2025 South Point 400 Race Picks

Date/Time: Sunday October 12th, 2025. 5:30PM (EST)
Where: Las Vegas Motor Speedway
TV: USA

On Sunday, NASCAR’s best returns to Sin City to kick off the Round of 8 in the Cup Series playoffs with the running of the South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Back in March, Las Vegas produced one of the biggest surprise winners of the season when Josh Berry won the Pennzoil 400. In that race, track position proved to be extremely important as 9 different drivers were able to lead a minimum of 10 laps when they could get out front. The game of track position will be in-effect again this weekend. However, the implications are higher this week because if any of the playoff contenders captures a checkered flag, they will be fighting for a championship at Phoenix!

Interestingly, Sunday’s South Point 400 will be just the 2nd race on a 1.5 mile speedway since the Coca Cola 600. I mention that fact because while the Cup Series did compete at Kansas just two weeks ago, these 1.5 mile intermediate speedways once dominated the Cup Series schedule. In those days, it made handicapping much easier because you could simply take those performance trends, apply driver attributes specific to the current track, and get a pretty good baseline for expectations. With the Next Gen Car and the lack of horsepower, all of these drivers are basically doing the same. So while performance/equipment still seem to trend, all of that can change with track position and clean air which makes these intermediate speedways as difficult as ever to handicap.

Despite the handicapping hardship, we should still be able to predict the drivers that deserve the most betting attention and hopefully identify a few sharp betting opportunities in the form of match-ups and/or props. The Cup Series has already held both practice and qualifying sessions which took place on Saturday. Fortunately, Saturday’s weather conditions were much different than what we are expecting on Sunday which means we should see some “comers and goers” throughout the field. Hopefully, we can identify a few drivers that should move forward and are perhaps flying a bit under the radar in hopes to cash a winning ticket at the betting capital of the world!

Vegas – Cup Notes

• Joey Logano leads all active drivers with 4 career wins at Las Vegas.
• Kyle Larson (3), Brad Keselowski (3), Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin, William Byron, Alex Bowman, and Josh Berry are all former winners at Las Vegas.
• Kyle Larson has 3 wins and 2 runner-up finishes in the last 9 races at Las Vegas.
• Christopher Bell has finished in the Top 5 in 3 of the last 5 races at Las Vegas.
• Ross Chastain has finished in the Top 5 in 4 of the last 6 races at Las Vegas.
• William Byron has finished in the Top 5 in 4 of the last 7 races at Las Vegas.
• Kyle Busch has finished 6th or better in 6 of the last 10 races at Las Vegas.
• Tyler Reddick has finished 8th or better in 5 of the last 8 races at Las Vegas.
• Denny Hamlin has finished in the Top 10 in 7 of the last 10 races at Las Vegas.
• Bubba Wallace has just two (2) Top 10 finishes in 15 career starts at Las Vegas.
• Chase Briscoe has just one (1) finish in the Top 15 in 9 career starts at Las Vegas.
• Kyle Larson (114.0), William Byron (111.8), and Ross Chastain (105.8) are the only drivers to produce a +100 average driver rating in the Next Gen Car at Las Vegas.
• Kyle Larson (113.9) and William Byron (102.0) are the only drivers with a +100 average driver rating over the last 5 races at 1.5 mile speedways (excluding Atlanta).
• The eventual race winner has started from the Top 10 in 10 of the last 11 races at Las Vegas.
• Chevrolet drivers have won 4 of the last 7 races at Las Vegas.

Practice Observations

Before I dive into practice observations, let me point out the fact that our dynamic averages, at the intermediate speedways, will be an important handicapping tool this week. While I am not going to take the time for the self-explanatory dynamic average rankings, I don’t want to forget to mention its purpose this week either. With that being said, practice observations are worth discussing even if we know that track conditions will be different on Sunday. In Saturday’s practice, Ty Gibbs posted the fastest lap of the session with a speed of 181.733mph. Gibbs was followed closely by William Byron, Chase Elliott, Denny Hamlin, and Bubba Wallace who posted the Top 5 single lap speeds.

In terms of consistency and potential race speed, William Byron was easily the class of the field on Saturday. Byron posted the best consecutive lap speed in every category. While Byron speed was really fast in the first 10-15 laps, Tyler Reddick, Chase Briscoe, and Ross Chastain were among other drivers that looked just as fast as Byron on the longer runs. With that being said, I would say that the majority of the Toyota teams looked strong on speed throughout Saturday’s sessions. The Toyota teams have been performing really well in recent weeks and it appears that they have brought strong speed to the track yet again. On the other side of the coin, I noticed that guys like Kyle Larson, Joey Logano, and Kyle Busch were among the notable drivers that struggled in practice. Larson was not necessarily “terrible” but far from the dominating speed we typically see from the Hendrick driver.

Betting Targets

Based on various handicapping angles, I have William Byron and Denny Hamlin listed as my top two drivers going into Sunday by a decent margin. Byron was terribly fast in practice and has been the best driver on the 1.5 mile speedways outside of Kyle Larson. As a result, I believe Byron deserves the notion as the outright favorite. Meanwhile, Hamlin has been performing really well and is clicking on numerous handicapping indicators. Interestingly, Hamlin and Byron are receiving similar odds to guys like Christopher Bell and Kyle Larson. While I don’t necessarily like the value towards the heavy betting favorites, Hamlin and Byron are definitely the best options among that group.

Outside of the heavy favorites, I believe Chase Briscoe, Chase Elliott, and Ryan Blaney are guys that deserve consideration for the outright victory. However, I think the betting value and similar upside for drivers like Tyler Reddick and Ross Chastain are much better betting options. Chastain and Reddick have both been really strong at Las Vegas throughout their careers and are hitting on several handicapping angles. In my opinion, the fact that Chastain and Reddick were both eliminated last week has provided a little extra value from odds makers and I will be glad to accept it. If you are looking for really deep betting value, AJ Allmendinger and Shane Van Gisbergen are drivers that are getting astronomical odds but have legitimate Top 10 upside which could yield value in prop bet formats.

2025 Draftkings South Point 400 Optimal Lineup

2025 South Point 400 Race Picks

*FINAL

William Byron +600 (1 unit)
Chase Briscoe +850 (.75 unit)
Tyler Reddick +1800 (.5 unit)
Ross Chastain +2500 (.5 unit)

H2H Match-Ups and Prop Bets

Ross Chastain -130 over Carson Hocevar (3 units)
William Byron -105 over Kyle Larson (2 units)
Tyler Reddick -110 over Joey Logano (2 units)
Austin Cindric -110 over Kyle Busch (2 units)
Shane Van Gisbergen +700 finishes Top 10 (.5 unit)
Ross Chastain +340 wins Group C (Logano, Wallace, Bowman)(.5 unit) *Caesars*
Number of Toyotas finish in the Top 10 over 3.5 (-150)(2 units) *Caesars*

Two Team Parlay

Denny Hamlin +450 wins South Point 400
Tyler Reddick -150 finishes Top 10
Risking 1 unit to win: +815