| |
HOME
NEWS
LIVE ODDS
SITEMAP
LINKS
CALENDAR
|
Bet On Sprint Cup
November 30th Auto Racing news ... Bet On Sprint Cup at betonsprintcup.com
NASCAR: Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips at the Glen
2021-08-04
Just five races remain until the start of the Chase, with the next top scheduled for Sunday in up-state New York at Watkins Glen International. The Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips at the Glen, the second and final road course event of the season, is a 90 lap jaunt around The Glen’s 2.45 mile course, complete with 11 turns and banking between 6 and 10 degrees. Any mention of favorites for Sunday’s race would have to include Jimmie Johnson, the winner of the June Sonoma event, Tony Stewart, one of the hottest road course drivers of late, plus Marcos Ambrose and Juan Montoya, two drivers with a ton of career experience on this type of track with other series’. Not coincidentally, that group of drivers represents the Top 4 in average finish at road course events since the start of the ’07 season.
Tony Stewart is an obvious choice for favorite, as he leads the circuit in average finish at road courses since 2007, at 4.3. He is the defending champion of this race, and moreover, has actually won five of the last eight Watkins Glen events. It’s quite obvious that he prefers this road course over the Sonoma track. Still, he has scored a Top 10 finish in all seven of the road course events run in the COT. Jimmie Johnson hasn’t been recognized as a road course ace throughout his career, but understanding these tracks were one of his “weak spots”, he has worked hard at improving on them. The work paid off in June when he scored his first road win of his career at Sonoma. Over the last seven road events, Johnson has an average finish of 8.4 with four Top 10’s. However, he would not have won in June without benefitting from a caution flag minimum speed violation by Marcos Ambrose, who was on pace for a first ever win before the problem. Ambrose has a solid career road course average finish of 11.2 with four Top 10’s in five starts. Juan Montoya has been a bit better with six Top 10’s in seven starts and an average finish of 10.3.
Kyle Busch has to be given strong consideration as well as the series heads to Watkins Glen. He has been out front at the road course events more than any other driver since 2007, leading 155 laps. That is 66 more than Jimmie Johnson, and 81 more than Tony Stewart. He has two wins to his credit as well during that time span, with one of them coming at the Glen in 2008. Along with that, he owns four other Top 10’s in the seven starts. The other two drivers who figure to be in the mix are Denny Hamlin and Jeff Gordon, both of whom are the only other drivers not mentioned to this point with five Top 10’s in the last seven road course races. Although neither has a win in that span, Gordon has been out front for 51 laps, and Hamlin 36.
Beyond the seven drivers detailed up to this point, any other winner reaching Victory Lane would be a sizeable upset. Current Cup Series points leader Kevin Harvick is a possibility, with a win in 2006 here to his credit. Kasey Kahne could pull a surprise too, as he is the only other driver to have won a road race in the COT. Of course, it always makes sense to at least consider the drivers who have been running well of late, and that group would include Greg Biffle, last week’s winner at Pocono, Carl Edwards, the third place finisher a week ago, plus Jeff Burton and Clint Bowyer, Harvick’s Childress Racing teammates who seem to be getting hot at just the right time. As usual, there will be plenty of road course ringers on hand to substitute as drivers for their respective teams. The most notable one is Boris Said, who will be filling in for Reed Sorenson in the #83 Red Bull Toyota. Still, no non-regular driver has ever won a Cup series road event, a fact quite puzzling.
For every driver that loes the road course events, there is one that hates them. For Sunday, the list of drivers you might want to steer away from include David Reutimann, David Ragan, Jamie McMurray, Mark Martin, and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. Reutimann has an average finish of just 29.8 on road courses in the COT, without a single Top 10 finish nor lap led. Ragan & Martin share the same Top 10 and laps led deficiency and an average finish of at least 24.0. McMurray & Junior have combined to lead 69 laps during that stretch but neither has a Top 10 finish to show for it along with an average of 23.6 or worse.
Greg Biffle’s win last week enabled him to gain key ground in his quest to lock up a Chase spot. Sitting in 11th position, he is now 122 points in front of 13th place Mark Martin. Clint Bowyer is in between them, but 88 points behind Biffle. Martin is really the only driver who maintains a spot in contention for qualifying for the Chase, as 14th place Dale Earnhardt, Jr. is 129 points out of 12th place with Ryan Newman, Kasey Kahne, Jamie McMurray and David Reutimann all trailing him by less than 55 points. The top spot remains unchanged with Kevin Harvick holding a 189-point lead over Jeff Gordon. The big winner last week was Jeff Burton, who climbed two spots to 5th, while Kurt Busch fell a pair of spots to 7th.
