2021 Verizon 200 Race Picks

NASCAR Cup Series Betting Preview
Sunday August 15th, 2021. 1:00PM (EST) at Indianapolis Motor Speedway G.P.
by Jay Horne of NASCARWagers.com

For the 2nd week in a row, NASCAR’s Cup Series will go road course racing with Sunday’s running of the Verizon 200. The Cup Series has frequented road course venues this season but Sunday’s Verizon 200 will mark the Cup Series’ first appearance on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Grand Prix (road course). Since the inaugural running of the Brickyard 400 in 1994, Indianapolis Motor Speedway has been one of the marquee events for NASCAR’s highest division. On Sunday, the racing will transition from the historic 2.5 mile oval surface to a 14-turn 2.439 mile road course circuit. Despite the different disposition, the race for a historic win at the Brickyard remains among NASCAR’s most prestigious accomplishments and that is what drivers will be competing for in Sunday’s Verizon 200.

For those unfamiliar with the layout on the Indy road course, it is similar to the hybrid layouts at Daytona and the Charlotte ROVAL. Drivers will utilize nearly the entire front-stretch in a counter-clockwise direction and also parts of the traditional oval surface at the exit of turn 1 and into turn 2. In many ways, the layout at Indianapolis has a lot of similarities to Watkins Glen with more sharp 90 degree turns. In fact, there are 4 different 90 degree turns which will play into the strengths of the road course talents that have stood out all season. Perhaps the biggest concern that drivers will have to battle is the narrow turns that can easily cause bottleneck effects and impair drivers’ ability to avoid trouble. Ultimately, the layout is not difficult for drivers’ to master but things definitely get edgy when you have side by side racing which will perhaps produce good racing when the green flag waves.

The Cup Series has competed on 5 road course layouts this season. Following Christopher Bell’s surprise victory at Daytona, all recent races have been decided between Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott. Elliott and Larson finished 1st and 2nd at Circuit of the Americas and Sonoma. Elliott captured his 2nd road course win of the season at Road America and Larson evened the score with his 2nd road course victory of the season last week at Watkins Glen while Elliott finished in the 2nd position. Needless to say, both Elliott and Larson have clearly separated themselves apart from the Cup Series competition. It would be reasonable to expect more diverse results at a brand new venue but I really believe the number of sharp braking zones will play right into the hands of the Cup Series top road course talents. Therefore, I am not expecting too many differences compared to the prior road course results we have witnessed this season.

Loop Data at the Road Courses

Once again, I have compiled loop data stats for all the road course events this season. I shared this view last week and have since updated the results to reflect last week’s Go Bowling at the Glen. Not much has changed in terms of the ratings as Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson command a sizable advantage over the competition. Kyle Busch, Martin Truex, and Denny Hamlin have also produced solid triple digit ratings this season on the road courses. Personally, I thought Truex would have been a more consistent frontrunner in these events but that has not been the case. Truex was in great position last week at Watkins Glen but was completely left in the dust of Larson and Elliott in the final stage.

On the other side of the spectrum, It is worth noting that guys like Kevin Harvick, Ryan Blaney, and Brad Keselowski have posted dismal results this year on the road courses. All 3 drivers have produced sub-75.0 ratings this season. Harvick has finished outside the top 20 in 3 of the 5 races at road courses this season. Meanwhile, Keselowski and Blaney have combined to post just 1 finish inside the top 10 this season which is relatively surprising considering both drivers have shown moments of success on the road courses. I would also throw out another dishonorable mention in the form of veteran Ryan Newman. With a lousy 47.7 average rating, Newman has failed to crack the Top 20 this season at the road course venues which is absolutely awful among the drivers in decent equipment.

