2023 Heart of America 200 Race Picks

Craftsman Truck Series Betting Predictions
Date/Time: Saturday May 6th, 2023. 8:00PM (EST)
Where: Kansas Speedway
TV: FS1

While the Xfinity Series enjoys a rare off week, NASCAR’s Craftsman Truck Series will take center stage late Saturday evening with the running of the Heart of America 200 at Kansas Speedway. Interestingly, the Truck Series has only competed once in the past month which resulted in Corey Heim’s victory at Martinsville. On Saturday, Truck Series’ competitors will face tough company as both Ross Chastain and Kyle Busch step down from the Cup Series in search of a Kansas Speedway trophy. So far this season, Busch has finished 1st (Las Vegas), 2nd (COTA), and 2nd (Martinsville) in his 3 starts and will be a big favorite yet again as he seeks his 64th series victory.

While Busch’s presence should be noted for both fans and bettors, I think the bigger focus is the Truck Series’ return to a 1.5 mile speedway for the 3rd time this season. Busch won the first race on a 1.5 mile layout earlier this year at Las Vegas while Carson Hocevar scored his first career victory at Texas back in early April. For NASCAR betting, the 1.5 mile speedways usually draw important focus because there are numerous races on the intermediate layouts and success is usually correlated with performance trends. For the Truck Series, this week’s race at Kansas will be followed by other intermediate layouts like Darlington and Charlotte over the next few weeks. Therefore, it is important that we identify the teams/drivers that are bringing speed to these layouts as our betting targets are likely to be similar over the next few races.

Obviously, Busch’s return will be faced with heavily favored betting odds especially considering how he dominated at Las Vegas earlier this year which is a similar 1.5 mile layout. While I typically like to fade Busch to pursue more valuable betting odds, I must admit that racing at Kansas Speedway heavily favors Rowdy. For the Truck Series, drivers can nearly stay in the throttle full speed lap after lap. The drivers with the better truck control and those drivers that can keep the same speed when the grip starts wearing are going to beat the vast majority of the competition. As a result, this is seemingly an ideal track for Busch’s talent and he has capitalized on victories in 3 of his last 4 starts in the Truck Series at Kansas. Therefore, we must consider Busch as a betting option this week regardless of betting odds but simply based on winning probability alone.

Kansas – Truck Series Notes

• Kyle Busch and Matt Crafton are tied for the most wins (3) all-time at Kansas Speedway
• Ross Chastain (2019) and Zane Smith (2022) are the only other former winners in the field competing on Saturday.
• Zane Smith and Grant Enfinger finished in the top 5 in both CTS races at Kansas last year.
• Christian Eckes has produced a 100.6 average driver rating through 6 career starts at Kansas which has also produced top 6 finishes in 4 of his last 5 starts.
• In 3 career starts at Kansas with Niece Motorsports, Ross Chastain has finished 1st, 2nd, and 34th. The latter was the result of mechanical failure.
• Ben Rhodes has finished 10th or worse in each of his last 4 starts at Kansas
• On average, Kansas has produced 5.0 cautions over the last 8 races.

Betting Outlook

For Saturday’s Heart of America 200, Truck Series’ teams and drivers will practice and qualify early Saturday. At that time, I will update everyone on practice observations and final thoughts to see if anything from on-track activities deviates my betting outlook. For now, I am going to focus on the handicapping formula that works best at the intermediate layouts which is a combination of driver talent and in-season performance data. Obviously we have a limited data sample this season on intermediate layouts with just two races thus far. However, I do believe we can use those races as reference points to produce a foundation of expectations this weekend. Let’s discuss the facts from the prior two 1.5 mile speedway races and my betting targets as we prepare for this weekend’s festivities.

Betting Targets

Aside from Kyle Busch who is simply incredible at this style of racing, I would say that Zane Smith, Ben Rhodes, and Christian Eckes have been the best drivers/teams in the opening two races at 1.5 mile speedways. Smith had a chance to win both prior races but finished runner-up to Busch and was involved in a last lap wreck when battling for the win at Texas. Similar to Busch’s driving style, Smith seems to excel on longer runs when these trucks lose rear grip and I think that will play to his favor again this Saturday.

While Smith has consistently been the best Truck Series regular, Rhodes and Eckes are the two drivers that have also performed very well this season in early races at similar layouts. While guys like Carson Hocevar, Ross Chastain, Corey Heim, and Ty Majeski all deserve the respect of a potential winner, the numbers tell us that Rhodes and Eckes have consistently run upfront on the 1.5 mile tracks as both drivers have produced 100+ ratings in each of the first two events this season. Personally, I have been big on Eckes for most of the year because I think he is a very talented driver that should benefit from his move to the #19 team. For Saturday’s race under the lights at Kansas, Eckes has strong H2H match-up appeal once again.

Based on current betting odds, I believe Zane Smith makes the most betting sense in terms of futures. With Busch in the field, we are getting a much better number on a driver that is outstanding at this style of racing. Admittedly, I am wanting to go bigger on Busch this week but Smith is the main reason that will not happen. For H2H specific options, I am looking no further than the likes of Nick Sanchez and Jake Garcia.

Both drivers were relatively unknown before the season began and perhaps Garcia still fits that criteria. However, both drivers have been really good on the 1.5 mile surfaces which is typically easier for new/young drivers in their adjustment to Truck Series competition. Sanchez dominated the race at Texas before getting wrecked late and he was seriously fast at Las Vegas before running into trouble. Meanwhile, Garcia posted finishes of 10th and 5th respectively in each of those same two races. Both drivers are in-play again this week especially in H2H match-ups at tracks where they should continue to excel based on raw talent as opposed to venues that yield to more experienced drivers.

Practice Observations and Final Thoughts

Practice and qualifying just concluded at Kansas Speedway for tonight’s Heart of America 200. Following on-track activities, we have a new favorite that has emerged in the likes of Christian Eckes. Eckes essentially swept everything this afternoon with the fastest single lap speed, fastest race speed, and the fastest qualifying time. In race trim, Eckes was extremely strong beating the field by nearly 2 tenths on the 10 lap average charts. Luckily we got Eckes early this week at 16-1 odds but he may be worth considering regardless of what his odds close at.

Behind Eckes, Kyle Busch was not nearly as dominant as I expected especially in single lap or short run speed. I still expect Rowdy to race really well but he was not as fast as most everyone expected. Behind Eckes and Busch, things are slightly more ambiguous but I would not deviate from our prior belief that Zane Smith and Ben Rhodes should be in the mix this evening. Personally, I was impressed with the practice speed from Daniel Dye but solely for potential H2H reasons. Our previous H2H targets in Nick Sancez and Jake Garcia both looked really solid in practice and had equally solid qualifying efforts. Therefore, nothing to change on the betting front for our H2H targets.

2023 Draftkings Heart of America 200 Optimal Lineup

2023 Heart of America 200 Race Picks

*Final*

Zane Smith +550 (1 unit)
Nick Sanchez +1000 (.75 unit)
Christian Eckes +1600 (.5 unit)

H2H Match-ups and Props

Christian Eckes -160 over Nick Sanchez (2 units)
Zane Smith -145 over Ty Majeski (2 units)
Ben Rhodes +300 finishes Top 5 (1 unit)