2023 Highpoint.com 400 Race Picks

NASCAR Cup Series Betting Predictions
Date/Time: Sunday July 23rd, 2023. 2:30PM (EST)
Where: Pocono Raceway
TV: USA

After two exciting races on Saturday in the Craftsman Truck Series and Xfinity Series, NASCAR’s Cup Series will get the opportunity to tackle the Tricky Triangle on Sunday with the running of the HighPoint.com 400. One year ago, Chase Elliott was handed his first victory at Pocono Raceway after both Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch were disqualified during post-race inspection. Going into Sunday’s return to Pocono, Elliott remains in the spotlight because time is running out on his chances to make it into the playoffs. Elliott needs a victory and NASCAR’s return to Pocono could present that opportunity.

In recent weeks, Elliott has not exactly performed well enough to contend for victories or justify reasonable betting consideration. More importantly, Elliott has led just 16 laps in the last 12 races at Pocono Raceway. As a result, I think Elliott can be removed from consideration until we see a trend reversal in the performance department. Speaking of performance, Martin Truex Jr has been the guy that has been red hot in recent weeks winning 3 times in the last 10 races. Truex and William Byron are in an extremely close battle for the regular season title and perhaps that is another battle to keep on the radar going into Sunday.

On Saturday, William Byron flexed his muscle by winning the pole for Sunday’s HighPoint.com 400 with a fast lap of 170.269mph. Byron actually edged out Martin Truex Jr for the pole proving that the battle for the regular season title is getting fierce. Meanwhile, Chase Elliott spun during his qualifying lap proving that his bid for a repeat victory is going to be an uphill battle. However, we know that qualifying results do not guarantee race results. With that being said, starting positions will be important due to the battle for track position which will be the name of the game all afternoon on Sunday. However, rest assured strategy will also be very important as teams try to come up with ways to win the track position battle!

Handicapping Strategy

I will keep my handicapping strategy rather brief in this preview because I have explained it in both prior races this weekend. In summary, Pocono Raceway requires a little bit of everything to be successful from the driver behind the wheel, the setup under the car, and even optimizing the strategy game which we saw played a big factor in Saturday’s Xfinity Series race. Given the parity that the Next Gen Car yields, I believe strategy could be more important than anything on Sunday and therefore bettors will have to avoid over-committing on any single betting targets. Perhaps the different strategies could present opportunities for dark horses to pull-through similar to Austin Hill’s 16-1 cash on Saturday. Therefore, we must keep betting value at the top of our focus as well.

Practice Observations

In Saturday’s practice, Tyler Reddick posted the fastest lap of the brief session with a speed of 168.596mph. Reddick led a group of big names which included Kyle Busch, William Byron, Kyle Larson, and Martin Truex Jr who were all in the top 5 in fastest times. Lap times in general were extremely close among the vast majority of the top competitors which is yet another reason why we should expect strategy to impact the finishing order. Aside from fast lap times, William Byron appeared to have the slight overall edge in race speed. Byron appeared to be slightly better than Truex, Reddick, Larson, and Busch who were all fairly impressive on the stopwatch.

I don’t believe there were many major surprises in Friday’s on-track sessions. Both Chris Buescher and Ty Gibbs had fairly impressive practice sessions. Both drivers were within close proximity of the leaders. Buescher struggled a bit in qualifying but he may have the opportunity to move forward on Sunday if they can duplicate the race speed seen on Friday. On the other side of the speed charts, Ross Chastain and the majority of the Ford teams struggled significantly on Friday. Chastain is following a poor performance in Loudon and appears to be “off” for the 2nd straight week. Meanwhile, the struggles the Ford camp has shown throughout the year in the speed department have returned again this week. I expected the Ford teams to struggle this week because Pocono is very dependent upon horsepower and aero speed. After seeing Friday’s lap times from the majority of the Ford teams, I think we can add most of those teams to our “fade” list on Sunday.

Betting Targets

If you look at the last 5 races at Pocono, Denny Hamlin has amassed an incredible 122.4 driver rating. Hamlin and Kyle Busch have posted similar statistics with 3 top 5 finishes including a victory over the last 5 races at Pocono which is far superior to the rest of the competition. Hamlin did not show the “elite” speed that we would expect on Friday but he does rank 2nd in our dynamic averages over the last 5 races behind Martin Truex. As a result, I think Hamlin deserves some attention as a strong pivot against the outright favorites. Likewise, Kyle Busch is in a similar situation. Busch showed really strong speed on Friday and has the stats that cannot be ignored. While Byron, Truex, and Larson will be rightful favorites, Hamlin and Busch are the pivots that provide better value that also have the better Pocono resumes.

As I stated earlier, I would not encourage sacrificing value just to fill lineups with the top guys that I have mentioned throughout this preview. While there were some clear favorites on Saturday, this HighPoint.com 400 will still be a race of strategy and track position. Therefore, I believe bettors should seek value over big names in-case we back our way into a strategy victory like we did in Saturday’s Pocono Mountains 225 with Austin Hill. Some of the names that are on my dark horse radar include the likes of Tyler Reddick (very fast on Saturday), Brad Keselowski (excellent at Pocono/performing well), and Christopher Bell (4th last year). Meanwhile guys like Aric Almirola (strong Pocono resume) and Ty Gibbs (very fast on Saturday) are lower-tier names that should yield value in H2H match-ups.

Draftkings HighPoint.com 400 Optimal Lineup

2023 HighPoint.com 400 Race Picks

*Final*

William Byron +600 (1 unit)
Kyle Busch +1000 (.75 unit)
Tyler Reddick +1200 (.75 unit)
Christopher Bell +2000 (.5 unit)
Brad Keselowski +4000 (.5 unit)

H2H Match-ups and Props

Kevin Harvick -115 over Joey Logano (2 units)
Christopher Bell -125 over Ross Chastain (2 units)
Aric Almirola +1200 finishes Top 5 (.5 unit)