2024 Ambetter Health 302 Race Picks

NASCAR Xfinity Series Betting Predictions
Date/Time: Saturday October 19th, 2024. 7:30PM (EST)
Where: Las Vegas Motor Speedway
TV: USA

NASCAR’s Xfinity Series will rekindle playoff drama on Saturday with the running of the Ambetter Health 302 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Last week, Sam Mayer earned a clutch victory at the ROVAL to secure his advancement in the Round of 8. Mayer needed a win to advance and out dueled Parker Kligerman following a controversial yellow flag that produced an overtime finish. Mayer along with the 7 remaining championship hopefuls will continue their playoff fight on Saturday for the 2nd race of the season at Las Vegas. However, this time playoff and championship implications will be on the line.

Back in early March, John Hunter Nemechek led 99 of 200 laps en route to a victory at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. While Nemechek dominated the event, Chandler Smith, Cole Custer, Austin Hill, and Riley Herbst were among the names that performed very well in that race and produced +100 average driver ratings. While Nemechek will not be competing this week, Aric Almirola will be behind the wheel of the #20 car in attempt to bring another checkered flag home for the #20 team. Coincidentally, Almirola also won the most recent race at a 1.5 mile speedway which came at Kansas just 3 weeks ago. Needless to say, Almirola is among the drivers that should produce a lot of betting interest going into the weekend.

From a handicapping perspective, the Xfinity Series has only competed at one (Kansas) 1.5 mile speedway for the entire 2nd half of the season. While bettors should analyze performance trends from the prior 1.5 mile speedways this season, we must also acknowledge that the majority of those results came early in the season. Drivers and teams have had a lot of opportunity to improve on the intermediate speedway programs since the beginning of the year. For those reasons, we will also combine some of the observations from Friday’s practice and qualifying sessions into the handicapping equation. Once we combine all of those factors, perhaps we will be able to identify the betting targets that are worthy of betting consideration.

Betting Notes – Las Vegas

• AJ Allmendinger, Austin Hill, and Riley Herbst are all former winners at Las Vegas.
• Chandler Smith, Cole Custer, Justin Allgaier, and Brandon Jones have yielded a +100 average driver rating over the 4 races this season on 1.5 mile speedways.
• Chandler Smith has led the most laps (214) this season on the 1.5 mile speedways.
• Chandler Smith has finished 4th or better in each of his 3 career starts at Las Vegas.
• Cole Custer has finished 4th or better in 4 of the last 6 races at Las Vegas. *Custer has also never finished worse than 12th in 6 career starts.
• Despite 0 wins, Justin Allgaier has 4 runner-up finishes and produced top 5 finishes in 50% of his 20 career starts at Las Vegas.
• Jesse Love’s best finish is 9th on the 1.5 mile speedways. *Love has produced an underwhelming sub 85.0 driver rating in all 4 races at 1.5 mile speedways.
• Aric Almirola’s best finish is 11th in 5 career starts at Las Vegas..
• Chevrolet drivers have won 4 of the last 7 races at Las Vegas.
• There have been 5 cautions or less in each of the last 4 races at Las Vegas.
• The eventual winner has started outside the top 6 drivers in 7 straight races at Las Vegas.

Practice and Qualifying Results

Brandon Jones secured his 4th pole of the season on Friday by posting a fast lap of 183.430mph. Jones led a fast group of JR. Motorsports drivers who took home 4 of the top 6 qualifying positions. Cole Custer (2nd) and Chandler Smith (3rd) were the only drivers that broke up the JR. Motorsports brigade in qualifying. Meanwhile, guys like Aric Almirola (12th), Austin Hill (17th), Sheldon Creed (38th) were among the names that produced relatively poor qualifying results based on expectations. Creed was unable to post a qualifying time due to the fact the team had to replace an engine following practice. As a result, Creed will start from the rear of the field on Saturday.

Prior to qualifying, Cole Custer appeared to emerge from practice with the fastest car. Custer posted the best overall average in speed and also the best 5/10 lap consecutive averages. Behind Custer, Sammy Smith, Taylor Gray, Riley Herbst, and Brandon Jones were among the drivers posting the best averages. Smith and the #8 team looked really good on the stopwatch considering they displayed the least amount of fall-off among the cars that I watched closely. It is also worth noting that Sheldon Creed looked fairly strong before the engine issues transpired. Meanwhile, Austin Hill, AJ Allmendinger, and Jesse Love were among the drivers that disappointed in practice. The Richard Childress Racing cars of Hill and Love simply did not look good. While Love rebounded somewhat in qualifying, I am leaning towards avoiding or potentially fading the RCR duo going into Saturday.

Betting Targets

While the JR. Motorsports cars displayed strong qualifying speed, Cole Custer and Chandler Smith are the drivers that appear poised to challenge for a victory. Smith has been very good at Las Vegas throughout his career and also been one of the best drivers throughout the entire season at 1.5 mile speedways. Custer has also been one of the best this season at the 1.5 mile speedways and has a really strong resume at Las Vegas. I would also add the fact that Custer has shown some of the best speed throughout the 2nd half of the season and raw speed is very important at a place like Las Vegas where drivers have a lot of on-throttle time.

With that being said, I’m sure Justin Allgaier and the rest of the JR Motorsports drivers will threaten the front of the field. I personally thought Sammy Smith was the fastest of the group in practice but it will be interesting to see who emerges from the JR Motorsports camp with the best race speed. With that being said, I would list Sammy Smith as a reliable H2H target based on current betting odds and the potential ceiling of the #8 car. Behind the top drivers, Ryan Sieg and Corey Heim are additional options that are strong H2H targets. Sieg nearly won at Texas earlier this year and has a legitimate top 5 ceiling. Meanwhile, Heim has experienced a slow start to the weekend but I’m expecting him to perform much better in race conditions. Both drivers have much higher ceilings than current betting odds suggest.

2024 Ambetter Health 302 Optimal Lineup

2024 Ambetter Health 302 Betting Picks

*FINAL*

Chandler Smith +500 (1.25 units)
Justin Allgaier +850 (.5 unit)
Sammy Smith +1400 (.5 unit)

H2H Match-Ups and Props

Riley Herbst -180 over Austin Hill (2 units)
Ryan Sieg +500 finishes Top 5 (.5 unit)

Two Team Parlay

Sheldon Creed +110 over Sam Mayer
Kyle Larson +350 wins South Point 400
Risking 1 unit to win: +845