2024 LiUNA 175 Race Picks
NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Betting Predictions
Date/Time: Sunday August 25th, 2024. 4:00PM (EST)
Where: Milwaukee Mile
TV: FS1
NASCAR’s Craftsman Truck Series will have the luxury of taking the Sunday spotlight this weekend when the green flag waves for the LiUNA 175 at the Milwaukee Mile. While Xfinity and Cup Series’ teams raced at Daytona on Friday and Saturday, the Truck Series will join the ARCA Menards Series for racing at the historic Milwaukee Mile for a double header Sunday afternoon. More importantly, the LiUNA 175 will be the first race in the Truck Series playoffs. As things currently stand, 10 drivers are in the hunt for a championship which will be one of the main focal points over the next several weeks!
Earlier this year, the Truck Series championship appeared to be a two-horse race between Corey Heim and Christian Eckes who combined to win 8 of the first 14 races. However in recent weeks, Ty Majeski has emerged as a potential championship contender thanks to back to back wins at IRP and Richmond. Majeski has excelled at the short tracks this season and has been nothing short of dominant in recent races and that could pose a threat to the playoff contenders especially when you consider how many short tracks are remaining on the schedule. For this week’s return to Milwaukee, Majeski has once again emerged as the driver to beat after capturing the pole for the LiUNA 175 with a lap of 122.556mph.
Despite the late emergence of Majeski which should bring some diversity to the front of the field, betting odds for the Truck Series’ races have been very conservative in recent weeks and have almost made these races impossible to bet. At Richmond, I believe we closed with our smallest betting card of the year. While I am hoping for better opportunities on Sunday, early odds were very discouraging and the results from qualifying will likely not help matters. Therefore, do not be surprised if this is yet another slim betting card unless we get more H2H options this week. As a result, I am going to try to keep this preview relatively brief and straight to the point, in regards to the slim list of drivers that deserve betting consideration.
Handicapping Touchpoint
I’ve always looked at Milwaukee as a bigger version of Martinsville at 1.015 miles in length. In reality, the Milwaukee Mile probably races more closely to the likes of Gateway when you consider the tracks that are on the Truck Series schedule. Therefore, I think we can look at the results at Gateway and also give some observations towards the recent short track races in the series, in order to formulate some handicapping opinions. Afterwards, our betting strategy will completely depend on betting odds. I’m not expecting many opportunities for the futures (win) bets but hopefully we can find a few sharp H2H match-ups to produce a profit!
Betting Targets
If you look back at the recent short track races, Ty Majeski, Corey Heim, and Christian Eckes have dominated the performance metrics. If you look back to the race at Gateway earlier this year, Heim pulled out the victory but Majeski and Eckes both finished in the top 4 positions. To make matters even less diverse, those 3 drivers were also the fastest guys in practice in nearly all categories. While Majeski got the pole and appears to be emerging as the outright favorite, I actually thought Heim had the faster speeds in practice and his win at Gateway makes him my personal outright favorite going into Sunday!
With this race being top heavy, I don’t see a lot of value in futures odds with the probability of the big 3 favorites being very high. Unfortunately, there is just not any betting value in those guys. Instead, I am looking slightly deeper into the field to find targets for H2H match-ups and prop style wagers. The group of names that are highest on my radar include Nick Sanchez and Tyler Ankrum. Sanchez has performed much better than anyone would expect on the short tracks and was extremely good at Gateway earlier this year. After showing good speed in practice, I think Sanchez is a legitimate dark horse with likely more value in H2H formats. Meanwhile, Tyler Ankrum is a driver/truck that has just caught my eye this weekend. Ankrum has been fast in every appearance on the track and appears to have a much higher ceiling than anyone expected going into the weekend.
Other drivers that I would consider include Grant Enfinger who dominated this race last year. Enfinger has not shown the best speed this weekend but I would imagine he will race better on Sunday. Taylor Gray is another driver that probably warrants some sharp consideration. Gray is checking all of my handicapping boxes this week despite a disappointing 11th place qualifying effort. Either way, Gray is another one of my other targets that I expect to move forward when the green flag waves. For deeper options for prop bets or fantasy purposes: Sammy Smith bombed his qualifying effort and should be a good fantasy target, Chase Purdy and Dean Thompson may also provide decent fantasy targets due to the fact they should move forward from their disappointing starting spots.
2024 LiUNA 175 Betting Picks
*FINAL*
Corey Heim +200 (2 units)
Grant Enfinger +1800 (.5 unit)
Nick Sanchez +2000 (.5 unit)
H2H Match-Ups and Props
Tyler Ankrum -115 over William Sawalich (2 units)
Corey Heim +100 over Christian Eckes (2 units)
