2023 Verizon 200 Race Picks

NASCAR Cup Series Betting Predictions
Date/Time: Sunday August 13th, 2023. 2:30PM (EST)
Where: Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course
TV: USA

For NASCAR’s Cup Series, just 3 races remain in the regular season which means time is running out for drivers to secure their spot in the playoffs. After two straight weeks with surprising wins from Chris Buescher, the points battle for the 16th and final spot in the playoffs is narrowing down to 4 drivers who still have legitimate possibilities to make their way into the postseason on points. The guy currently in the 16th position is Ty Gibbs and the drivers on the outside looking in include names like Chase Elliott, Michael McDowell, and AJ Allmendinger. What do all of those drivers have in common? They are all excellent road course talents which means Sunday’s Verizon 200 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course will be an extremely important opportunity for drivers trying to solidify their playoff hopes.

While the points battle and playoff scenario will keep things entertaining on Sunday, our focus will be centered around finding the best betting options. Typically, road courses are favorable handicapping venues because the skill set needed for this style of racing can be difficult to learn. For that reason, we often see a lot of the same names towards the top of the road course events. Chase Elliott owns the most road course wins (7) among active drivers. Points leader Martin Truex Jr owns 5 wins on the road courses despite the fact most of those wins are courtesy of Sonoma. Meanwhile, Tyler Reddick has emerged as one of the top road course talents in the series with 3 road course wins in the last year.

When you combine these names with talents like AJ Allmendinger, Kyle Larson (4 road course wins), and newcomer Shane Van Gisbergen who won in his debut at the Chicago Street Course, it’s easy to see there are numerous road course threats ahead of the Verizon 200 at Indianapolis. Our job for Sunday’s Verizon 200 is to find the drivers/teams that are poised for a quality run and see if we can find those targets in favorable match-ups. The reason I am quick to call out H2H match-ups is because that is usually where we find the most betting value. Since the road courses heavily favor those star talents mentioned above, we usually see minimal value on the star road course talents. Therefore, let’s discuss the drivers poised for a big afternoon on Sunday and perhaps identify a few dark horses that also deserve betting attention as well!

Road Course Averages

While we will discuss practice and qualifying observations from Saturday below, I think our biggest handicapping tool for the Verizon 200 surrounds our dynamic averages (road courses). Our dynamic averages for the road courses provide performance loop data from the last 5 races at road course venues. I think this is very important because there have only been 8-9 road course races in total with the Next Gen Car. Therefore, our dynamic averages metrics provide the bulk of the most recent road course races with this new car and provide the earliest trends with the new package.

By reviewing the data, fans can rejoice in the fact that Chase Elliott is the top rated driver despite being winless on the season. Honestly, I thought Tyler Reddick would be at the top of this list but Reddick had a few subpar performances in our data set, most notably at Sonoma. The fact that Elliott, Reddick, McDowell, and Allmendinger all have triple digit average ratings is very impressive. McDowell is a guy that has consistently run towards the front of road course races with the Next Gen Car and these road course venues likely provide his best opportunity to break through for a victory. Meanwhile, I would also point towards high metrics for underrated road course talents like Christopher Bell, Kyle Larson, and Chris Buescher.

Practice Observations

On Saturday, Daniel Suarez emerged as the top story after winning the pole for Sunday’s Verizon 200. Suarez earned his first career victory last year at Sonoma and is a respectable road course talent. Suarez edged out several of the names that we have already discussed in the likes of Reddick, Elliott, McDowell, and Kyle Busch who captured the top 5 starting spots. Personally, I was most impressed with Michael McDowell from Saturday’s sessions. McDowell posted the fastest lap in practice early Saturday and then backed it up with a strong qualifying effort. McDowell rarely qualifies well so the fact that he put together back to back impressive efforts should indicate that the car and driver are trending in the right direction.

I will say that practice times were extremely close among the top guys. There were about 8 drivers within two tenths of each other at the top of the speed charts. Surprisingly, the fastest group of drivers did not include Truex, Allmendinger, Reddick, or Van Gisbergen. To be clear, those favorites were not “bad” by any stretch of the imagination but rather slightly surprised we did not see one of those names at the top of the speed charts. Behind the popular names, I was impressed with the speed from Todd Gilliland, Austin Cindric, and Christopher Bell in practice. Bell is the only name in that group that had a solid qualifying effort. However, I would expect Cindric to be decent on Sunday given his resume at Indianapolis in the Xfinity Series.

Betting Targets

As mentioned earlier, I think our best path to profits resides in H2H match-ups on Sunday. With that being said, if you want me to force some thoughts for the outright victory then it will be hard to ignore Tyler Reddick’s chances on Sunday. Reddick has won 3 of the last 6 races at true road course venues and is the defending winner of the Verizon 200. I think Reddick is the deserving outright betting favorite but personally I am intrigued by the better value behind Reddick. Both Chase Elliott and Michael McDowell are in must-win situations and have shown the performance metrics to warrant betting consideration. Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell, and Van Gisbergen are some other guys that have shown enough speed to also contend on Sunday. However, Bell is probably the only option in that group that makes sense from a betting odds/value perspective.

Strictly for H2H match-up purposes, I really like guys like Michael McDowell, Christopher Bell, Austin Cindric for the sharpest of options. Despite the strong qualifying effort, I believe McDowell is playable in all formats meanwhile I think Cindric could be considerable in prop bet formats that produce plus value. For fantasy purposes, Kevin Harvick and William Byron will be starting at the rear of the field on Sunday which provides place-differential upside. Byron actually failed tech 3 times on Friday but he did have decent speed on Saturday which means I would definitely prefer Byron over Harvick. Further down the pecking order, Todd Gilliland and newcomer Brodie Kostecki are some bottom-tier names that could have solid performances on Sunday. Gilliland showed speed in practice and posted one of his career best finishes (4th) in this race last season. Meanwhile, Kostecki is making his first Cup Series start in the #33 with Richard Childress Racing. Kostecki has a similar background to Van Gisbergen from the Australian Supercars and has gotten better with every lap throughout the weekend.

2023 Verizon 200 Optimal Lineup

2023 Verizon 200 Race Picks

*Final*

Chase Elliott +600 (1 unit)
Christopher Bell +1000 (.75 unit)
Michael McDowell +1800 (.5 unit)
Ty Gibbs +2500 (.5 unit)

H2H Match-ups and Props

Austin Cindric -125 over Ross Chastain (2 units)
Ty Gibbs -115 over AJ Allmendinger (2 units)
Ty Gibbs +850 finishes as Top Toyota (.5 unit)
Chris Buescher +350 wins Group C (Suarez, Kostecki, Hamlin) (1 unit)