2021 Pocono Green 225 Race Picks
- Updated: June 26, 2021
Sunday June 26th, 12:00PM (EST) at Pocono Raceway
by Jay Horne of NASCARWagers.com
After two races on Saturday between both the Camping World Truck Series and Cup Series, NASCAR’s Xfinity Series will finally get their opportunity to tackle the Tricky Triangle in the opening leg of Sunday’s double header with the running of the Pocono Green 225. In the last two weeks, Kyle Busch has stolen the Xfinity Series spotlight with back to back wins to reach the magic number of 100. With Busch’s accomplishment, he will step aside from Xfinity Series competition which provides a more equal playing field for Sunday’s Pocono Green 225 at Pocono Raceway!
Stepping into Busch’s #54 car for Joe Gibbs Racing is the young phenom of Ty Gibbs. The 18 year old has already captured 2 victories this season and incredibly posted 6 top 5 finishes in his 7 career starts. Gibbs won the ARCA race Pocono in 2020 and competed in Friday’s ARCA race at Pocono as well. Gibbs had the dominant car but suffered damage on a late race restart which contributed to a disappointing runner-up finish. Still, rest assured Gibbs has the experience, talent, and the equipment to challenge Sunday’s Xfinity Series field in a big way. With that being said, Pocono is still a tough venue to capture victories. The 2.5 mile triangle will provoke plenty of strategy calls on pit road as teams fight for track position all afternoon and those strategy calls always seem to play a factor in the outcome at Pocono Raceway.
Oddly enough, there are not any former Pocono winners in Sunday’s field. In fact, all prior Pocono winners are compiled of current Cup Series drivers. The Xfinity Series did not begin competing at Pocono until 2016 meaning this will be just the 6th race at the Tricky Triangle in series history. For bettors, Austin Cindric and Ty Gibbs are the leading favorites going into Sunday. Cindric leads all Xfinity Series regulars with 3 victories on the season. Fortunately unlike most weekends, bettors can probably put some extra risk on the table this week for justifiable reasons. Not only can strategy change the outcome of Sunday’s event but there are some legitimate dark horses for the Pocono Green 225 which I plan to discuss below.
Betting Targets
Potentially my sharpest betting suggestion for Sunday’s Pocono Green 225 includes Justin Allgaier in the #7 car. I am slightly baffled at why Allgaier is listed as the 5th-6th betting favorite at near 10-1 odds. Allgaier has shown tremendous speed this year especially at the horsepower tracks. For transparency, the Xfinity Series has not competed at ovals over 1.5 mile in length this season aside from the superspeedways. However, if you look at some of the tracks like Atlanta, Charlotte, and Texas where there is a lot of on-throttle time, Allgaier has shown terrific speed. Personally, I think odds makers are looking at prior history a little too much this week. Allgaier’s best finish at Pocono is 6th in 5 career starts but that stat is slightly misleading. Allgaier won stage 2 in each of the last two races at Pocono and has been among the fastest cars in the field. As a result, I think Allgaier is an excellent betting option going into Sunday.
In all honesty, it would not be very surprising to see any of the top betting options win on Sunday. Cindric and Gibbs have been the class of the field often among the regulars. However, the Joe Gibbs Racing trio of Harrison Burton, Daniel Hemric, and Brandon Jones have all shown really strong speed this season. Burton and Hemric have often been at the front on the larger layouts. Personally, I absolutely hate considering Hemric as a betting option because his 0 for a million but he is still among the fastest cars in the field each week. From a sharp perspective, I believe Burton is the driver that is gaining momentum in the #20 machine. The #20 team struggled earlier in the year but has shown really strong speed in recent weeks. Despite crashes at Mid-Ohio and Charlotte, Buron has not finished worse than 6th in all races since early May.
A few potential H2H and/or fantasy options include the likes of Myatt Snider and Ryan Sieg from the 19th and 20th place starting position. Snider had one of his more impressive performances of the season last year at Pocono running inside the top 5 for the entire afternoon and finishing 4th. Snider has been struggling lately with bad luck, bad finishes, and overall just subpar performance. I think this will be an opportunity for the #2 team to turn things around and we can take advantage of the recent struggles because Snider is listed against bottom-tier drivers. Meanwhile, Ryan Sieg has shown really solid speed at the larger layouts this year and I feel like it has largely gone unnoticed. Sieg is usually a bottom-tier driver in the form of match-ups and perhaps that can yield an opportunity given the right pairing.
Drivers to Fade
For the last two weeks, I have advocated that the Xfinity Series has yielded very few outright fade candidates but rather I have listed drivers that are “overvalued” in terms of odds. I believe that same sentiment holds true again this week and from a handicapping standpoint I would add that Pocono is not necessarily a track to fade specific individuals because of the strategy game. This particular track is more about locking-in on the drivers that you expect to run well.
With that standpoint in mind, I believe the Kaulig Racing cars provide the most fade opportunity this weekend. It seems like the Kaulig Racing organization has lost some speed since the early part of the year. AJ Allmendinger is listed among the top favorites but has never been good at Pocono. Meanwhile, Justin Haley’s best finish on a traditional oval is 6th at Homestead. Haley has consistently been a 8th-10th place car at the larger ovals and remains overvalued on a weekly basis.
Draftkings Pocono Green 225 Optimal Lineup
2021 Pocono Green 225 Race Picks
*Final*
Ty Gibbs +350 (1 unit)Justin Allgaier +925 (1 unit)
Harrison Burton +1500 (.5 unit)
Match-Ups and Props
Justin Allgaier -115 over AJ Allmendinger (2 units)Michael Annett +135 over Josh Berry (2 units)
Myatt Snider -115 over Brett Moffitt (2 units)
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