2024 Wurth 400 Race Picks
NASCAR Cup Series Betting Predictions
Date/Time: Sunday April 28th, 2024. 2:00PM (EST)
Where: Dover Motor Speedway
TV: FOX
One week following a wild finish at Talladega which produced our 7th different winner of the season, NASCAR’s Cup Series will make a stop at the Monster Mile at Dover Motor Speedway for the running of the Wurth 400. This Sunday’s Wurth 400 will be the only stop at the Monster Mile this season. The Cup Series previously held two annual dates at Dover up until the 2020 season. Since then, Dover Motor Speedway has held just one race each season which is disappointing in many ways because the Monster Mile is truly an exciting race track from both the driver and spectator point of view. While we hope for an exciting race on Sunday, our focus shifts towards handicapping and trying to find the best betting opportunities for the Wurth 400.
For those that are unfamiliar or simply need a reminder, Dover Motor Speedway is a one-mile concrete surface with relatively high banking that reaches 24 degrees in the corners. The fascinating aspect of Dover is the speed that this small one-mile track produces with lap times easily averaging over 160 mph on new tires. The fast speeds and relatively narrow racing groove will produce close door to door action and make passing relatively difficult especially for the current Next Gen Car rules package. In many ways, Dover requires a bit of everything for success. Teams will need to have a fast car with a good setup over the long-run and drivers will need to be on top of their game because fast lap times are produced by keeping the car on the edge and keeping your foot in the throttle throughout the turns.
In previous years, I would label Dover a “drivers racetrack” where the top talents typically emerge at the front of the field. With today’s Next Gen Car, I believe success is more biased to the trilemma of driver, car, and track position which has become common on the short tracks with the lack of horsepower. What that means is essentially the car and track position has become equally important as the driver input to make fast lap times which can make handicapping more difficult. If you just look at Saturday’s results from qualifying, you may notice some new names at the top of the leaderboard. Kyle Busch won his first pole of the season with a speed of 162.191 mph which is somewhat shocking considering how bad RCR has been on the traditional ovals this season. Behind Busch, we had even more surprising names like Noah Gragson (5th), Chase Briscoe (7th), Michael McDowell (8th), and AJ Allmendinger (10th) who all qualified in the top 10 positions. Needless to say, there are a lot of unknowns going into Sunday’s Wurth 400.
Dover – Betting Notes
- Jimmie Johnson has the most wins (11) all-time at Dover Motor Speedway. *Johnson is making his 3rd start of the season for Legacy Motor Club
- Martin Truex Jr (4), Kyle Busch (3), Chase Elliott (2), Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin, Brad Keselowski, and Alex Bowman are all former winners at Dover.
- Alex Bowman has finished inside the top 5 in 5 of the last 6 races at Dover.
- Ross Chastain has produced the highest average driver rating 110.5 over the last 5 races at Dover. *Chastain has also finished 2nd and 3rd in the only two races with the Next Gen Car at Dover.
- Martin Truex Jr has the best average finishing position (6.2) among all drivers over the last 10 races at Dover.
- William Byron has finished 4th in 3 of the last 4 races at Dover.
- Chase Elliott has finished in the top 5 in 9 of 13 career starts at Dover.
- Ryan Blaney has just 1 career top 5 finish in 13 starts at Dover.
- Bubba Wallace has never finished inside the top 10 in 9 career starts at Dover.
Loop Data
The Monster Mile is obviously a unique racetrack where the top talents typically shine. While I know the car/setup has become more important with the Next Gen Car, I still wanted to take a look at loop data over the last 5 races at Dover to help identify the drivers that consistently perform well. As you will notice below, we have a lot of the same names that keep appearing in both our betting notes/trends and in our loop data. Perhaps most surprising is the fact that Ross Chastain leads all drivers with the highest average rating over the last 5 races. I thought Martin Truex Jr would have been the best in that category and while Truex’s 108.1 rating is impressive, Chastain’s success at Dover has largely gone unnoticed because he has yet to visit victory lane.