This week’s qualifying is scheduled for 11:10 AM ET on Saturday. A recent statistical study by StatFox has revealed that the combination of qualifying and practice speeds has proven more critical at Watkins Glen than at any other track in terms of finishing in the Top 10. In fact, of the previous 23 races here, 12 winners have started in the top 3, and none have ever started outside 18th. The average starting position of the winner is 6.2. The average Happy Hour rank is 9.4. The green flag for the race drops at 1:18 PM ET on Sunday. As always, the StatFox NASCAR FoxSheet, Driver Pages, & Matchup Analyzer are here to prepare you for all of the race action…
NASCAR: Pennsylvania 500 (1:18 PM ET, ESPN)
2021-07-30
NASCAR continues its march towards the Chase when it travels to Pocono Raceway again on Sunday for the Pennsylvania 500. This will be the second time in two months that the Cup Series will have visited Pocono, following Denny Hamlin’s win in the June race. Hamlin just happens to be the defending champion of this race too, and accomplished the season sweep at this track in the 2006 season. Is it any wonder why he is the race favorite for Sunday at 4-1 odds according to ?
The rest of the favorites board includes Jimmie Johnson and Kyle Busch, at 6-1, plus Jeff Gordon, at 9-1. Of the three, none really commands any respect due to recent performance at this venue. Busch‘s career is actually littered with struggles at Pocono, as he owns just three Top 10 finishes in 11 prior starts. One of those came in June though, in his runner-up finish. Johnson has two career Pocono wins, but none since ’04. Gordon is tied with Hamlin at the top of the active career wins board, with four. However, since the advent of the COT, he has just a single Top 5 and average finish of 13.6 in five starts.
Hamlin truly is the man to beat this week, as he had led 179 of 404 laps in the last two races here and has been in the Top 15 in 403 of those, or 99.8%! He is the career average finish leader at 8.6 and owns seven Top 10 finishes in his nine starts. Oddsmakers might want to adjust their second tier favorites though, as several other drivers figure to have a better shot to win than Johnson, Gordon, or Busch. Instead you might want to consider Carl Edwards (20-1), Tony Stewart (10-1), Kasey Kahne (20-1), Juan Montoya (20-1), or Clint Bowyer (12-1). Edwards is second to Hamlin in laps led in the COT at 158, and has a win and average finish of 8.4 in those five starts. Stewart, like Hamlin, has three Top 5’s in those races, including a 3rd place finish in June. Kahne has a ’08 win and 145 laps led in the COT to his credit, while Bowyer is among the other drivers who seems to run out front at this track, evidenced by his 82 laps led. Finally, there is Montoya…victim of what seems to be the worst luck of any driver on these 2.5-mile flat superspeedway’s. He finished eighth here in June but has two DNF’s in the COT to go along with consecutive DNF’s at Indy.
A series sweep at Pocono is not uncommon, as the only real difference between this race and the June one figures to be that the track has heated up over the course of the summer. In addition, the schedule of recent years has this race always the week after the Brickyard 400, meaning a second consecutive race on a 2.5-mile flat track. While Indianapolis Motor Speedway's rectangular shape is significantly different than the Pocono triangle, many of the same skills are required to go fast on both. Drivers who ran well last week also should dominate the front of the pack this week. Of course, there always is the uncertain intangible of luck. Jamie McMurray (25-1) was the beneficiary of the luck last week, as he won the Brickyard 400 only after Montoya, who dominated most of the race, hit the wall late in a desperate attempt to get back out front after a miscalculated pit road choice.
Of the potential dark horses to consider, or those drivers who don’t boast the best Pocono stats, Kevin Harvick (10-1) finished fourth in the first Pocono race and enters the weekend with top-fives in his past two flat-track races and there is every indication he will add another at Pocono. Sam Hornish Jr. (25-1) is a bigger longshot but last year, he swept the top 10 in both races there and narrowly missed adding a third such finish with an 11th earlier this year. Dollar for dollar, he might be the best value in the game this week. Jamie McMurray is developing a reputation for stepping up for the big races after winning this year's Daytona 500, finishing second in the Coke 600, and winning last week's Brickyard 400. It remains to be seen if he can level out his results and also run strong on smaller stages, but considering that he earned a fifth at Chicagoland two weeks ago, he's well worth the risk. So far it's been difficult for McMurray to string together good results. This week, he enters Pocono with consecutive top-fives for the first time all season. Greg Biffle (20-1) is also noteworthy in that he had a strong third place run at Indy and may be readying himself for a late charge to ensure a Chase spot.
