A long shot won last week at Talladega, just not the one in the article. If the rain clouds would have arrived a couple laps sooner, then the Stenhouse +3500 pick would have paid handsomely. Alas, no one can predict the carnage at a plate race and no one can predict mother nature. This weekend’s predictions should be a lot more straight forward, but mother nature and NASCAR’s recent tendency to turn road course races into the closest thing this side of Mario Kart, could open the door to another long shot winner.
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Kyle Larson to Win (+450)
There is a reason why Larson is featured in this article nearly every week. Larson is the Michael Jordan of NASCAR. He has been the best driver with the best car at every track in ever racing package. This is not hyperbole, the stats are undeniably on the side of Kyle Larson.
Going into this season, Larson was consider a good road course racer, but he was not a part of the elite tier. The same could have been argued about Larson at other tracks in other racing packages, but it has now become clear that he was being held back by his Chip Ganassi equipment. He has taken a giant leap forward at every track this season, but for brevity’s sake, we will only focus on the road courses.
Larson nearly won the inaugural Roval race in a CGR car in 2018, but a chaotic restart in stage 3 closed his pathway to Victory Lane. Before this season, that was extent of Larson’s excellence at road courses. Since joining Hendrick Motorsports — home of the current king of road course racing, Chase Elliott — Larson has the highest 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) at the road courses. He had a perfect rating at Indy and Sonoma, 97/100 at Watkins Glen, 95/100 at COTA, 87/100 at Road America and 82/100 in the first road race of the season at Daytona. The two road races that Larson won — Sonoma and Watkins Glen — are tracks where he had never run well before. Other than Daytona, Larson could have swept the road course races this season — he’s been that good.
Christopher Bell to Win (+1500)
His win at the Daytona Road Course in February may come as a surprise to some, but it shouldn’t. Bell won at Road America in the Xfinity Series and he nearly won the Roval race last season driving the auxiliary JGR Toyota for Leavine Family Racing. Bell ran the seventh-most laps inside the top 5 (33%), eighth-most laps inside the top 10 (57%) and led six of the 109 laps in the 2020 Roval race. The car that he will be driving at the Charlotte Roval this season finished third with Erik Jones behind the wheel in 2020, and has been a regular top-10 road course car since 2018.
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Chase Briscoe (+3500)
Everything checks out. Briscoe is a top notch road course racer and the No. 14 SHR car has been a strong road course car in the past. Last season, Clint Bowyer had a chance to win the Roval race in this car, but a four-tire pit stop did not work out in his favor. He was buried in traffic on the subsequent restart and when the inevitable chaos ensued, he suffered nose damage and lost power steering. Remarkably, he was still able to salvage a top-10 finish — a testament to the driver and the car.
Briscoe is not much of a downgrade at road courses. The jury was still out on his road course racing expertise heading into his first season in the Cup Series. Asterisks clouded his road course wins in the Xfinity series. His 2018 Roval win was the result of being a part-time driver that could manipulate the stage rules in his favor and his 2020 Indy GP wins was greatly influenced by NASCAR officials leveling draconian penalties on the two favorites mid-race. Nonetheless, he made the turns that he had to make, limited his mistakes and won those races. He hasn’t won a Cup Series road race, but he has made turns that he’s had to make and he’s limited his mistakes — three road course top-10 finishes (COTA, Road America and Watkins Glen).
Michael McDowell vs Chris Buescher — Michael McDowell (-115)
This pick is weather dependent, but where it stands right now, we’re looking a rainy weekend in Charlotte — it always rains for the first two weeks of October in the Piedmont. McDowell knows how to race in the rain and in slick conditions, and Buescher does not. If it’s raining, then this is nearly a lock. Last season, the Roval opened in wet conditions, and McDowell quickly raced from 31st to 15th. Meanwhile, Buescher spent the wet, first stage barely hanging on to 25th place. This season at COTA — in a monsoon — McDowell raced from 23rd to fourth in three laps and finished seventh. Busecher finished 13th, but his average position was 16th.
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