2021 Pennzoil 400 Race Picks

NASCAR Cup Series Betting Preview
Sunday March 7th, 2021. 3:30PM (EST) at Las Vegas Motor Speedway
by Jay Horne of NASCARWagers.com

Last week, William Byron delivered the 3rd straight surprising victory in the Cup Series with a dominant win at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Through 3 races in the Cup Series, the winners pool stems from the names of Michael McDowell, Christopher Bell, and William Byron. No disrespect to those drivers but I don’t think anyone expected those names to be among the first winners of the season especially in consecutive fashion. The truth of the matter is the parity among NASCAR’s top division is stronger than ever and hopefully that will continue to provide opportunistic betting opportunities as the season progresses. On Sunday, NASCAR’s best return for racing at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and the running of the Pennzoil 400.

Las Vegas Motor Speedway is among the numerous 1.5 mile cookie cutter layouts in the Cup Series. Unlike last week’s race at Homestead, the surface at Las Vegas has a solid amount of grip which puts heavier emphasis on aerodynamic speed. Typically, Las Vegas Motor Speedway has produced relatively minimal tire wear but the 15 year old track surface is starting to produce intermediate tire wear which means teams/drivers will definitely want 4 tires after about 20-25 laps of racing. However, don’t rule out the possibility of strategy calls if there is a potential short-run to the checkers which helped Kurt Busch cash at 35-1 odds in last September’s South Point 400 at Vegas.

With 30 laps to go, Busch was racing outside the top 10 but pieced together a few consecutive strategy calls on pit road to help seal the victory. Therefore, bettors should understand this Sunday’s race is risky in the realm that we have not had the luxury of observing significant performance data on 1.5 mile speedways this season and the fact that this race has the potential to cause shake-ups in the running order if the cautions fall with just a few laps to go. As a result, betting cards should remain conservative this week. I know that seems to be a broken record that I say each week. However, better opportunities will become available as we move forward and it is traditionally a strong strategy to yield early season races with caution.

Las Vegas Loop Data

I have compiled loop data stats for the last 5 races at Las Vegas Motor Speedway which can be seen below. Keep in mind, Las Vegas tends to trend in the realm of 1.5 mile program performance. Team Penske cars have excelled at Las Vegas in recent years. Joey Logano comes in at #1 in our loop data stats with a 119.3 average rating. Logano has won the last two spring races at Las Vegas and has posted a 100 plus driver rating in the last 10 straight Veas races which should solidify his fantasy value from the 15th place starting position. Meanwhile, teammate Brad Keselowski owns the most wins (3) at Las Vegas among active drivers. All of Keselowski’s wins have come in the last 10 races at Vegas which is something to keep in mind. Additionally, I keep saying that I believe the Fords have the slight raw speed advantage and believed that was on display in the opening stages of the race at Homestead. Both Logano and Keselowski were extremely fast in the early laps before tire wear and track conditions started changing. On a higher grip surface that should have less transition, I am expecting Team Penske cars to be strong.

When I look through the remainder of the loop data, I do not see many huge surprises based on prior performance. If we want to identify some potential outliers in the realm of this historical data and current expectations, I would point to Michael McDowell as a streaming H2H option. Despite having just a measly 52.5 average rating over the last 5 races, McDowell is having an incredible start to 2021 with a Daytona 500 victory and 3 straight top 10 finishes to open the season which includes a really impressive 6th place finish at Homestead last week. I don’t expect McDowell’s ceiling to be that high this week where raw aerodynamic speed will be the premium but the #34 team is still performing way higher than their former standard.