Other drivers you may want to avoid include Joey Logano (35-1), Kurt Busch (20-1), Dale Earnhardt, Jr. (35-1), and Mark Martin (25-1). Of the four, there is just a single Top 5 finish, belonging to Junior, in the five races run in the COT.
The action gets started with qualifying at 3:40 pm ET on Friday. Denny Hamlin started 4th in the June victory, and runner-up Kyle Busch started 2nd. In short, qualifying is very important here. In fact, of the last 16 races, six winners have started on the pole and six others were in the first three rows. Practice is also highly important, as the last nine Pocono winners have averaged a 5.0 Happy Hour rank with only one finishing worse than 6th in the session. Sunday’s race comes around at 1:18 pm ET.
NASCAR: Coke Zero 400 (7:30 PM ET, TNT)
2021-07-02
It’s had a handful of different names over the years, including Firecracker 400, Pepsi 400 and now Coke Zero 400, but Saturday night’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Daytona is always one of the best on the yearly schedule. This race is how NASCAR honors the 4th of July weekend, and it is well-recognized for fireworks both on and off the track. The combination of night racing, superspeedway action at the circuit’s most famous track, and holiday pageantry make the Coke Zero 400 “must-see TV”. On top of all that, Daytona is always competitive down to the final pass of the start-finish line, and while there are certain favorites who will be out front for much of Saturday’s race, underdogs are certainly capable of winning. Consider Jamie McMurray, winner of February’s Daytona 500, and owner of three straight Top 2 finishes on plate tracks. Oddsmakers show him at an intriguing 16-1 price.
There are a handful of drivers who have consistently set the pace at Daytona and Talladega since the introduction of the COT in NASCAR back in ’07. In fact, there are four drivers that have led over 200 laps in the 11 plate races run in the new cars. Those would include Kyle Busch (310 LL, 13-2 odds), Denny Hamlin (244, 18-1), Tony Stewart (242, 6-1), and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. (201, 10-1). Of the four, Hamlin and Junior haven’t registered a win in that span, while Busch and Stewart have recorded two each. Jamie McMurray is the only other driver with multiple plate wins in that time frame. Furthermore, Stewart, Busch, and McMurray make up the last five winners of this race, with Stewart having accomplished the feat three times, including last July. As you analyze the stats for the plate tracks, note that they can be deceiving, as Busch and Stewart, despite their lofty laps led totals and multiple wins, are tied for just fourth in average finish in plate races since October ’07, with 15.91. A driver is just as likely to score a Top 10 finish in these races as he is to wreck and DNF.
As I just indicated, average finish statistics at Daytona can be misleading. Look no further than the fact that the driver with the lowest average finish in his career here is Clint Bowyer (14-1), with a very modest 17.9. He only owns two Top 5’s without a win in eight career starts. Jeff Gordon (8-1) paces the field with six career DIS wins but has not reached Victory lane at this prestigious venue since February ’05. Therefore, with the favorites being recognized earlier, albeit some with less than favorite odds, are there any other darkhorses to consider? Of course, and I would start with Kurt Busch (8-1), Matt Kenseth (12-1), Kevin Harvick (13-1), and Ryan Newman (22-1), each of whom is highly regarded for his plate-track prowess. In fact, the driver with the best record during the past three years is Kurt Busch. He entered this year's Daytona 500 with a five-race streak of top-10s; better still, four of these were top-fives and that means he was in contention to win on any given weekend. He hasn't won on this track yet, but with three second-place finishes, he's come close. His willingness to push other drivers across the finish line is actually part of his strength, in fact, because it means he is less likely to get into trouble while trying to make an ill-timed pass. Kenseth, Harvick, and Newman have all actually benefitted recently from Busch’s help, each with a recent Daytona 500 win to his credit. Their timing has proven to just be a little better than that of Busch. Juan Montoya, David Ragan, Elliott Sadler, and Kasey Kahne are also capable plate racers.
