	73	61	60	1349
Erik Jones	99.0	12.8	15.6	7.8	10.6	46	73	0	1263
Alex Bowman	98.9	8.6	15.4	6.6	10.8	11	65	76	531
Ryan Blaney	98.0	6.6	4.8	17.4	8.4	-66	85	26	534
Joey Logano	96.1	12.8	15	15.2	12.8	65	55	178	1294
Kurt Busch	87.6	9.4	16.6	15.2	13.8	13	12	9	1336
Aric Almirola	86.3	13.6	17.6	12.8	13.2	8	18	0	1347
William Byron	79.7	14	19.8	16.2	16.8	-11	33	35	1349
Cole Custer	79.6	18.5	20	10.5	16	34	3	0	527
Tyler Reddick	79.1	19.7	12	15.7	15.3	27	18	0	1053
Christopher Bell	78.0	22.0	14.0	16.5	16.0	46	4	0	844
Austin Dillon	71.3	16	21	17.2	18	-27	3	0	1257
Ricky Stenhouse Jr	71.1	19.2	22.8	20.6	20	-33	11	13	776
Chris Buescher	68.5	19.8	19	18.6	19.4	-24	4	10	1349
Matt DiBenedetto	66.0	21.6	13.6	24.4	19.6	34	5	12	1278
Daniel Suarez	58.0	22.8	20.6	23	23	-43	16	6	1346
Ryan Newman	57.3	17.6	21.2	25.6	23.8	-32	7	1	815
Bubba Wallace	55.7	17.4	21.8	29	23.8	-68	3	2	1348
Ryan Preece	55.7	26	25	25	24.5	8	1	0	1244
Michael McDowell	53.9	24.0	18.0	22.4	24.8	-17	13	0	1339
Corey LaJoie	49.4	28.2	20	25.6	26.8	-14	4	1	781
J.J. Yeley	41.0	33.5	32	28.25	30.75	1	0	0	1138
Ross Chastain	37.9	30.7	28	32.3	32.7	2	1	1	577
Garrett Smithley	36.8	30.5	35.5	30.0	34	-6	2	0	1341
Quin Houff	35.1	29.3	35.0	30.3	34	-4	0	0	1125
Josh Bilicki	33.2	36.3	35.7	32	35	24	4	0	989
B.J. McLeod	27.2	39	37.5	36	37	2	0	0	727
Joey Gase	26.9	37.75	38	35.5	37.25	1	2	0	804
Timmy Hill	26.1	38.4	38	38	38.2	3	4	0	1136

*Weighted average from last 3 races on 1.5 mile speedways

Driver	Weighted Average	Homestead Rating	Vegas Rating	Atlanta Rating
Kyle Larson	136.5	116	142.6	144.8
William Byron	115.3	139.8	111.4	98.7
Denny Hamlin	107.3	81.7	116.6	114.2
Martin Truex, Jr.	104.6	119.1	103.4	92.6
Brad Keselowski	104.6	107.2	123.5	64.1
Ryan Blaney	103.8	64.2	111.5	127.9
Alex Bowman	95.4	95.7	85.9	114.1
Kyle Busch	94.0	77.5	95.2	108.2
Austin Dillon	86.0	91.1	78.5	95.8
Joey Logano	85.8	82.6	90.6	79.3
Chris Buescher	84.5	95.8	74	94.2
Chase Elliott	83.5	80.4	89.7	74
Kurt Busch	83.2	111.5	77	67.2
Christopher Bell	80.6	62.6	99.8	60.2
Kevin Harvick	80.3	103	66.4	85.4
Ricky Stenhouse, Jr.	80.1	75.8	81.6	81.2
Matt DiBenedetto	79.9	57	84.7	93.2
Ryan Newman	73.2	91.6	61.2	78.9
Michael McDowell	72.2	89.2	69.3	60.8
Erik Jones	66.4	48.4	81.7	53.8
Tyler Reddick	63.4	83.6	60.1	49.6
Ross Chastain	62.1	66.3	55.6	71
Ryan Preece	60.7	52.8	69.3	51.4
Daniel Suarez	59.7	61.2	51.1	75.4
Cole Custer	58.0	70.2	47.7	66.3
Bubba Wallace	56.6	58.1	49.4	69.5
Aric Almirola	53.0	53.7	48.2	61.8
Chase Briscoe	51.2	54.7	49.9	50.2
Anthony Alfredo	48.6	48.3	50.7	44.8
Corey LaJoie	42.6	37.7	41.3	50.1
Justin Haley	41.1	41.8	40.2	42
Cody Ware	34.4	32.2	34.5	36.3
B.J. McLeod	34.0	30.2	37.3	31.2
Quin Houff	31.0	28	29.7	36.7
Josh Bilicki	28.8	32.2	28.8	25.3
Timmy Hill	24.5	23.2	24.2	26.2

