NASCAR Betting Guide: YellaWood 500
Across the NASCAR betting landscape this week, we're seeing a big reaction to what happened in Daytona.
As you likely recall, in that one, a massive pileup due to rain took out a huge chunk of the field. It resulted in someone taking home almost $1 million thanks to a parlay of longshot top-10 bets.
Because we saw massive chaos there, sportsbooks seem to assume the same will happen this week. It's not an outrageous assumption, and those backmarker cars should have had shorter top-10 odds in the last Daytona race.
But the pendulum may have swung too far.
Even though I have a bunch of chaos baked into my model for this week, I'm suddenly showing value on drivers with relatively short odds. You could consider some of them the favorites to win, and I think they're at least a bit undervalued.
There is still value in the top-10 market, as well, and we'll get to that. But first, which bets should we make based on FanDuel Sportsbook's odds for the YellaWood 500 at Talladega? It starts with buying into last year's winner of this race.
Bubba Wallace to Win (+1700)
Bubba Wallace has developed a reputation for being one of the Cup Series' best superspeedway drivers. As mentioned, he won this race last year and has three career runner-up finishes at Daytona.
Thus, I assumed he'd come in as one of the favorites and be priced out of my range for betting.
That's not the case.
My simulations give Wallace 6.6% odds of going back to victory lane on Sunday. That's a full percentage point above his implied odds of 5.6%. I understand baking in randomness, but this is too long for a driver of his skill.
Talladega is typically a less bananas track because it's wider and handling matters less, so the cream has a better shot to rise to the top. That's a boon for Wallace, who has been among the sport's fastest drivers since the middle part of the summer.
Wallace's 45 team is in the owner playoffs, and with a road course looming next week, this is Wallace's best shot at moving his team to the Round of 8. I think he has the juice to get it done, and I'm more than happy to bet him at this number.
Erik Jones to Podium (+900)
Even with Erik Jones' win odds shortening to +2200, I'm still showing value on him there. I've bet Jones outright for five straight races, so why stop now?
But at FanDuel, specifically, Jones to finish in the top three is the market where I'm showing the most value is on him.
There, I've got Jones' odds at 17.0%, up from 10.0% implied. It may seem high, but it's rooted in what Jones has done on superspeedways this year.
Across five drafting races, Jones' 11.2 average running position ranks second in the sport behind just Chase Elliott. Jones was leading on the final lap in the first Talladega race, finished fourth in the second Atlanta race, and led 22 laps last month in Daytona. He has consistently been out front in these races.
If you can find lingering outright odds longer than +2200, I'm obviously in on Jones there. But there's a lot of value here, and I'm more than happy to take it and keep buying into a guy in the midst of a re-breakout.
Todd Gilliland to Finish Top 10 (+550)
As mentioned before, I care a bit more about equipment at Talladega than I do at Daytona. I'm not as into the pure backmarkers for that reason. But Todd Gilliland's teammate, Michael McDowell, has had speed this year, meaning Gilliland's car should be good enough to push for a top-10 showing on Sunday.
We've seen Gilliland perform well on the pack tracks this year; he just doesn't have the results to show for it. He had a top-15 average running position in both Daytona races, and he had a 17th-place mark in Atlanta.
The good runs aren't a surprise based on what Gilliland did in the Truck Series. In four Talladega races there, Gilliland had two podiums and three top-eight average running positions. My model puts his top-10 odds at 25.2%, up from 15.4% implied.
Ty Dillon to Finish Top 10 (+650)
For Ty Dillon, we don't need to dig into the lower series to justify a top-10 bet. His Cup Series record here does the job itself.
In his career, Dillon has 9 starts at Talladega. He has been outside the top 15 just twice, and one of those was a 17th-place run. He has five total top-10 finishes between Daytona and Talladega, meaning he has been inside the top 10 for 21.7% of his career pack races (if you include Atlanta this year).
We can compare that number to his 13.3% implied odds and see that he's a value this weekend. My model -- which doesn't account for most of that old data -- has Dillon's top-10 odds at 24.1% this week. If we think his teammate, Jones, has a shot to win, then we know the equipment's good enough. Dillon's a great longshot bet to find the top 10, even at a track where that's less common than Dayton.
