2022 Hollywood Casino 400 Race Picks

NASCAR Cup Series Betting Predictions
Date/Time: Sunday September 11th, 2022. 3:00PM (EST)
Where: Kansas Speedway
TV: USA

Last week, Erik Jones stole the spotlight from the playoff contenders with a huge victory at Darlington in the Cookout Southern 500. As a result of Jones’ victory combined with several playoff contenders having trouble, the playoff standings were shaken to its core. Simply put, nobody is safe in the Round of 16 with just two races remaining before 4 drivers are eliminated from championship contention. On Sunday, the playoff drama heats up as the Cup Series returns to Kansas Speedway for the 2nd time this season with the running of the Hollywood Casino 400.

Back in May, Kurt Busch led 116 of 267 laps en route to his only victory of the season at Kansas Speedway in the Advent Health 400. As many are aware, Busch has been sidelined since his wreck at Pocono so we have a rare instance this weekend where the defending race winner will not be competing. While Ty Gibbs will continue to replace Busch this weekend, I would point back to the race at Kansas to highlight the fact that the JGR/23XI alliance captured 5 of the top 6 positions in that event. The Toyotas have been really strong on the intermediate layouts and this was the case as recently as last week at Darlington despite the mechanical woes. As a result, the Toyota teams/drivers are definitely part of my betting focus as Sunday approaches.

However, Saturday’s on-track activities did provide some diversity at the top of the speed charts. Both Tyler Reddick and Ross Chastain (Chevrolet) paced the field with the fastest laps in practice. Reddick backed up the fastest lap in practice by capturing the pole with a fast lap of 180.608mph for his 2nd pole of the season. Reddick has been one of my dark horses for the championship essentially all season and it appears that the #8 team is peaking at the right time. However, we know a lot can happen over the course of 400 miles or even from a week to week basis in this championship battle. For now, we put our focus simply on Kansas and try to identify the optimal betting targets for Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400.

Cup Series Loop Data

If you have missed my prior previews this week for the Truck and Xfinity Series races, I have mentioned that we are entering the homestretch of the season. From a handicapping perspective, this is the time of the season where we can rely heavier on in-season performance trends. While the Next Gen Car is still somewhat of an enigma, we have essentially races on all types of layouts this season. For the Cup Series specifically, we have already witnessed one race at Kansas Speedway and have two other races at true 1.5 mile intermediate venues that include Las Vegas and Charlotte. As a result, I have compiled loop data from those 3 races to give us a snapshot of how teams have performed at the 1.5 mile intermediate venues.

As you will see in the data below, we do see an obvious trend from the Joe Gibbs Racing brigade that owns 4 of the top 7 average ratings. However, Ross Chastain actually owns the top average rating (118.1) by a pretty decent margin. To be honest, Chastain was not one of the drivers that stood out to me as being impressive at the intermediate layouts this season but the stats prove otherwise. Therefore, Chastain’s loop data is worthy of him remaining on betting radar’s this week and I would extend that notion to other drivers like Christopher Bell and Alex Bowman who have also performed surprisingly well at similar races.