Another so-called outlier would be Denny Hamlin. Hamlin has never won at Las Vegas and ranks relatively low on our loop data compared to the other betting favorites. Personally, I believe this may be misleading. Hamlin has shown the best speed of any driver in the Cup Series through the first 3 races which ties into the same performance we seen in 2020 when the #11 car went to victory lane 7 times. In last year’s South Point 400, Hamlin was in control of the race when a few late yellows shook-up the running order. The #11 car was dominant under normal conditions but only had a 3rd place finish to show for it. As a result, I am little surprised to see Hamlin getting near 8-1 odds as the 4th-5th best betting favorite. I know that 9-1 odds is not tremendous value but is not not necessarily bad value either.

Driver	Avg. Rating	Avg. Start	Avg. Mid Race	Avg. Finish	Avg. Pos.	Pass Diff.	Quality Passes	Fastest Lap	Laps Led	Total Laps
Joey Logano	119.3	8.8	10.2	5.8	7.4	25	255	101	292	1341
Kevin Harvick	116.6	2.6	7.2	12.6	7.6	3	253	123	241	1216
Martin Truex Jr	112.1	14.0	4.8	7.2	7.2	84	335	160	129	1341
Chase Elliott	103.6	8.0	7.4	19.4	8.2	31	349	147	155	1279
Brad Keselowski	98.4	14.0	12.2	5.2	10.4	50	301	75	94	1341
Ryan Blaney	96.6	12.8	13.0	10.0	10.8	9	296	65	21	1340
Kyle Larson	95.8	9.8	8.8	7.8	12.0	15	229	49	26	1073
Alex Bowman	94.0	11.8	9.6	10.8	10.2	19	368	52	5	1340
Denny Hamlin	93.1	6.4	13.2	15.4	12.0	-36	284	64	125	1314
Kyle Busch	93.0	6.0	19.2	10.0	13.4	9	236	47	20	1340
Kurt Busch	90.3	12.6	10.4	18.2	13.0	17	257	27	52	1259
Aric Almirola	85.4	12.6	14.4	12.8	12.8	-14	267	21	3	1341
William Byron	82.9	18.8	7.8	21.4	13.8	21	285	60	39	1279
Austin Dillon	80.8	11.4	14.8	15.8	14.4	-17	222	18	3	1333
Ricky Stenhouse Jr	76.2	18.6	18.2	17.6	17.6	29	162	21	35	1318
Erik Jones	73.5	14.8	23.0	24.0	20.6	-4	171	22	0	1203
Matt DiBenedetto	73.4	23.0	20.4	14.0	17.6	13	151	9	17	1336
Ryan Newman	69.1	23.8	13.0	14.5	17.3	24	146	5	0	1072
Chris Buescher	65.9	24.4	17.4	14.8	19.2	14	144	4	11	1340
Cole Custer	61.5	19.5	24.5	17.5	22.0	-13	43	5	0	535
Daniel Suarez	60.9	21.4	22.2	20.8	20.8	1	122	12	41	1333
Tyler Reddick	56.2	19.5	18.5	28.0	23.5	-30	69	3	0	424
Christopher Bell	55.2	24.0	23.0	28.5	22.5	38	39	3	0	525
Michael McDowell	52.5	19.0	29.6	28.0	25.0	-74	65	1	16	1307
Ty Dillon	52.1	23.8	24.6	23.0	25.0	3	60	10	0	1283
Bubba Wallace	52.1	26.6	25.4	24.2	25.4	-8	21	3	0	1228
Ryan Preece	48.6	20.3	26.0	27.0	25.3	-5	15	1	0	1020
Corey LaJoie	48.5	31.2	19.4	22.8	26.6	7	40	3	0	1335
Ross Chastain	46.7	29.8	28.5	27.8	27.8	-5	46	5	0	1057
Quin Houff	33.0	32.0	34.5	33.0	34.0	-10	0	0	0	517
B.J. McLeod	30.6	35.7	36.0	32.7	35.0	3	0	0	0	747
Garrett Smithley	28.7	34.0	36.5	35.0	36.0	-4	0	0	0	507
Joey Gase	27.4	35.0	36.3	35.5	36.5	-13	0	0	0	773
Timmy Hill	26.3	37.7	37.7	36.0	37.3	1	0	5	0	566

Betting Targets

In determining betting targets this week, I have narrowed the handicapping down to a few angles which includes prior/expected performance on 1.5 mile tracks, prior track history, and I am also looking at some of the data from Kansas/Texas/Vegas (September) races that will be using the same GoodYear tire code this week. For clarity, I don’t think any of those angles can solely be relied upon but collectively they may point us in the right direction for another early season race.