*Loop data from all road course races during the 2021 season

Driver	Avg. Rating	Avg. Start	Avg. Mid Race	Avg. Finish	Avg. Pos.	Pass Diff.	Fastest Lap	Laps Led	Total Laps
Chase Elliott	121.7	11.2	6.8	5.4	8.0	85	69	86	368
Kyle Larson	117.6	3.4	9.4	10.0	6.2	41	54	88	368
Kyle Busch	106.7	16.6	8.2	11.4	10.6	57	12	18	367
Martin Truex Jr	104.7	14.6	11.6	12.4	11.2	29	26	38	338
Denny Hamlin	101.5	7.8	9.0	7.0	9.4	65	20	13	368
Joey Logano	99.7	9.2	21.0	9.2	10.2	59	8	40	368
Kurt Busch	92.4	18.6	9.0	10.8	11.2	58	3	12	368
Christopher Bell	91.6	12.4	13.8	14.4	14.8	19	25	5	332
Ross Chastain	89.9	15.6	16.4	13.8	14.8	-14	5	4	324
A.J. Allmendinger	84.6	14.7	25.0	13.7	16.0	74	7	2	186
William Byron	83.5	9.2	9.0	23.6	13.8	-30	12	20	351
Alex Bowman	82.2	15.0	16.6	13.8	14.6	26	3	3	368
Austin Cindric	80.6	4.0	20.0	31.5	18.5	-72	1	6	89
Tyler Reddick	78.7	10.4	13.2	16.8	15.4	31	5	5	356
Chase Briscoe	77.0	26.4	14.2	14.0	16.4	-13	0	0	368
Matt DiBenedetto	74.7	18.2	14.8	20.8	16.6	-117	5	10	363
Kevin Harvick	73.4	10.8	17.6	20.0	17.6	-26	3	0	333
Ryan Blaney	72.6	13.4	20.0	15.2	18.8	-17	1	0	368
Chris Buescher	72.5	21.2	17.8	15.0	17.0	-8	1	0	368
Austin Dillon	72.3	15.6	18.0	17.0	17.4	-14	0	0	367
Michael McDowell	72.1	17.8	18.8	18.8	18.4	11	3	3	368
Brad Keselowski	69.7	13.8	15.4	17.4	19.0	22	0	9	365
Erik Jones	65.8	25.4	19.4	17.4	19.6	20	1	0	367
Cole Custer	63.7	16.8	28.2	20.8	20.2	37	0	0	338
Aric Almirola	63.5	21.0	18.2	20.0	19.0	-92	0	1	368
Ricky Stenhouse Jr	58.1	21.6	30.8	21.6	23.6	42	2	1	316
Ryan Preece	57.5	24.8	23.0	22.6	23.8	28	3	2	311
Daniel Suarez	56.7	19.6	25.4	25.6	27.0	-70	5	2	349
Bubba Wallace	55.6	21.0	26.4	25.2	25.8	-149	0	0	332
Corey LaJoie	53.0	21.2	21.2	22.8	22.6	-23	0	0	368
Ryan Newman	47.7	29.4	15.6	26.8	23.4	-90	0	0	367
Anthony Alfredo	45.9	30.2	22.8	26.8	26.6	-149	0	0	347
James Davison	41.3	33.0	30.8	28.4	30.6	90	0	0	319
Justin Haley	40.7	25.5	25.0	29.5	29.5	13	0	0	233
Cody Ware	39.8	30.5	31.8	30.5	30.0	-11	0	0	269
Josh Bilicki	38.8	30.2	29.4	30.2	30.0	52	0	0	364
Kyle Tilley	33.9	34.0	33.7	32.0	33.3	20	0	0	203
Garrett Smithley	31.8	32.3	31.8	30.8	31.8	-7	0	0	303
Quin Houff	27.6	34.0	34.8	35.2	34.6	24	0	0	260

Saturday Practice Notes

With the debut of the Indy road course, Cup Series teams were granted the opportunity to hold a 50-minute practice session on Saturday to provide some preliminary observations. Obviously, practice times at a brand new venue should be given minimal credit in terms of fast lap times. Drivers are trying their best to learn the layout and that alone will cause some variation in speeds. At new venues, I look for the drivers that are posting consistent fast laps which likely raises their ceiling going into the weekend.

From Saturday’s practice, Martin Truex paced the field with the fastest lap of the morning with a speed of 98.021mph. William Byron, Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin, and Saturday’s Pennzoil 150 winner Austin Cindric rounded out the top 5 in terms of single lap speed. From an observational standpoint, last week’s winner in Kyle Larson appeared to be the driver laying down the most fast laps. Larson appeared really strong and posted several laps around his fastest lap time. Behind Larson, Martin Truex showed some really strong speed for the 2nd straight week. I feel optimistic about Truex’s chances on Sunday but I have felt that way several times this year as well.

