2022 Blu-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 200 Race Picks

NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Betting Predictions
Date/Time: Thursday April 7th, 2022. 8:00PM (EST)
Where: Martinsville Speedway
TV: FS1

The Camping World Truck Series will return to action this week when they kick off the racing weekend on Thursday with the running of the Blu-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 200 at Martinsville Speedway. Unlike Xfinity and Cup Series teams, the Truck Series had the previous week off and will get the opportunity to take center stage for two of the bigger races of the season this week at Martinsville and next week at the Bristol dirt race. For Thursday’s main event, we will take a look at those drivers that deserve betting attention including none other than Kyle Busch who will be making his 3rd start of the year!

So far this season, Rowdy is 0 for 2 in Truck Series starts with finishes of 2nd at Las Vegas and 3rd most recently at Circuit of the Americas. To be fair, Busch relatively dominated the XPEL 225 at COTA leading 31 of 46 laps before getting taken out from a dive bomb from Alex Bowman and Stewart Friesen. As a result, Busch is still searching for his 1st victory of the season. While it would appear that Busch would be the undeniable betting favorite yet again, I believe bettors can likely chase value in fading Busch for the 3rd time this season. Busch has won just 2 of his 10 starts at Martinsville in his Truck Series career making the ½ mile paperclip his 2nd lowest winning percentage venue among tracks with at least 5 starts, behind only Michigan. Therefore, perhaps this is another opportunity to look at drivers with the better “value” for Thursday’s Blu-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 200.

Handicapping Strategy

For transparency, Martinsville has always been a tricky handicapping venue for Truck Series’ races. The half-mile paperclip is unlike any other track on the schedule. The unique skill set that is needed to get around Martinsville successfully can be difficult to identify in the Truck Series’ where the majority of drivers have limited experience. Since the pandemic, the Camping World Truck Series has only visited Martinsville once each year which makes this style of racing even rarer. In those two races, we witnessed the likes of Grant Enfinger and Zane Smith pull out surprising victories. In both races, Enfinger and Smith were given minimal betting attention in the lead up to those events. If that trend continues, could we see another surprise winner? It’s not out of the question especially considering how important track position can play into the equation in the final laps. As a result, we should have a disciplined betting approach so that we are not overextended on specific betting options.

Betting Targets

Everyone expects that Kyle Busch will redeem himself this week and there is a good chance that happens. However, the driver that I am most excited about is last year’s winner Zane Smith. Smith has been incredible at Martinsville in a relatively short period with finishes of 3rd and 1st in his only two Truck Series starts at the paperclip. In fact, if you look at all of the flatter venues like Phoenix, Nashville, and Richmond are tracks where Smith has performed very well. For Thursday’s Blu-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 200, Smith will have the luxury of jumping into the #38 truck with Front Row Motorsports which dominated last year’s race with Todd Gilliland before some late race troubles. Smith has already secured two victories in the first 4 events and this will be another excellent opportunity for the #38 team!

Since Martinsville is one of those places that favors experience and/or a stylistic skill set, guys like Ben Rhodes, Grant Enfinger, and Parker Kligerman are the guys that I have on my radar for H2H match-up purposes. All 3 drivers excel on the flatter surfaces and have a ton of experience at Martinsville Speedway. As a result, I believe all 3 drivers provide excellent betting value as opposed to guys like Kyle Busch, John Hunter Nemechek, and William Byron who are among other heavy favorites that do not always perform well enough at this style of racing to deserve their current betting odds. In fact, I would label Nemechek and Byron fade candidates based on prior performance at Martinsville (Nemechek) and based on equipment this week with Spire Motorsports (Byron).

Important Note: Practice

Truck Series teams and drivers will have 30 minutes of practice time before qualifying which takes place at 3:30PM (EST) on Thursday. Since practice and qualifying is relatively late in the afternoon, betting odds will likely only be live for a narrow window shortly before race time. For that reason, I am going ahead and locking-in the majority of my plays. However, I will update the page to make note of practice observations and provide our optimal fantasy lineup shortly after qualifying is complete.

Update: Practice and qualifying has been cancelled for tonight’s race due to rain. Therefore, our noted handicapping observations above remain unchanged.

Draftkings Blu-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 200 Optimal Lineup

2022 Blu-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 200 Race Picks

*Final*

Zane Smith +1000 (1 unit)
Ben Rhodes +1600 (.5 unit)
Christian Eckes +3000 (.5 unit)

H2H Match-ups and Props

Zane Smith +125 over William Byron (3 units)
Parker Kligerman +900 finishes Top 5 (.5 unit)