If I had to rank the favorites, I would probably go Hamlin, Logano, Harvick, Keselowski, and Truex. I really like Logano and Hamlin as anchor style options among the favorites. However, I must admit that I believe the value for this race surrounds the dark horses. Matt DiBenedetto is one of my favorite betting targets this week following a pair of runner-up finishes at Vegas in 2020. DiBenedetto has the Ford performance and trends that check all the boxes in my handicapping formula this week. While I would love to see DiBenedetto compete for a victory, the fact remains that he just needs to run relatively well to win most match-ups based on the competition he is currently paired against.

Outside of DiBenedetto as a H2H or prop bet option, I believe the likes of William Byron and Alex Bowman deserve dark horse consideration as well. I know we may be a little late in chasing Byron’s success and I mistakenly made a foolish fade against Byron last week due to his prior Homestead performance. Instead, I should have reminded everyone that crew chief Rudy Fugle is a genius and clearly provided Byron with the best car in the field. I am a huge fan of Fugle and believe he will have Byron competitive all season with Chevrolet’s reemergence. At 18-1 odds this week, Byron still presents some fair value. For Alex Bowman, he may be my favorite dark horse for Sunday and likely my favorite target in all formats. Hendrick Motorsports has looked strong in recent 1.5 mile races and Bowman’s success on the 1.5 mile layouts has gone largely unnoticed. Bowman has stringed together 6 straight top 10 finishes and recorded top 5 finishes in 3 of the last 4 races which involve 1.5 mile speedways. At 20-1 odds and higher depending on where you shop, Bowman may have the best value on the board.

Drivers to Fade

If there is anything I have learned through the first 3 races with a higher emphasis over the last 2 races it is that Kyle Busch and the #18 team are still behind the 8-ball. I expected Busch to be in the thick of things at the Daytona road course and especially last week at Homestead where he has positive lucrative statistics over the years. Instead, the #18 team has been largely forgettable when you consider Busch is known as one of the elite talents in the sport. Until I see a reliable trend reversal, I think Busch is fadeworthy.

Additionally, I am going to cautiously throw out Chase Elliott’s name as fade consideration. I say cautiously because I have all the respect in the world for Elliott and personally he is my driver from a fan standpoint. However if there is one place the #9 team has struggled, it has been at the 1.5 mile layouts where Elliott has finished outside the top 10 in 7 of the last 8 events including a rather dismal 14th place finish last week at Homestead. For whatever reason, the #9 team has not shown the speed at these tracks compared to the competition or even within the same organization at Hendrick Motorsports. Normally, I would ignore this discrepancy out of respect for the overall talent Elliott possesses however he is among the overall betting favorites for the 2nd week in a row which just does not make a ton of sense based on the trends and numbers.

Draftkings Pennzoil 400 Optimal Lineup

2021 Pennzoil 400 Betting Picks

*Update: I was not planning on risking so many units this week however I really like the H2H match-ups so I am not going to back away from attacking what I believe to be sharp value

*Final*

Denny Hamlin +1000 (1 unit)
Joey Logano +1100 (.75 unit)
Alex Bowman +2500 (.75 unit)

H2H Match-Ups and Props

Joey Logano -120 over Kyle Busch (3 units)
Denny Hamlin -110 over Chase Elliott (3 units)
Michael McDowell -110 over Daniel Suarez (3 units)
Matt DiBenedetto -115 over Tyler Reddick (3 units)