Betting Targets

Despite the “title” as this week’s overall betting favorite, Hamlin deserves all the respect this week with a great opportunity to score his first victory of the season. If you look back at the Las Vegas race which is the closest in comparison with Kansas, Joe Gibbs Racing drivers compiled 4 of the top 7 positions in one of their best team performances of the season. I believe that factor combined with Hamlin’s current performance and Kansas history bodes well for the #11 team. Additionally, I would throw Kyle Larson and Martin Truex into that mix among top-tier threats that cannot be ignored.

If we deviate from the favorites, a few of my favorite betting options this week surround Christopher Bell and William Byron. I mentioned above that Byron has posted 8 straight finishes of 8th or better as the most improved team in the garage and there is no reason to expect a setback until we witness a trend reversal. For Christopher Bell, he is among the sharper picks of the group this week. Bell is a former Kansas winner in the Xfinity Series and piloted the #95 car to a 10th place finish at Kansas as a rookie in 2020. With better equipment and performance surrounding the JGR machines, I expect Bell to be a top 10 contender all Sunday afternoon and perhaps battle in the top 5 if things go their way. Based on current odds, Bell and Byron beat all other drivers within their odds range.

I don’t want to completely ignore drivers like Kyle Busch, Ryan Blaney, and Brad Keselowski this week. However, I just have not seen enough consistency from those teams to rely on them as optimal betting targets. Ultimately, Kansas can produce some strategy calls from pitroad and short-race strategy if the cautions fall accordingly. Therefore, I want to ensure this week’s H2H or prop bets are not diluted in value for potential strategy circumstances. As a result, I am keeping this week’s betting targets anchored to a smaller group to ensure we maintain that value. I’m sure we could throw out names like Cole Custer (7th and 14th at Kansas in 2020) and Chris Buescher (bottom-tier positive performance trend) that could provide possible betting targets. I am just not as confident in those drivers as I am the ones mentioned above.

Drivers to Fade

If you look at historical performance compared to current performance, Kevin Harvick is currently showing the biggest negative difference. Harvick and the entire SHR organization have struggled through 2021. While there have been small signs of improvement, Kansas is one of those tracks that relies heavily on aerodynamic speed and I just don’t think the SHR teams are where they need to be at the moment. Another “favorite” that cannot be left off the “fade” list this week is the reigning champion in Chase Elliott.

For transparency, I hate fading Elliott because of his raw talent. However, the #9 team have only performed well using the 750HP package this season. At non-superspeedways, Elliott has failed to produce a top 10 finish and only has a 13th place best result at Las Vegas among the 1.5 mile speedways. Simply put, that is not the type of numbers we should expect from the current series champion. Other notable mentioned include Aric Almirola (mostly bad luck), Tyler Reddick, and Bubba Wallace who have consistently underperformed at similar venues this season.

Draftkings Buschy McBusch 400 Optimal Lineup

2021 Buschy McBusch 400 Betting Picks

*Final*

Denny Hamlin +600 (1.5 units)
Kyle Larson +650 (1 unit)
William Byron +1600 (.75 unit)
Christopher Bell +2500 (.5 unit)
Cole Custer +10000 (.25 unit)

H2H Match-Ups and Props

Cole Custer -115 over Bubba Wallace (2 units)
William Byron +115 over Joey Logano (2 units)
Austin Dillon +200 finishes Top 10 (1 unit)