NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Betting Preview
Friday July 9th, 2021. 9:00PM (EST) at Knoxville Raceway
by Jay Horne of NASCARWagers.com
History will be made Friday night when the Camping World Truck Series drops the green flag at Knoxville Raceway for the running of the Corn Belt 150. The Truck Series has become notorious for bringing NASCAR back to the dirt and that will be the case again Friday with the inaugural race at the “Sprint Car Capital of the World” at Knoxville. Currently, 39 trucks will be fighting to make tonight’s feature event which will consist of multiple qualifying races as drivers attempt to make it into the 150 lap main event. While tonight’s event will be inevitably chaotic, we will attempt to extract a few betting opportunities to enjoy NASCAR’s return to dirt.
On Friday, Chandler Smith topped the speed charts in the lone practice session of the weekend with a fast lap of 81.070mph. The 80 minute practice session was filled with chaos. Despite the fast time, Smith spun halfway through practice and suffered slight damage. Meanwhile, several drivers including the likes of John Hunter Nemechek, Sheldon Creed, Devon Rouse, and Morgan Alexander were among the trucks that suffered relatively significant damage stemming from incidents in practice. If you missed the televised practice, it was a rather chaotic event and matters are bound to get worse when over 30 trucks take the green flag Friday evening.
Betting Strategy
While I am one of NASCAR’s biggest fans for holding events on dirt, I must admit that these races have rarely favored our handicapping picks. If you look at the prior CWTS dirt races at Eldora, we rarely witnessed races unfold as expected. In my personal opinion, there is no defined successful handicapping strategy for the dirt races. We often see surprise contenders at the front of the field and favorites who fail to exceed expectations. If you just look back at the dirt race at Bristol in March this season, Martin Truex Jr dominated the event despite having any relative dirt experience. I have traditionally favored the drivers with dirt racing backgrounds but in reality these dirt events are usually decided among the top driving talents despite the aforementioned experience on dirt surfaces.
For tonight’s Corn Belt 150, I am not completely confident we are going to witness the spectacular racing that many fans are expecting. While Knoxville produces slick racing conditions, drivers will be fighting to maintain the bottom of the racing surface. Knoxville Raceway is a relatively flat ½ mile venue. For the Truck Series, the fast line is at the bottom of the track and drivers will be fighting to keep position at the bottom of the racing groove. Passing will be extremely difficult because the racing groove is relatively narrow and will likely lead to a battle of track position at the front of the field. As a result, I believe we can put a premium towards drivers with advantageous drawing positions in the qualifying races and possibly even base some of our picks on how the qualifying races unfold.
Thursday Practice Notes
Thursday’s 80 minute practice session changed significantly from the start of the session until the end. The track surface changed considerably and lap times picked up over 2 seconds from the initial start of practice. Personally, I thought Matt Crafton emerged at the end of practice as one of the fastest drivers but it was pretty hard to keep track of individual lap times with so many trucks running a ton of laps. As mentioned earlier, Chandler Smith posted the fastest lap of the session and showed decent speed throughout the entire practice. Brett Moffitt, Derek Kraus, and Sheldon Creed were also drivers that displayed solid consistency lap over lap.
As with most dirt races, there are a lot of new faces that will be competing in tonight’s race. Potentially the biggest threat is Brian Brown in the #51 machine for Kyle Busch Motorsports. Brown is a Knoxville legend with more than 50 feature victories in sprint car competition and he also holds the track record. It took Brown some time to get accustomed to the trucks in Thursday’s practice but he come on pretty strong in the final 20 minutes and perhaps should be kept on people’s radars as a potential dark horse. Another sprint car talent that will be worth keeping on everyone’s radar is Donny Schatz in the #17 truck. Schatz is another decorated Knoxville driver and finished Thursday’s practice with the 4th fastest time of the afternoon.
Betting Targets
Honestly, betting match-ups and outright odds are not providing the best overall value. Currently, there are as many as 8-9 drivers listed at 10-1 odds or less which is simply ridiculous when you factor in the inherent risk associated with this race. As a result, we will be forced to proceed with the utmost caution tonight. I do believe guys like Todd Gilliland (+1600), Brett Moffitt (+3000), and Derek Kraus (+3000) have the most value in terms of win odds. However, keep in mind that this is a very tricky race to handicap and even win with the right skill set.
For match-up purposes, I really like Matt Crafton as a semi-dark horse. Crafton is a former Eldora winner on dirt and has the consistency to stay out of trouble. Avoiding trouble will be among the biggest obstacles for H2H targets in tonight’s race. Tyler Ankrum and Brett Moffitt are great intermediate betting options that showed really good speed in practice. It is also worth noting that John Hunter Nemechek and Ben Rhodes were solid in practice. However, I cannot justify their current betting odds to put them in tonight’s lineup. As a result, I am focusing on the drivers that yield value which is why Crafton, Ankrum, Moffitt, and potentially Derek Kraus are among the drivers on my radar.
Drivers to Fade
Stewart Friesen is considered one of the top dirt talents in the Truck Series. Friesen has a very successful dirt resume and consistently runs races all over the country. However, he did not show much speed in practices on Thursday and has been consistently overvalued in every dirt race the Truck Series has produced. I have to throw Friesen into the fade bucket this week based on those observations. I would also throw out some more popular/recognizable names like Michael Annett and Josh Berry out as fade targets. Both drivers are competing in Friday’s race with inferior equipment and can be considered fade candidates in the right match-up pairings.
2021 Corn Belt 150 Betting Picks
*Final*
Matt Crafton +1200 (.5 unit)
Todd Gilliland +1600 (.5 unit)
Derek Kraus +3000 (.5 unit)
Brett Moffitt +3000 (.5 unit)
Tyler Ankrum +4000 (.5 unit)
H2H Match-Ups and Props
Ben Rhodes -110 over Stewart Friesen (2 units)
Chandler Smith +125 over Parker Price Miller (2 units)
Brett Moffitt -110 over Carson Hocevar (2 units)
Derek Kraus -115 over Hailie Deegan (2 units)
