2024 CRC Brakleen 175 Race Picks

Craftsman Truck Series Betting Predictions
Date/Time: Friday July 12th, 2024. 5:30PM (EST)
Where: Pocono Raceway
TV: FS1

All of NASCAR’s major touring series will be in action this weekend at the Tricky Triangle, known as Pocono Raceway. Later this afternoon, the Craftsman Truck Series will have the luxury of kicking off the racing weekend with the running of the CRC Brakleen 175 which will feature a relatively early start time at 5:30PM (EST). With just 3 races remaining before the start of the Truck Series’ playoffs, every race is growing increasingly important as drivers/teams try to solidify their playoff seat and find optimal speed for the upcoming championship run.

For Today’s Brakleen 175, Ross Chastain and Zane Smith are the only Cup Series drivers that are on the entry list. Chastain returns to the #45 with Niece Motorsports for his 4th start of the season which includes a win at Darlington. Meanwhile, Smith will make his 5th start of the season, with McAnally Hilgemann Racing, following top 3 finishes in each of his last 3 Truck Series starts. Additionally it is also worth noting that Connor Mosack will be making his 5th start of the season following last week’s impressive 6th place Xfinity Series performance at Chicago.

For bettors, today’s on-track activities will be pretty compact with practice, qualifying, and the drop of the green flag occurring within a 3 hour time window. As a result, there will be a pretty tight window between the conclusion of qualifying and the start of the race, especially for odds makers. Fortunately, I believe handicapping the likes of Pocono Raceway is pretty straight forward. This 2.5 mile triangle has 3 distinct corners but is centered around raw speed (equipment) and car control (driver). While there may not be many other tracks that draw the closest comparison to Pocono, we have a pretty good idea of the drivers/teams that have checked off the boxes in the speed and skill department this season.

Handicapping Pocono

While most point to Pocono as a “speed” track due to the enormous size, I always like to argue that the car control and the driver’s ability to get back to the throttle quickly in high-speed corners are more important. Obviously, you cannot win at Pocono without fast equipment but the driver has a lot of input towards gaining speed on the stopwatch which sometimes gets overlooked. The most talented drivers always emerge in these Truck Series races at Pocono and that is not by coincidence. In fact, 10 of the last 11 winners at Pocono Raceway are currently Cup Series drivers. The only driver to previously win at Pocono that is not on a Cup Series roster is Brandon Jones who competes full-time in the Xfinity Series.

To be clear, I am not stating that 10 of the last 11 winners were Cup Series drivers at the time of their victory but they essentially graduated to Cup Series competition to further illustrate the point that the driver talent usually shines at the Tricky Triangle. Therefore this is one of those tracks where we can put our focus towards the driver and use that focus to identify betting match-ups where the odds do not align with the talent; especially in H2H match-ups. Betting odds for the outright win are relatively saturated due to the top heavy entry list so I assume the majority of our value will be found in H2H match-ups.

Betting Targets

Based on dominance this season, Corey Heim has been the most dominant driver in the Truck Series by a wide margin. Additionally, Heim has performed very well at Pocono in his prior two starts which strengthens the argument that he is likely going to be the guy to beat with activities commencing later this afternoon. If Heim falters, the difficulty is predicting who are the next-best candidates for the outright win. Ross Chastain is probably the most talented option and is a former Truck Series winner at Pocono.

However, Niece Motorsports has not shown great speed this season at venues where there is not a lot of tire fall off. Instead, I believe Christian Eckes and Zane Smith are easy pivot options for those who want better value on futures (win) odds. Both Eckes and Smith are driving for McAnally Hilgemann Racing which has produced tremendous speed this year and are among the top talents going into this afternoon’s race. I personally lean towards Smith being the more sharp option but perhaps on-track activities will confirm that narrative later today.

I’m not sure if any other drivers have shown the speed/talent combination to warrant dark horse consideration, especially before practice. Perhaps Taylor Gray, Grant Enfinger, and Nick Sanchez deserve to be in the conversation. However, I would need further validation in practice/qualifying to legitimately consider those individuals. Instead, I would shift focus to the drivers that have the best likelihood to shatter their current ceilings based on current betting odds. The drivers that fall into that category include the likes of Daniel Dye and Chase Purdy who are among my favorite early H2H targets. Dye is another driver from the McAnally Hilgemann Racing Team who continues to show improvement. Meanwhile, Purdy has performed well at Pocono and other high-speed tracks throughout his career. As a result, I like both of these drivers as early/sharp H2H targets!

2024 CRC Brakleen 175 Race Picks

*FINAL*

Zane Smith +650 (1 unit)
Ross Chastain +1200 (.5 unit)
Grant Enfinger +2000 (.5 unit)

H2H Match-Ups and Props

Grant Enfinger +110 over Rajah Caruth (3 units)
Zane Smith +100 over Nick Sanchez (2 units)
Chase Purdy -110 over Layne Riggs (2 units)

Two Team Parlay

Corey Heim +150 wins CRC Brakleen 175
Denny Hamlin +450 wins The Great American Getaway 400
Risking 1 unit to win: +1275