2022 South Point 400 Race Picks

NASCAR Cup Series Betting Predictions
Date/Time: Sunday October 16th, 2022. 2:30PM (EST)
Where: Las Vegas Motor Speedway
TV: NBC

Last week an untimely caution completely disrupted the Cup Series’ playoffs landscape. Christopher Bell was able to rally from behind, in a must-win scenario, to capture a victory on fresh tires. Meanwhile, one of the biggest favorites and defending series champion Kyle Larson was eliminated in a bizarre final few laps. On Sunday, NASCAR’s wild playoffs continue with the start of the Round of 8 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the running of the South Point 400. With just 3 races remaining before Phoenix, the next 3 races will decide the drivers that will get the opportunity to race for a championship in the season finale.

This Sunday’s South Point 400 will be the 2nd stop of the season for the Cup Series in Sin City. Back in March, Alex Bowman captured his only victory of the season by winning the Pennzoil 400. Unfortunately, Bowman will not be able to defend his spring victory at Las Vegas as the driver of the #48 remains sidelined with a concussion. As a result, Noah Gragson will continue to pilot the #48 car in a relief role for Hendrick Motorsports. Additionally, I’m not sure the spring race at Las Vegas will be worth discussing in relation to Sunday’s South Point 400. Back in the spring race, it was the Cup Series’ first race of the season at a 1.5 mile oval. Needless to say, teams and drivers have made a ton of changes since the last trip to Vegas back in March.

1.5 Mile Loop Data

Fortunately, there have been a couple of recent races at Kansas and Texas in recent weeks that can utilize to set expectations for this week. Personally, I have been keeping track of loop data at the 1.5 mile tracks for the entire season. However, for this week’s data set I actually removed the Las Vegas race which was run back in the spring. In many ways, that was an experimental race and I wanted our loop data to provide better bias towards recent performances. As a result, the data set below is all of the 1.5 mile venues with the exception of the spring race at Vegas.

As you can see below, Tyler Reddick owns the top spot in our loop data ranking for the best average driver rating at the 1.5 mile venues which is somewhat fitting considering Reddick won the most recent race at a 1.5 mile venue at Texas. Ross Chastain, Kyle Larson, and Denny Hamlin are the only other drivers listed in that elite category of triple digit ratings. Perhaps the more surprising facts from the analytics below involve the underwhelming performance results from the likes of Chase Elliott, Kyle Busch, and Kevin Harvick. While our loop data does not guarantee a continuance of these trends, they are important to delineate the way teams and drivers have performed at similar layouts throughout the year.

Driver	Avg. Rating	Avg. Start	Avg. Mid Race	Avg. Finish	Avg. Pos.	Pass Diff.	Fastest Lap	Laps Led	Total Laps
Tyler Reddick	108.5	3.8	24.3	18.0	15.5	-44	91	151	1077
Ross Chastain	103.2	12.5	10.0	10.5	7.3	49	77	158	1281
Kyle Larson	101.8	13.8	11.5	7.0	9.3	130	72	99	1281
Denny Hamlin	100.5	13.0	13.3	4.3	10.5	139	32	17	1281
Christopher Bell	94.0	7.5	16.3	11.8	12.5	61	64	49	1083
William Byron	92.5	7.5	17.3	15.3	12.3	1	46	77	1059
Alex Bowman	89.7	9.3	16.8	13.0	13.8	-20	50	107	1276
Ryan Blaney	89.4	13.0	11.8	13.5	12.0	45	30	34	1063
Chase Elliott	88.8	13.8	9.8	26.3	16.0	46	41	140	903
Martin Truex Jr	88.8	12.5	7.5	13.5	12.3	161	45	39	1214
Joey Logano	88.3	15.3	8.5	14.0	10.8	27	17	26	1272
Daniel Suarez	80.7	14.0	17.8	20.0	16.0	45	73	45	1203
Bubba Wallace	80.0	14.0	16.3	16.0	15.8	83	38	59	1068
Kyle Busch	78.0	12.0	15.8	16.8	17.5	65	59	54	993
Chase Briscoe	73.0	17.5	15.5	11.5	17.0	-20	22	2	1280
Michael McDowell	71.6	15.8	17.8	14.5	15.8	-14	4	13	1281
Ricky Stenhouse Jr	70.8	30.3	19.8	18.0	17.0	77	23	26	1275
Austin Cindric	70.8	7.3	17.3	18.0	16.8	7	10	0	1013
Austin Dillon	69.1	13.8	18.3	16.5	15.8	-144	3	6	1273
Erik Jones	66.9	24.5	17.5	20.3	18.5	18	15	1	1272
Brad Keselowski	64.2	23.0	17.0	19.3	20.0	31	22	31	1060
Chris Buescher	63.0	19.3	18.5	24.5	19.8	0	14	0	1148
Kevin Harvick	62.1	19.5	22.0	18.3	21.0	36	0	9	1047
Justin Haley	55.4	23.3	22.5	21.0	22.8	2	5	0	1007
Ty Dillon	55.1	24.5	17.3	17.3	21.5	-127	1	0	1280
Noah Gragson	53.1	27.3	15.0	20.3	21.5	-16	1	0	1253
Harrison Burton	52.2	20.3	22.8	20.5	22.8	-117	3	15	1129
Aric Almirola	51.8	23.0	22.0	22.0	21.3	17	6	3	1278
Cole Custer	50.5	22.5	18.8	25.0	22.0	-79	3	0	1015
Ty Gibbs	45.6	16.0	29.0	27.0	25.5	-66	0	0	424
Todd Gilliland	44.3	30.3	22.5	23.0	24.3	-139	2	1	1278
Corey LaJoie	39.6	26.3	30.5	25.3	27.5	-54	2	0	775
Cody Ware	33.5	32.0	28.3	28.0	30.3	-86	0	0	1098
B.J. McLeod	32.2	32.8	30.5	28.0	31.3	-21	0	1	1034