A few others that I thought had solid practice sessions included Christopher Bell, Denny Hamlin, and Tyler Reddick. Hamlin was not far off the leaders’ times and continues to show improvement with his road course performance in the latter stages of his career. Meanwhile Bell has clearly emerged as one of the upcoming road course talents. Bell had a really strong run going last week before he was spun by Kyle Larson in the latter stages of the races. Bell has shown top 5 speed at several of these events and still has that win at Daytona on his resume as well. Lastly, Tyler Reddick caught my eye as just one of those drivers that was very consistent lap over lap.

For the drivers that did not exactly show spectacular results, Brad Keselowski, Kyle Busch, and Chase Elliott all showed average speed among the popular names. Again, these observations should be given minimal consideration at face value. Elliott also looked average at best at Road America before storming through the field during the 2nd half of the race to get the victory. Elliott also was a late replacement for Michael Annett in Saturday’s Pennzoil 150 and showed similar results of coming on strong during the latter stages to capture a 4th place result. Having that experience will definitely improve Elliott’s chances going into Sunday.

Betting Targets

Despite the lackluster practice, I still believe Chase Elliott will be the driver to beat on Sunday and would not be surprised if Larson is right in the thick of things again as well. From a betting standpoint, we are getting some excellent betting odds on the drivers behind Larson-Elliott this week. Guys like Martin Truex, Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch, Christopher Bell, and Joey Logano are getting extremely favorable odds in hopes for an upset opportunity. In today’s Pennzoil 150, it appeared the Kaulig Racing cars’ of AJ Allmendinger and Justin Haley had the field covered easily. However, the Kaulig Racing cars also got behind on pit strategy during the final stage and were never able to recover despite both drivers capturing top 5 finishes. I believe current odds give us the opportunity to hope for another strategy style shakeup and potentially sprinkle some bets across the guys with strong value.

Personally, I can’t believe Logano is listed at near 40-1 odds. Logano has posted 3 top 5 finishes on the road courses this year which simply screams value from an odds standpoint. My favorite betting targets in all formats revolve around the likes of Denny Hamlin, Christopher Bell, and Chase Briscoe. I spent a great deal of time last week talking about Briscoe’s underrated road course talent. Briscoe ran most of last week’s race inside the Top 5 and had a lot of “broadcast” time in the spotlight. I feel like the secret may be out on Briscoe but odds-makers are still leaving opportunistic pairings on the board for the #14 car. Speaking of the secret it out, Christopher Bell has been great this year on the road courses and is quickly becoming a dark horse at every road course event. Before last week’s tangle with Kyle Larson, Bell was a top 3 car throughout the majority of the event and still rallied back to a 7th place finish following the spin. I’m not sure if Bell will offer the same value this week but he remains on the “targets” list.

Drivers to Fade

I am not looking to fade too many drivers specifically this week. I think we must keep things relatively conservative at a new venue and focus heavier on targets opposed to fades. With that being said, I believe Brad Keselowski has become an automatic road course fade until proven otherwise. I have been severely unimpressed with Keselowski’s performance this season. Keselowski has never been the greatest road course talent but I think the team’s performance is exposing those weaknesses now more than ever. Since Keselowski continues to be paired against 2nd-tier drivers in the form of match-ups, I feel like we can continue to fade the #2 car with confidence. Among other automatic fades include guys like Ryan Newman and Kevin Harvick that I mentioned in the loop data above.

Draftkings 2021 Verizon 200 Optimal Lineup

2021 Verizon 200 Betting Picks

*Final*

Martin Truex Jr +750 (1 unit)
Denny Hamlin +1500 (.5 unit)
Christopher Bell +1950 (.5 unit)
Austin Cindric +2750 (.5 unit)
Joey Logano +3700 (.5 unit)

H2H Match-Ups and Props

Chase Elliott -145 over Kyle Larson (2 units)
Joey Logano +400 finishes Top 5 (.5 unit)
Chase Briscoe +125 finishes Top 10 (2 units)