2023 Love’s RV Stop 250 Race Picks

NASCAR Truck Series Betting Predictions
Date/Time: Saturday September 30th, 2023. 1:00PM (EST)
Where: Talladega Superspeedway
TV: USA Network

NASCAR’s Craftsman Truck Series will take center stage Saturday afternoon at the high-banks of Talladega Superspeedway for the running of the Love’s RV Stop 250. Unlike the other major touring series, this weekend’s wildcard at Talladega will be a very important race in determining the championship contenders for Phoenix. After Saturday’s Love’s RV Stop 250, the Truck Series will compete on October 21st at Homestead-Miami Speedway in a race to determine the final 4 championship contenders. Therefore, every point will be important for all the championship contenders competing on Saturday.

Obviously, Talladega can present a multitude of potential results and provides the opportunity for some of the smaller teams to capture a victory as well. While the championship points race will be entertaining, bettors must look through all drivers on Saturday’s entry list if they are going to attempt to find the best betting value throughout the field. The Truck Series has competed twice already this year at superspeedway style venues. Zane Smith captured a victory in the opener at Daytona and Christian Eckes captured a victory at Atlanta Motor Speedway back in the spring. Therefore, we can look back to those races for suggestions towards the drivers/teams that performed well. However that does not mean anything is guaranteed for this weekend because every new superspeedway race presents major volatility.

With that being said, I will not spend a lot of time in this preview emphasizing the importance of betting strategy and value. I don’t plan on betting heavily for either of the two races this weekend at Talladega and will use a conservative low risk/high reward approach for both races. We have simply worked too hard to gain units in recent weeks and I don’t want to waste any of our profits simply because it’s superspeedway racing. In fact, Talladega has produced 7 different winners in the last 7 races which illustrates the difficulty of winning as a driver/team and also the difficulty of predicting winners as several of the names over the last few years have been “surprise” stories just like Matt DiBenedetto’s victory in this race last year.

Talladega History – Truck Series

Matt DiBenedetto, Grant Enfinger, and Parker Kligerman are the only former winners that will be competing in Saturday’s field. Kligerman is actually a two-time winner at Talladega dating back to his victories in 2012 and 2017. Aside from DiBenedetto’s mildly surprise victory last year, Talladega has produced several surprise winners in recent years including the likes of Tate Fogleman (2021), Raphael Lessard (2020), and Spencer Boyd (2019). While surprise winners are not necessarily uncommon at Talladega, the Truck Series has been consistent in producing surprise winners and I believe that is because of the smaller fields and how many good trucks/teams that can be eliminated in the big wrecks. For that reason, I believe bettors should consider a few deep long shots this week because they have been hitting at an incredible pace in this particular series.

Aside from the surprise winners, I would also point out the fact that Chevrolet drivers have won 4 of the last 5 races at Talladega. Meanwhile, Ford drivers in the Truck Series have not won since the inaugural Truck Series race at Talladega back in 2006. If we simply look at races at Talladega in recent years, Ben Rhodes, Chase Purdy, and Parker Kligerman are among the names that truly stick out. Rhodes has been close to a few wins at Talladega and has recorded top 5 finishes in 2 of his last 3 starts. Meanwhile, Chase Purdy has piloted top 8 finishes in each of his last two starts driving for different teams. However, I don’t believe bettors should get too caught up on prior Talladega finishes. Instead, I believe we must consider all superspeedway venues over the last year or two when attempting to decide potential selections for Saturday.

Betting Targets

If we look through all the superspeedway races over the last year or so, Christian Eckes may be the name that has been the most impressive. Eckes won at Atlanta and also led a race-high 19 laps at Daytona back in February. Eckes is one of those drivers that does a great job of controlling the front of the field when he is able to get outfront and that is one of the driver characteristics I love for superspeedway racing. Behind Eckes, some of the names that I mentioned above in the likes of Matt Ben Rhodes, Parker Kligerman, and Chase Purdy have all shown the ability to run consistently at the front of the field.

As everyone knows, we could potentially make a case for every driver this weekend however I am just listing some of the names that I expect to perform well. Corey Heim, Zane Smith, and Grant Enfinger are among other names that have performed well at the superspeedways but all of those drivers are in the “favorites” category meaning they don’t provide the best betting value going into Saturday. If you want to look for deeper options that could yield the lottery style winning potential that we have seen in recent years at Talladega, Bayley Currey and Colby Howard are two of the names that I would probably vault to the top of my betting card for huge long shots!

2023 Love’s RV Stop 250 Optimal Lineup

2023 Love’s RV Stop 250 Betting Picks

*Final*

Christian Eckes +1000 (.75 unit)
Brett Moffitt +1600 (.5 unit)
Parker Kligerman +1600 (.5 unit)
David Gilliland +2000 (.5 unit)
Chase Purdy +3000 (.5 unit)
Colby Howard +5000 (.25 unit)