When you’re hot, you’re hot. Not only did the Best Bets article nail the winner, again, but the secondary pick to win finished second. Also, Matt DiBenedetto easily beat Chastain in their matchup prop, but the week was not perfect because Christopher Bell finished third about three feet ahead of Brad Keselowski. Any way you slice, the analysis and predictions are locked in.
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Kyle Larson to Win (+240)
Fast cars and good drivers win races, right? We’re picking Larson again, but don’t worry. If you’re afraid that this article is just blind Kyle Larson plays every week, then rest assured, next week at Martinsville, he will not be a play. However, this week is another 550 package race, so Larson will be the man of the hour.
For those that scoffed every time the Best Bets and Fantasy Rankings article referred to Kyle Larson as the Michael Jordan of NASCAR, how are you feeling right now? Larson won his third road course race two weeks ago and his fourth 550 package race last week (including his $1 million All Star Race win). He also has high horsepower wins at Bristol and Nashville, if you’ve lost count (sort of like how some people forget how many championships Michael Jordan won).
Let’s interrupt this schadenfreude victory lap and look at some actual laps. Stop me if you’ve heard this before, Larson should have won the first Kansas race. Despite starting 32nd (wreck the week prior at Talladega), Larson led the most laps (132), was inside the top 5 for 220 of the 267 laps and recorded the most fast laps (67). He was cruising his way to victory after passing Denny Hamlin late in stage 3, but Hamlin got into the wall as he was passed, and NASCAR quickly threw the caution flag despite not calling for a yellow earlier in the race for similar but more severe incidents. From there, the race unfolded just as NASCAR likes, a bunch of crazy restarts and wrecks. A perfectly exciting race was turned into NASCAR’s modern pleasure — demolition derby — and Larson got collected in the chaos. If this race is shenanigan-free, then it should be another easy win for Larson.
Brad Keselowski to Win (+1400)
Larson wins this race fair and square, but who thinks this race will be fair and square? The drivers don’t want it. NASCAR doesn’t want it. Some fans are probably tired of Larson winning all of the time and stinking up the show. The good news is that all of said parties can get what they want rather easily. NASCAR just needs to cook up a caution with 30 laps remaining and the drivers will do the rest (see Kansas spring race).
Who will emerge from the chaotic restarts at Kansas? Why not Keselowski? Last week at Texas, Keselowski survived the restarts and finished a couple car lengths behind the winner Kyle Larson. In the first Kansas race, Keselowski survived the restarts and finished third. In that race, he ran the third-most laps inside the top 5 (180). This is a critical point. In order for a driver to steal the win away from Kyle Larson, then they have to be within striking distance.
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Brad Keselowski vs Joey Logano - Brad Keselowski (-120)
This seems like a mistake. When the Sportsbook is this far off, it’s always good to go back through the data and make sure that it’s the Sportsbook that is wrong. Joey Logano has been terrible in the 550 package this season, and last week it got worse when his engine died on lap 300 of 334. His Real Rating (my own statistical creation that weighs a driver’s average position along with the amount of laps led and laps driven inside the top 5, top 10, top 20, top 25 and top 30) in the 550 package is 69/100 (12th), but his actual finishes are worse — his average finish of 20th ranks 21st.
Real Rating is a much more reliable number for predictive purposes, but even with the better number, Logano does not compare favorably with Keselowski’s 77/100 (eighth). The first Las Vegas race was the only time that Logano has been above a 75/100 (76). Keselowski has topped that number seven times. If his 41/100 at Atlanta is dismissed (significant damage in that race), his average rises to 83/100, which would be the sixth-best Real Rating.
Group F Winner - Michael McDowell (+340)
This is an ugly group (Ricky Stenhouse Jr. +250, Bubba Wallace +250 and Cole Custer +250), so why not roll with the driver with the best payout? Stenhouse and Wallace have a long history of not finishing races, in fact they both wrecked in the same incident last week. Wallace also wrecked in the first Kansas race, while Stenhouse tried to play games and run long to push his inferior equipment into contention, but it did not work when NASCAR refused to throw the caution flag for a tire sitting in the infield. As for Cole Custer, he’s Cole Custer, the son of Joe Custer, President of Stewart-Haas Racing. With an unfair advantage, Cole Custer won several Xfinity races. On an even playing field in the Cup Series, he’s been terrible — 39/100 Real Rating in the 550 package.
It might seem like McDowell is the play because the competition is so bad and unworthy of their odds. However, McDowell is the play because he is the best driver. There is no doubt that McDowell’s equipment is worse than Custer’s SHR car and Wallace’s quasi-JGR car, and maybe even the JTG Daugherty car that Stenhouse drives. Even with this disadvantage, McDowell has a comparable 550 package Real Rating (48/100). Stenhouse has the best with a 59, but he’s been below 50 in each of the last three races and Wallace is barely above McDowell with a 50. All of this should come as no surprise being that Front Row Motorsports have been fairly strong in the 550 package since the low horsepower package’s inception in 2019.
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