Driver	Avg. Rating	Avg. Start	Avg. Mid Race	Avg. Finish	Avg. Pos.	Pass Diff.	Fastest Lap	Laps Led	Total Laps
Ross Chastain	118.1	17.0	9.7	8.3	5.0	37	97	240	954
Kyle Busch	109.0	15.7	6.7	3.0	9.3	54	80	103	954
Kyle Larson	106.2	13.7	11.7	4.3	8.3	130	54	107	954
Denny Hamlin	103.3	9.0	15.7	12.3	10.0	75	32	46	899
Christopher Bell	100.0	1.7	9.3	6.7	11.3	51	56	69	954
Tyler Reddick	98.3	5.7	16.3	14.3	13.3	6	38	43	950
Martin Truex Jr	95.3	11.7	5.7	8.7	10.0	83	42	1	954
Alex Bowman	95.0	10.0	14.7	6.7	10.7	1	36	16	954
William Byron	87.4	10.7	23.0	17.7	13.7	8	31	34	732
Chase Elliott	86.8	10.7	13.0	23.7	14.3	34	29	96	726
Joey Logano	79.7	21.0	9.0	17.0	12.3	15	7	9	946
Ryan Blaney	78.9	10.7	24.0	25.7	17.3	-5	14	13	566
Ricky Stenhouse Jr	78.0	24.7	14.3	12.0	13.7	51	5	7	954
Kevin Harvick	75.2	22.0	15.3	10.0	15.7	22	2	0	954
Bubba Wallace	68.8	16.0	19.3	21.0	17.3	70	11	1	740
Chase Briscoe	68.4	10.3	22.0	21.0	18.7	-2	20	2	814
Austin Dillon	66.4	15.7	19.0	15.3	18.0	-151	2	0	946
Erik Jones	65.9	23.3	24.0	25.7	18.7	63	4	0	938
Daniel Suarez	65.2	17.3	25.3	31.7	23.0	62	52	36	694
Austin Cindric	64.7	4.3	26.0	21.3	19.7	-19	3	0	686
Aric Almirola	63.0	17.0	20.7	16.3	19.0	-42	0	0	952
Chris Buescher	59.2	27.0	20.0	23.7	20.7	20	7	0	885
Michael McDowell	58.6	19.0	19.0	19.3	19.0	-5	0	4	953
Harrison Burton	54.9	20.7	16.0	16.0	22.0	-74	0	0	954
Brad Keselowski	54.8	26.7	24.0	22.7	23.3	-10	2	3	733
Cole Custer	52.4	20.3	12.7	25.3	21.0	-88	1	0	843
Ty Dillon	52.1	25.7	18.0	17.7	22.7	-128	0	1	954
Todd Gilliland	48.0	30.3	18.7	21.3	23.7	-53	0	0	953
Justin Haley	47.1	21.0	27.3	26.3	26.0	-3	2	0	681
Corey LaJoie	44.7	28.7	29.0	23.0	26.7	-26	2	0	601
Cody Ware	37.3	31.7	26.7	26.0	29.7	-78	0	0	940
B.J. McLeod	32.9	32.7	30.7	27.7	32.0	-18	0	0	711
Josh Bilicki	30.4	33.0	23.7	31.0	31.7	-44	0	0	567

Practice Observations

In Saturday’s practice, I thought Tyler Reddick stole the show. That observation may be somewhat obvious due to the fact Reddick posted the fastest lap and even won the pole award in qualifying. However, Reddick also led every category that judges race speed in the form of 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 lap consecutive averages. Needless to say, Reddick is the guy to beat going into Sunday as it currently stands. What others may not have noticed is that Kyle Larson was 2nd in nearly every category behind Reddick. Larson is the defending winner of Hollywood Casino 400 and won at Las Vegas which was the first race at a 1.5 mile track this season. Therefore unlike most practices, I believe we have a clear 1-2 threat this week among the favorites.

Obviously, the Toyota teams are probably going to get into the mix at some point. Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin appear to be the drivers to beat on a weekly basis. However, bettors may be somewhat surprised again to find out that the top Toyota in practice came from rookie Ty Gibbs. Gibbs had some really solid lap times in all of the major categories and while I have expected more from the talented rookie in some of his prior starts this year; he is getting better with each race. Among other notable mentions includes solid practices from Alex Bowman and Martin Truex. Meanwhile, guys that were on the underwhelming side of practice observations included Chase Elliott, William Byron, and Erik Jones.

Betting Targets

As I alluded to above, I do think that Tyler Reddick is the driver to beat going into Sunday and Kyle Larson is likely in that discussion as well. However, bettors should keep in mind that things often change from Saturday to Sunday in terms of car/driver strength or simply once the racing begins. I fully expect the Toyotas to find their way into the mix on Sunday which means guys like Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin have some excellent pivot value based on current betting odds. Joey Logano, Christopher Bell, and Martin Truex are all ahead of the Hamlin/Busch combination in betting odds, which is absurd but likely simply because odds makers have overreacted to qualifying results.

Based on current betting odds, Ty Gibbs and Austin Dillon are the drivers that appear to be way better than current odds suggest. In fact, Gibbs is being completely disrespected when you think of how fast the Toyotas have been and how Gibbs has been improving on a weekly basis. Meanwhile, Austin Dillon seems to be in familiar territory where he has not looked great this week in terms of practice/qualifying and oddsmakers have basically written him off. However, Dillon has been really good all year and optimizing his finishing position which is all you need from Dillon for match-up purposes. Other drivers that also deserve H2H consideration based on various reasons include Alex Bowman, Denny Hamlin, and Ty Dillon.

Draftkings Hollywood Casino 400 Optimal Lineup

2022 Hollywood Casino 400 Race Picks

*Final*

Tyler Reddick +600 (1 unit)
Kyle Larson +800 (1 unit)
Denny Hamlin +1000 (.75 unit)
Ryan Blaney +2000 (.5 unit)

H2H Match-ups and Props

Ty Gibbs -105 over Daniel Suarez (3 units)
Ryan Blaney -110 over Kevin Harvick (3 units)
Tyler Reddick -115 over Christopher Bell (2 units)
Corey LaJoie leads a lap +850 (.5 unit)
Michael McDowell leads a lap +850 (.5 unit)