Practice Observations

Earlier today, teams and drivers participated in both practice and qualifying sessions in preparation for tomorrow’s 400 mile event. At the end of qualifying, Tyler Reddick continued his late season emergence by grabbing the Busch Pole with a lap of 184.603mph. Surprisingly Reddick was followed by the likes of Austin Cindric, William Byron, Ryan Blaney, and Joey Logano which means all 3 cars from Team Penske qualified in the top positions. Considering the struggles all of the Ford teams have experienced at the 1.5 mile venues, it was relatively surprising to see the entire Team Penske brigade qualify so well.

In practice, I thought we witnessed the first glimpse of the Team Penske speed. All of the Penske cars looked solid but Ryan Blaney was exceptionally fast. Blaney led every race speed category in the 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 lap categories. To say Blaney was simply the fastest driver probably does not accurately depict how fast the #12 was in practice. In reality, Blaney had the field covered by a couple of tenths every lap and if they are able to replicate that speed on Sunday; Blaney could finally end his winless drought. Other drivers that also stood out, aside from the Team Penske cars, on the stopwatch included the likes of Ross Chastain, William Byron, and Erik Jones. I would also throw shout outs to the bottom-tier likes of Harrison Burton and Noah Gragson who also flashed some speed in practice and perhaps both drivers could provide potential in fantasy racing formats.

Handicapping Notes

Historically, Las Vegas Motor Speedway has been one of the better 1.5 mile venues on the schedule. Drivers can utilize multiple lanes and it usually leads to good racing. For Sunday’s South Point 400, I have reserved expectations mainly because we have seen 0 tire wear in this Next Gen Car at similar venues. As a result, I fear this may be a follow the leader style event which we have become accustomed to in recent weeks. In those scenarios, we have also seen late race restarts completely derail the track position game and that scenario is not out of the equation for Sunday’s South Point 400. Needless to say, I think we should have some variance in our bets this week and perhaps avoid any single big wagers that could be destroyed by a late race restart. The plan will be to make enough quality bets to cover the variance and hopefully pull out another profitable card!

Betting Targets

While I understand practice observations typically go awry, I cannot avoid the speed that Ryan Blaney flexed in Saturday’s practice along with the rest of the Team Penske camp. If you look back to the race at Texas just a couple of weeks ago, both Logano (2nd) and Blaney (4th) finished in the top 4 positions and ran towards the front of the field throughout the afternoon. While it may be too soon to definitively conclude this opinion, it definitely appears the Team Penske cars have found speed and therefore I have the likes of Logano/Blaney high on my targets list this week.

Personally, I have been rooting for Tyler Reddick ever since dubbing him as my breakout driver of the year prior to the start of the season. However, Reddick’s betting odds are starting to get pretty ugly on a weekly basis and I’m afraid today’s pole has erased the mere hope of any value. Therefore, I’m not backing Reddick simply because of current betting odds. However, I do think guys like Ross Chastain and William Byron provide some pivots against the top guys as serviceable intermediate style options. Chastain ranks 2nd in our loop data on the 1.5 mile venues and Byron has shown terrific speed in the last few weeks (led 42 laps at Texas). Therefore, both drivers should be pivot options for win (futures) bets and also perhaps can provide some value in H2H match-ups as well.

For deeper dark horse options, I don’t have many high confidence drivers though I’m sure a few will emerge at the front of the field. Surprising front-runners have become common with the Next Gen Car but predicting who those drivers will be has been extremely difficult. I do believe Noah Gragson has done a great job in his two starts with the #48 team despite being completely different styles of racing (Talladega/ROVAL). Gragson is one of those drivers that can run the wall really well and that may be the fast line towards the end of Sunday’s race. As a bottom-tier driver, Gragson provides some solid value in H2H/prop formats. Additionally, I would not look past the likes of Michael McDowell and Austin Cindric for similar low floor/high ceiling possibilities.

Draftkings South Point 400 Optimal Lineup

2022 Alsco Uniforms 302 Race Picks

*Final*

Ryan Blaney +750 (1 unit)
Joey Logano +1000 (1 unit)
William Byron +1200 (.75 unit)
Austin Cindric +2200 (.5 unit)
Chase Briscoe +4000 (.25 unit)

H2H Match-ups and Props

Noah Gragson -145 over Ty Gibbs (3 units)
Joey Logano -110 over Chase Elliott (3 units)
Michael McDowell +140 over Harrison Burton (2 units)
Ty Gibbs +3300 is highest finishing Toyota driver (.5 unit)
Erik Jones +600 finishes Top 5 (1 unit)
Michael McDowell +650 finishes Top 10 (1 unit)