If you look at the loop data metrics holistically, I’m not sure if there are any true surprises among the top guys. I would call out the fact that Kyle Larson has led the most laps (282) and ranks 2nd in fastest laps (148) despite only competing in 3 of the 5 races in our data set. Larson missed both races during the 2020 season while serving a suspension which makes some of those dominator metrics even more impressive. On the other side of the equation, I would also call attention to top names like Tyler Reddick, Joey Logano, and Christopher Bell who have shown underwhelming results at the Monster Mile in recent years. Dover is actually one of the few tracks that Logano has never visited victory lane going 0 for 27 throughout his career.
| Driver | Avg. Rating | Avg. Start | Avg. Mid Race | Avg. Finish | Avg. Pos. | Pass Diff. | Fastest Lap | Laps Led | Total Laps |
|---|
| Ross Chastain | 110.5 | 13.3 | 9.3 | 6.7 | 7.3 | 31 | 81 | 184 | 1200 |
| Martin Truex Jr | 108.1 | 11.6 | 9.6 | 7.2 | 7.6 | 44 | 140 | 177 | 1821 |
| Denny Hamlin | 107.7 | 7.8 | 7.2 | 10.6 | 8.0 | 70 | 152 | 188 | 1821 |
| Kyle Larson | 99.8 | 8.3 | 20.3 | 13.3 | 13.0 | 21 | 148 | 282 | 1159 |
| William Byron | 97.9 | 15.0 | 4.6 | 12.4 | 9.6 | 1 | 98 | 215 | 1818 |
| Alex Bowman | 97.8 | 13.5 | 5.8 | 8.0 | 11.8 | 67 | 106 | 100 | 1420 |
| Ryan Blaney | 94.5 | 8.4 | 13.2 | 13.4 | 9.8 | 9 | 50 | 45 | 1818 |
| Chase Elliott | 92.4 | 7.8 | 15.2 | 11.8 | 14.4 | 41 | 134 | 100 | 1517 |
| Brad Keselowski | 89.5 | 11.6 | 9.4 | 12.2 | 10.2 | 14 | 22 | 17 | 1821 |
| Kyle Busch | 85.6 | 11.4 | 14.8 | 13.8 | 16.0 | 47 | 111 | 131 | 1812 |
| Chris Buescher | 84.8 | 6.6 | 16.0 | 12.8 | 12.4 | -48 | 15 | 18 | 1821 |
| Joey Logano | 82.6 | 15.0 | 15.8 | 15.8 | 13.8 | -3 | 44 | 15 | 1793 |
| Tyler Reddick | 76.0 | 13.8 | 11.8 | 15.2 | 15.2 | 6 | 21 | 0 | 1811 |
| Christopher Bell | 75.8 | 14.4 | 22.6 | 16.0 | 17.6 | -35 | 29 | 1 | 1815 |
| Ricky Stenhouse Jr | 73.6 | 14.8 | 21.6 | 16.8 | 18.4 | 23 | 37 | 1 | 1724 |
| Austin Dillon | 71.1 | 22.4 | 10.8 | 17.6 | 17.0 | -45 | 39 | 49 | 1814 |
| Erik Jones | 69.0 | 16.2 | 18.6 | 16.4 | 17.6 | 19 | 7 | 0 | 1816 |
| Justin Haley | 67.5 | 19.5 | 13.5 | 17.0 | 18.0 | -25 | 7 | 19 | 797 |
| Bubba Wallace | 65.3 | 21.8 | 16.4 | 17.4 | 18.0 | -7 | 6 | 0 | 1818 |
| Josh Berry | 60.5 | 26.0 | 25.0 | 20.0 | 21.5 | 8 | 5 | 3 | 788 |
| John Hunter Nemechek | 57.8 | 29.0 | 24.0 | 22.0 | 24.0 | -5 | 0 | 0 | 620 |
| Ryan Preece | 57.2 | 24.8 | 24.4 | 22.2 | 22.0 | 8 | 4 | 0 | 1815 |
| Corey LaJoie | 54.8 | 26.6 | 24.4 | 22.0 | 23.4 | -11 | 9 | 0 | 1809 |
| Michael McDowell | 54.4 | 24.4 | 20.0 | 23.0 | 22.8 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 1809 |
| Daniel Suarez | 54.3 | 21.2 | 23.2 | 23.2 | 23.8 | -19 | 2 | 0 | 1450 |
| Austin Cindric | 51.3 | 16.0 | 31.5 | 31.0 | 27.0 | -9 | 5 | 0 | 487 |
| Chase Briscoe | 49.6 | 15.3 | 29.7 | 26.0 | 27.0 | -41 | 1 | 0 | 1113 |
| Harrison Burton | 45.5 | 33.0 | 25.0 | 22.0 | 25.0 | -3 | 0 | 0 | 796 |
| Todd Gilliland | 39.0 | 34.5 | 29.5 | 26.5 | 29.0 | -10 | 3 | 0 | 792 |
Practice Observations
I mentioned earlier there were a lot of surprise names towards the top of qualifying but we also saw a wide array of names in practice. Before I dive into individual observations, I will make one key observation and that is the speeds are very fast on the short-run for this Next Gen Car. I expect that pace will be much slower on Sunday during green flag conditions especially when I believe we will see more strategy games because track position will be so important. With that being said, practice was split into two groups once again this week. It was very apparent that the 2nd group (B) was the fastest which was likely aided by added rubber on the track. Because we did not have similar track conditions and drivers did not have enough time to run enough laps to provide potential indicators of long-run speed, I’m not sure we learned an awful lot from practice.
