Betting Recap: Look forward to Atlanta
NASCAR Betting Preview
By Jay Horne of NASCARWagers.com
Yesterday Chase Briscoe (+3000) delivered a stunning upset by earning his 1st career win at Phoenix Raceway in the running of the Ruoff Mortgage 500. Admittedly, Briscoe was never on my radar for Sunday’s return to Phoenix. The 2nd year driver out of Stewart-Haas Racing had a poor resume at Phoenix in the Xfinity Series and never stood out on the stopwatch in Saturday’s lone practice. Needless to say, NASCAR’s new realm of “parity” is here and perhaps we cannot rule out any long shots on a near weekly basis. Perhaps more than anything, the argument can be made to continue sprinkling these long shots into weekly betting lineups.
From a recap perspective, neither one of this weekend’s races went particularly well at Phoenix. We caught the winner with Noah Gragson in Saturday’s race but got extremely unlucky with our H2H match-ups and prop bets. On Sunday, we covered a couple H2H bets and one prop with Kevin Harvick capturing his record-tying 18th top 10 finish. Overall, we dropped a little over 5 units on the weekend and are currently down 16 units on the season. Truth be told, we have been in this situation often in the early parts of the year and I expect we will pick up the pace as more trendlines prevail.
Looking back at Sunday’s race, I don’t really have many regrets in the betting approach. Admittedly, I missed with Austin Cindric as I expected him to be among the top threats. I felt pretty comfortable with the bets of Blaney and Harvick who were inside the top 5 for the majority of the final stage. Like I said before, I think we have to start sprinkling in more long shots and potential value plays in the props department to bring value to the dark horses that are running well. Perhaps more so than anyone, the duo of Ross Chastain and Tyler Reddick deserve to be at the forefront of everyone’s betting radar in the weeks ahead. Both drivers have performed extremely well under this new package and perhaps are only a matter of time away from capturing their first victories as well.
Looking forward to Atlanta
Typically, Atlanta has been one of those driver tracks where I would take a talent like Reddick as a dark horse without any 2nd thoughts. However, that was the old rugged surface at Atlanta that provided absolutely no grip and required drivers to fight through every corner. This Sunday we will see a brand new Atlanta Motor Speedway for the running of the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500. The changes are inevitable with a completely new asphalt and raised banking to 28 degrees making Atlanta the highest banked track outside of the superspeedways at Daytona and Talladega. Despite a ton of controversy towards removing the “old” surface, the new Atlanta will likely bring a style of pack-racing to an intermediate style track for the first time in NASCAR’s history.
All of NASCAR’s touring series will be in action this weekend which means we will get all varying degrees of racing from the Trucks, Xfinity, and Cup Series. In terms of intrinsic expectations, I would imagine that Trucks and Cup Series drivers will be full-throttle on an every lap basis. In fact, the Cup Series is running the same rules package that they run at Daytona and Talladega this season. Xfinity Series drivers may have to finesse the car a bit more from the driver seat as they still have a considerable amount of horsepower. However, we could likely see a superspeedway style race in each series.
*Also check out the Weekend Schedule at Atlanta
Handicapping Expectations
I would be lying if I stated I know exactly what to expect this week. Obviously, we will have to be attentive during practice times for each series to see how early indicators play out for the style of racing we will see on Sunday. Again, I am expecting a more superspeedway style race. However, Atlanta’s racing surface has been narrowed and is much narrower than that of the superspeedways. Therefore, I don’t expect to see the huge lane momentum/movements that we see at the true superspeedway events. I believe we will see more drafting but relative to track position.
If we go back to the first race with the Next Gen Car at Daytona, all of the Chevrolet teams, specifically Hendrick Motorsports, had terrific single car speed. In raceday conditions, the Ford teams had a clear advantage in the pack-style racing that Daytona produced. My initial expectation is that the single car speed will be more relative this week but perhaps the Ford teams could have the long-run speed that puts them in contention as well. Overall, it is going to be a high risk week with perhaps the exception to the Truck Series race on Saturday. I’m expecting some advantage plays in that race. For the Xfinity and Cup Series, we will approach with the trilemma of caution, attentiveness, and a value-based betting approach.
