2024 Rackley Roofing 200 Race Picks

Craftsman Truck Series Betting Predictions
Date/Time: Friday June 28th, 2024. 8:00PM (EST)
Where: Nashville Superspeedway
TV: FS2

After nearly a month of inactivity, the Craftsman Truck Series will return to action later this evening for the running of the Rackley Roofing 200 at Nashville Superspeedway. Tonight’s opening race at Nashville will be the first of 3 straight days of racing between the Trucks, Xfinity, and Cup Series. For the Truck Series specifically, there are just 4 races remaining before the start of the playoffs and currently there are just 4 drivers that have locked themselves into championship contention. As a result, there are still 6 open positions that will be up for grabs over the next several weeks either by a collection of points or perhaps a new first-time winner.

For tonight’s Rackley Roofing 200, I find this particular race somewhat hard to predict because Nashville is a very unique speedway unlike most on the Truck Series schedule. For that reason, I am releasing this preview later than expected following today’s practice and qualifying activities as I believe we have a better idea of how things will unfold compared to earlier in the week. With that being said, I did drop some early betting picks this week which included a half unit play on Clint Bowyer who will make his first Truck Series start since 2016. Bowyer has been retired from the Cup Series since the 2020 season but despite the lack of seat time; Nashville has historically been one of his strongest tracks.

Obviously, the Truck Series currently belongs to Corey Heim who has become the guy to beat on nearly a weekly basis. Along with Heim, Christian Eckes and Nick Sanchez both have multiple wins this season despite the fact both drivers have been rarely inconsistent. For that reason, I don’t believe there are a lot of road blocks for a new or surprise winner especially if Heim, Eckes, and others run into trouble. For that reason, we took a small risk on Bowyer at opening odds and will look to explore a few others based on observations from today’s sessions. Ultimately, we are going to be fairly conservative simply because betting odds are very conservative and again this is a rather tough race to handicap in the grand scheme of things.

Practice Observations

Earlier today, the Truck Series hit the track at Nashville Superspeedway for the first time this weekend in a 30 minute practice prior to qualifying. In practice, Rajah Caruth led the way with a fast lap of 156.896mph. Caruth led Eckes and Heim for the top spot on the leaderboard. Caruth has been hit or miss throughout the season since breaking out for his first win at Las Vegas earlier this year. Admittedly I did not have Caruth on my radar going into tonight’s race however the young driver posted very impressive lap times. Aside from the fastest single lap time, Caruth also led all drivers with the best 10 and 15 lap consecutive averages to prove he has a truck of contention later this evening.

Behind Caruth, I thought Christian Eckes was the next best car on the stopwatch from a consistency standpoint. Heim was also towards the top of the speed charts and appeared to have solid speed yet again. Meanwhile, some of the surprise names that caught my eye, in terms of speed, included the likes of Chase Purdy and Dean Thompson who both appeared to have more speed than expected. On the other side of the equation, Clint Bowyer and Nick Sanchez were among the names that I expected to be much faster in practice. I expected both Bowyer and Sanchez to be in contention later this evening but both drivers struggled in practice. Meanwhile, Matt Crafton, Brenden Queen, and Ben Rhodes were among other popular names that appeared to be on the struggle bus going into qualifying.

Betting Targets

While I believe Corey Heim is worthy of betting consideration every week, he has nearly reached the Kyle Busch level of Truck Series betting odds. As a result, Heim is becoming nearly unplayable except in parlay and H2H formats. Based on what we saw in practice, I would argue that Christian Eckes has looked better thus far this weekend and already has 1 victory this year on the concrete going back to Martinsville to increase his outlook for tonight. At current odds, Eckes has more betting value and a similar win probability compared to Heim.

As stated earlier, I do believe the dark horses will be alive in this race. Nashville is a somewhat tricky track that can be sensitive to temperature and setup changes. It would not be too surprising to see a team/driver nail the setup combination and be difficult to beat later and I’m wondering if that is why Rajah Caruth was so strong in practice because it definitely appears they have the #71 dialed in. I also believe Ty Majeski and Grant Enfinger are showing positive signs going into tonight’s event. I was really impressed with Majeski’s long-run speed which may come into play later tonight. Lastly, Kaden Honeycutt and Dean Thompson are some lesser known names that appear to be poised to run well. Thompson nearly wrecked in qualifying but that actually helps his fantasy racing value as he will be starting deeper in the field.

2024 Rackley Roofing 200 Race Picks

*FINAL*

Christian Eckes +450 (1 unit)
Ty Majeski +800 (.5 unit)
Clint Bowyer +1400 (.5 unit)

H2H Match-Ups and Props

Ty Majeski -125 over Kaden Honeycutt (2 units)
Layne Riggs -115 over Tyler Ankrum (2 units)