Despite my conservative standpoint towards practice observations, I will say that William Byron looked the strongest out of everyone. Byron was in the slower group but still laid down the best overall times. Ryan Blaney, Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott, and Martin Truex Jr all appeared to be in relatively close proximity. While I am not going to give a lot of credit to practice observations, I will also say that names like Alex Bowman and Ross Chastain had a somewhat concerning afternoon. Both Bowman and Chastain have been among the best drivers at Dover in recent years and were perhaps among the potential sharp targets this week. However, both drivers had a relatively disappointing afternoon in both sessions on Saturday, especially Chastain who will start from the 22nd position.
Betting Targets – Reasons to be Conservative
While most handicappers are going to have you believe that every pick they make is sharp with high confidence, I think it is important to state and admit when we are not highly confident. Different tracks are going to bring different levels of confidence each week and this Sunday’s Wurth 400 is just seeming like one of those races where the uncertainty level has been elevated. Lap times are so close to each other throughout the field that even the best Dover “drivers” are going to have difficulty moving forward if they lose track position and those conditions leave room for variances to occur.
For those reasons, I want to be adamant that this is not a high-confidence week for handicapping and we should be relatively conservative with our overall risk. We have had a great run in recent weeks and there is no reason to be stupid with unnecessary risk. Therefore, this betting card will be very conservative for those reasons. With that being said, I would lead off by betting targets with William Byron for Sunday. While Martin Truex Jr and Kyle Larson have better stats/resumes at the Monster Mile, William Byron has been the best driver this entire season and won recently at the short track of Martinsville. Byron has produced top 5 finishes in 3 of his last 4 starts at Dover and was extremely impressive in practice on Saturday. When Crew Chief Rudy Fugle hits the correct combination, the #24 has been the car to beat this season and I believe the #24 team is trending in that direction again for Sunday.
Unfortunately, Bryon, Larson, Truex, Hamlin, and Blaney all have minimal betting value. I was hoping to get a better number on Truex after a poor qualifying effort but that was not the case. Therefore if I had to choose a guy from that group of favorites, I believe Byron is the guy. Behind the group of overall favorites, I am intrigued by the betting value for guys like Alex Bowman and Chase Elliott. Elliott’s current odds are solely a product of his poor qualifying position but I believe he will be solid on Sunday. Elliott and Christopher Bell are prime fantasy targets solely based on their qualifying results. (*Bell spun during his qualifying run, starting 33rd). Meanwhile, Bowman deserves an automatic bid at 20-1 odds. Bowman has been one of the best outright drivers at Dover in recent years and has been solid throughout the weekend as well. At that number, I think Bowman is playable in all formats based on his ceiling.
If we move deeper into the betting field, I believe Chase Briscoe, Josh Berry, and Jimmie Johnson are among the names that are severely undervalued. Perhaps I’m overly optimistic on Briscoe, I just believe he runs well this weekend despite his poor history at Dover. However, Berry and Johnson are just simply undervalued. I know Johnson is in bottom-tier equipment but he is an 11-time winner at Dover. This is the track that Jimmie owns. I know the car is different, I know the driver is different… but if there were ever a place where 7-time could rewind the clock, Dover is that place. Meanwhile, Josh Berry seems to be severely undervalued simply because of error. Berry has been phenomenal at Dover mainly throughout his Xfinity Series career. However, Berry also finished 10th in his only start at the Monster Mile last year in a part-time role. As a driver that has been running well in recent weeks, don’t be surprised if Berry has another quality finish on Sunday!
2024 Wurth 400 Race Picks
*FINAL*
William Byron +650 (1 unit)
Martin Truex Jr +850 (.75 unit)
Alex Bowman +2000 (.5 unit)
H2H Match-Ups and Props
William Byron -115 over Denny Hamlin (2 units)
Two Team Parlay
Alex Bowman +130 over Ryan Blaney
Chase Elliott -115 over Ty Gibbs
Risking 1 unit to win:
+330
