2023 Food City Dirt Race Picks

NASCAR Cup Series Betting Predictions
Date/Time: Sunday April 9th, 2023. 7:00PM (EST)
Where: Bristol Motor Speedway (DIRT)
TV: FOX

NASCAR’s Cup Series will return to Bristol Motor Speedway this weekend for their annual dirt extravaganza with the running of the Food City Dirt Race. This weekend’s event will mark the 3rd consecutive year that Bristol’s ½ mile bull-ring has been covered with dirt in an intriguing return to roots style of racing. While the success of the dirt race is debatable among fans, it remains one of the most interesting races on the entire schedule. As this weekend’s dirt festivities approach, let’s discuss everything bettors should know before the green flag waves in the Food City Dirt Race!

For starters, Cup Series’ teams and drivers were originally scheduled to have practice Friday evening. However, Mother Nature had different plans and practice was officially canceled due to rain. As a result, drivers will enter Saturday’s heat races without any preparation which is not ideal by considering the anomalies this race already produces. Needless to say, bettors will not have the privilege of having any on-track insight prior to Saturday’s heat races. Fortunately, the Food City Dirt Race main event will not take place until Sunday night which will give bettors a chance to evaluate Saturday’s qualifying races before finalizing betting lineups on Sunday.

While many bettors may wait until Saturday’s qualifying races conclude, I believe we should go ahead and consider betting options early. In each of the last two dirt races at Bristol, the eventual winners (Joey Logano and Kyle Busch) have started inside the top 10 spots. Due to the fact that pit stops are non-competitive and the Next Gen Cars are extremely equal to one another, we have seen track position be very important in this unique event. As a result, I’m assuming most of the ideal betting options will lose betting value following Saturday’s qualifying races if we expect the top guys will likely have strong performances in the heat races. Therefore, I think the time to consider betting options is now and perhaps we can finalize H2H/prop style bets after evaluating on-track activities on Saturday.

Cup Series – Dirt Notes

• Cup Series teams will utilize radial bias ply tires which were used last season. This type of tire provides a consistent feel but is a relatively hard compound that does not produce a lot of tire wear meaning track position will be more important than any strategy narratives.
• There have been at least 10 cautions in both of the prior dirt races at Bristol. Last year’s Food City dirt race produced a high of 14 cautions.
• Joey Logano and Kyle Busch are the former winners of the Food City Dirt Race. Logano won the inaugural event that was plagued by visibility issues. Meanwhile, Busch was gifted a win after Tyler Reddick and Chase Briscoe wrecked on the final lap last year while battling for the lead.
• Martin Truex Jr has led the most laps (126) at the Bristol dirt race. All of Truex’s laps led was a product of the 2021 race.
• Joey Logano is the only driver to finish in the top 5 in both events. Logano won the 2021 race and backed up that effort with a 3rd place finish in 2022.
• Joey Logano, Kyle Busch, and Tyler Reddick are the only drivers to average 100+ driver rating in both dirt races at Bristol
• Tyler Reddick led a race-high 99 laps in last year’s Food City Dirt Race
• Ryan Blaney has posted finishes of 5th and 8th in his two dirt races at Bristol
• Daniel Suarez has posted finishes of 4th and 12th in his two dirt races at Bristol while leading 122 laps (the most of any track in his career).

Handicapping Strategy

From a betting standpoint, I am going to be very conservative this week because these dirt races have been difficult to predict. As I mentioned in the Truck Series preview, the idea that drivers need dirt “experience” to win this race is a pure myth. We have seen drivers excel on the dirt surface without any relative experience and we have seen the prestigious dirt guys like Kyle Larson and Christopher Bell have underwhelming results at times. Instead, I think we just have to give credit to those guys that have great car control and can really “wheel” their way around Bristol’s dirt surface. If we can match-up those desired traits with valuable betting odds, we can take some low-risk/high-reward chances at futures. However, I expect H2H match-ups to have the most sharp value going into Sunday and that is likely where the majority of our risks for this week’s race will be exposed.

Additionally, I think this is a rare week where bettors can take advantage of “drawing positions” for the qualifying races. The starting lineup for the qualifying races are based upon a random draw that occurred early Saturday. As I mentioned above, track position and simply getting through the qualifying races will be important for drivers’ chances to put themselves in a good position to start Sunday’s Food City Dirt Race. The starting lineup will be based upon a combination of finishing positions in the heat races combined with place differential from where drivers started in their heat races. Therefore if we are truly taking advantage of our handicapping insight, we must consider the starting positions of the qualifying races to determine drivers that have a high likelihood of escaping the qualifying races with optimal results.