You may have noticed that I’ve yet to mention the name of Jimmie Johnson, the four-time defending series champion and winner of the series’ last two events. The truth is that Daytona has been far from his best track with just one win, 59 total laps led, and an average finish of 21.2 in 16 career starts. oddsmakers don’t seem to be taking him all that seriously for Saturday, listing him at 10-1 odds, well below his normal standard. In the COT, his average Daytona finish dips to 23.6 and he’s only been out front only five laps in five races. Jeff Gordon’s numbers haven’t been strong either, as he seems to have lost some of the plate track touch that highlighted the early part of his career. In the 11 COT plate races, he has a win, but that is his only top 5 in that span with an average finish of 24.8. Martin Truex has been even worse, with an average finish of 25.0 in those 11 starts and just a single Top 10. Of course, you can’t talk about plate track racing without mentioning the name of Mark Martin, whose disdain for it is well documented. The stats reflect it too. Though qualifying very well (5.9 average start), Martin has been bumped back often, with an average finish of 22.9 in his last eight starts.
It should be a colorful, exciting, and patriotic event as always, as the Sprint Cup Series runs its 18th race of the season, reaching the halfway point. The Green Flag is set to drop on Saturday at 7:49 PM ET on Saturday night. As always, the StatFox NASCAR FoxSheet, Driver Pages, and Matchup Analyzer are here to prepare you for all of the high speed excitement…
NASCAR: Toyota/Save Mart 350 (3:15 PM ET, TNT)
2021-06-19
NASCAR hits the road for the first time this weekend, or more specifically, the road course, as the Cup Series takes on the twists and turns on Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, California. Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 is the first of two-season road racing events, races that seem to be generating more and more excitement each season. Once vilified by fans of the sport for the obvious differences from the schedule’s other races, these events have become widely embraced. Competition is fierce, there is plenty of beating and banging on the track at any given time, and the presence of road course “ringers” like Boris Said and P.J. Jones offer quite a changeup from the ovals. Still, even with the added talent and varied skills needed to win these races, it’s always a series regular that leaves with the checkered flag. The driver favored to do so this week is Tony Stewart, who at 5-1, is looking for his third win at Sonoma and 8th road course triumph overall.
There are several drivers who typically run up-front at Sonoma and Watkins Glen, the two road courses, and that collective group is reflected in the odds for this week. Besides Tony Stewart at 5-1, Jeff Gordon, Juan Montoya, and Marcos Ambrose are listed at 6-1, and Kyle Busch is 7-1. No one else is in single-digits. Stewart’s average finish at the two tracks since ’07 has been 3.7 in the last six races, all Top 10 finishes, and he has led 72 laps during that span. Gordon owns the most career wins and pole positions at Infineon, with five each. He is in a bit of a road win drought though, having gone 0 for 6 in the COT races since ’07. Juan Montoya has been very impressive at this facility, owning his only ever Cup Series win plus an average finish of 4.3 in three prior starts, despite starting with an average spot of 23.3. Ambrose, like Montoya, is a former road series driver, and thus is very comfortable at tracks like Sonoma. In his five road events in Cup over the last three years, he has three Top 5’s and an average finish of 12.5. He has yet to break into the win column though. Busch is the only driver other than Stewart to win more than one road race in the last three years, and he also leads the field with 155 laps led in that time frame.
Laps led are a very good indicator at road courses, since the laps don’t click away that fast and running out front is usually reserved for the best cars. In that sense, some of the other drivers you might want to consider for Sunday as potentially strong underdogs include the following, all of whom have led at least 30 laps in the last six road course events: Robby Gordon (51), Kasey Kahne (41), Jamie McMurray (36), Denny Hamlin (36), Jimmie Johnson (33), and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. (33). Of the six, Hamlin would be the least surprising winner, as he is red-hot of late, leading the series with five wins in 2010, and priced at a fair 12-1. Johnson is a season low 15-1, providing a good indicator of what the experts think of his chances, at least where winning is concerned. No one else in the group is better than 20-1, with Junior actually represented in the FIELD option for wagering, which in a group of 22 other drivers, would pay 10-1.
Some of the usual contenders that have really struggled on the road have been David Reutimann (32.3 avg. fin, 4 starts), Mark Martin (29.0 in two starts last season), Jeff Burton (24.2 avg. fin, 0 laps led), Kevin Harvick (23.0 avg, 0 LL’s), and Matt Kenseth (16.3 avg., 1-Top 10, 0 LL’s). All of these stats date back to the beginning of the ’07 season. Interestingly, Martin used to be one of the series’ top road course aces, however he seems to have lost some of that edge from taking the ’07 & ’08 seasons to run part-time, skipping these events. Also, with as sharp as the Roush Racing Team seems to be at tracks like Michigan, they have proven far from a contender at Infineon and Watkins Glen. In fact, Carl Edwards, on his best days, seems to be the only driver capable of running out front at any given time.
While the places to pass and speeds at this track are limited, the dramatic track change and the storyline of “hired guns” taking on series regulars normally makes for an exciting race. The entire weekend got started with qualifying at 6:35 pm ET on Friday. Starting position at Infineon used to prove more critical, but strangely, the average starting spot of the winner in the last five years here has been an unimpressive 17.0. Happy Hour rank has been significantly more important, with an average rank of 6.2. The race is scheduled for 3:19 PM ET on TNT Sunday.
NASCAR: Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips 400 (1:00 PM ET, TNT)
2021-06-11
The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series continues its summer tour with the first of two stops over the next eight weeks at Michigan International Speedway. The Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips 400 is slated for Sunday and a quick check of the odds board finds all of the usual top dogs expected to win. Jimmie Johnson is the official favorite at 7-2, with Kyle Busch next at 5-1, and both Jeff Gordon & Denny Hamlin the only other drivers in single digits at 8-1. Strangely, none of that quartet has won at Michigan since Jeff Gordon did so in 2001. In fact, he is the only one of them who has a win at this facility. Perhaps oddsmakers, or more importantly bettors, should take a closer look at drivers like Carl Edwards (20-1) Kurt Busch (10-1), or Matt Kenseth (15-1), more recent winners at MIS. Mark Martin (20-1), the defending champion of this race, could also be worth a shot.
The Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips 400 will be the first of two season races around the 2-mile oval in Brooklyn, Michigan. Considering that the other event will be just two short months from now, both of the races figure to have a big impact on the point standings as the series moves closer and closer to the cutoff point in the “Chase for the Cup”. Currently, Kevin Harvick (20-1) leads the standings by 19 points over Kyle Busch. The hot driver though is Denny Hamlin, who sits in third, 136 points back. Hamlin picked up his fourth win of the young season last week at Pocono. Again though, none of the three has ever won at Michigan and moreover, none has averaged any better than an average finish of 12.5 in the four COT races run at this track over the last two years. If there ever was a race where an upset winner could emerge this might be it. When you consider that Brian Vickers won in the most recent race here last August, the chances are even greater.
When looking at the potential contenders for Sunday, Carl Edwards is the top dog. He is at the top of the list in terms of career average finish (6.1), and average finish over the last two years (4.0). In his last four starts, he has won, scored three Top 5’s, and led 107 total laps. Matt Kenseth should also be given some serious consideration as well, as he is the only other driver with an average career MIS finish of less than 10th (9.9), and also has two Top 5 finishes in the last four races. Elsewhere, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Greg Biffle, and Jeff Gordon each also boast a pair Top 5 finishes in the COT. If you’ve noticed a pattern here, it’s that Roush Racing seems to have a good handle on what it takes to win at Michigan. You may have also noticed that the name of Jimmie Johnson has not been mentioned in the top finishing stats. That is because he has endured some bad luck at MIS of late, much like his recent 2010 season. Though he has led a dominant 356 laps in the last four races here, he has averaged a finish of 19.5 without a single Top 5.
So much of what happens nowadays in NASCAR hinges on which drivers are hot lately. As such, Kyle Busch, Kurt Busch, and Denny Hamlin have to be considered contenders on Sunday. Between the three of them, they have won six of the last seven races overall. They are also three of the Top 5 in the season standings. Of those, Kyle has the best recent resume at Michigan, with an average finish of 12.8 in the COT and 48 laps led during that four-race span. Hamlin has done reasonably well throughout his career, with an average finish of 13.3 but just 5 total laps led in eight starts. Kurt has two career wins at MIS, but those are his only Top 5 finishes among an average of 20.3 in 18 starts.
Michigan International Speedway is a 2-mile raceway known for its wide surface, which promotes three, and even sometimes four wide, racing. It is very similar to California Speedway, site of this season’s second race won by Jimmie Johnson, who held off the trio of Kevin Harvick, Jeff Burton, Mark Martin and Joey Logano. With this being the “sister-track”, expect all of those guys to be among the frontrunners at various times on Sunday.
Qualifying has proven important historically, with 57% of the modern era winners coming from the first two starting rows, however, seven of the last 10 winners, including Mark Martin last year (32nd), started outside the Top 10. In fact, Martin became the first driver to start worse than 28th and win. Practice in the COT era has been a huge factor, with the winner in the last four races averaging a rank of 2.75 in Happy Hour with three of the four ranking first or second. The green flag for the race is set to drop at 1:15 PM ET on Sunday.
|
|
|