Betting Targets

If you look at the random drawing positions map shown above, Kyle Larson and Daniel Suarez are a few of the drivers that I believe hit the jackpot. Larson will start towards the rear of qualifying race #3 in a rather weak qualifying race which gives him the possibility to score big on the place-differential points that will help set the main event starting lineup. Daniel Suarez appears to have a high chance to emerge at the front of qualifying race #4. Meanwhile, Christopher Bell and Tyler Reddick will start towards the back of qualifying race #1 which means they could rack-up place differential points. However, I believe qualifying race #1 is pretty stacked with Stenhouse, Bowman, and Austin Dillon who are decent talents at this type of racing. Therefore to keep things simple and avoid trying to “predict” the qualifying races, I am just going to stay with the simple narrative that Larson and Suarez clearly have the best draws.

Oddly enough Suarez was among the drivers that I was targeting this week because he has been outstanding on the dirt in both prior Bristol races. Based on the added component of the pleasant draw, I believe bettors can pull the trigger on Suarez in all formats. The more difficult challenge is trying to predict who will emerge from the “favorites” category and give us the best chance for the win. I am a huge fan of Larson and his success on dirt away from NASCAR. I’m just not sure he can dominate this race to justify his current betting odds and I would apply a similar narrative to Christopher Bell. Chase Briscoe and Tyler Reddick are obvious pivots that remain in the “favorites” category who both nearly won last year’s event. I was most impressed with Briscoe’s drive last year. Briscoe rallied from a flat tire to nearly win the race and was probably the fastest guy throughout the entire event. If I had to choose a guy from the favorites out of the gate, Briscoe is my guy!

For what it is worth, I definitely believe Joey Logano deserves consideration. Logano is getting relatively generous 12-1 odds and has arguably been the most consistent frontrunner through both prior dirt races. Other drivers that I believe should easily outrun their current projections include guys like Ross Chastain, Ryan Preece, and Ty Dillon. Chastain actually challenged teammate Daniel Suarez during a large section of last year’s race and for some reason is getting completely disrespected with current betting odds. Meanwhile, Preece and Dillon are bottom-tier drivers that could provide some consideration in H2H or prop bet formats. Preece has the driving ability to surprise people at the dirt surface and Dillon has been very solid in prior dirt races. The concern for the younger Dillon will be his equipment holding up and giving him the chance to compete. Still, both drivers have much higher ceilings than odds suggest.

Saturday Recap – Final Thoughts

The qualifying races at Bristol just concluded a few moments ago. At the end of 4 different heat races, Kyle Larson earned the pole for Sunday’s Food City Dirt Race which is something that I nearly expected from the draws of the qualifying races. Luckily, we get Larson early and got the best betting value. However, it appears I also made some bad picks with the TrackHouse Racing brigade unless something changes. Both Ross Chastain and Daniel Suarez had relatively awful performances and I can only guess it had something to do with the setups both cars were using this week. Suarez has been one of the best drivers at Bristol over the last two years and went straight to the tail-end of a qualifying race he could have easily won based on talent alone. Therefore, it will be interesting to see if the TrackHouse Racing cars can find any success in overnight changes.

From a holistic standpoint, we saw speed from a lot of the usual suspects in Larson, Tyler Reddick, Kyle Busch, and Chase Briscoe. I would also give notable mentions to Ryan Blaney and Bubba Wallace who were both able to go wire to wire in their qualifying races winning each one from the pole. Now, I think that has to do more with track position than the speed either driver shown. However, both drivers still got the job done as well. Perhaps the driver that I was most impressed with was Ryan Preece. I mentioned Preece as a guy that should outrun expectations prior to the qualifying races but he honestly had some of the fastest lap times of the entire afternoon. Preece run down Kyle Larson and nearly got by him in heat race #3 but simply ran out of time. From what I have seen, Preece deserves immediate consideration in all formats. Meanwhile, Austin Cindric, Todd Gilliland, and JJ Yeley were some additional names that exceeded expectations and could be potential H2H targets in the right match-ups.

2023 Food City Dirt Race Picks

*Final*

Kyle Larson +550 (1.25 units)
Chase Briscoe +800 (1 unit)
Daniel Suarez +2000 (.75 unit)
Ross Chastain +2500 (.5 unit)
Ryan Preece +2800 (.5 unit)

H2H Match-ups and Props

Ryan Preece -115 over Justin Haley (3 units)
Bubba Wallace -145 over Josh Berry (2 units)
Ross Chastain -105 over Ricky Stenhouse Jr (2 units)
Daniel Suarez +300 wins Group G (Stenhouse, Bowman, Truex)(1 unit)
Ryan Preece +850 finishes Top 3 (.5 unit)
Austin Cindric +900 finishes Top 5 (.5 unit)
Harrison Burton +800 finishes Top 10 (.5 unit)