NASCAR betting: Will another winless driver get a victory at Texas?
While playoff drivers are the top four favorites for Sunday’s race (3:30 p.m. ET, USA), they’re followed closely by Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr. Busch was eliminated from the playoffs at Bristol on Sunday after an engine problem and Truex missed out on the playoffs (despite finishing in the top five in the points during the regular season) because he didn’t get a win.
Truex is still winless in 2022 but that’s not stopping BetMGM oddsmakers from putting him at +1000 to win the race. He has the same odds as Busch and Ryan Blaney. While Busch won on the Bristol dirt earlier this year, Blaney is also still winless. He made the playoffs despite not having a win because he was higher in the points standings than Truex.
Blaney enters the race without crew chief Jonathan Hassler because a wheel came off Blaney’s car on pit road during Saturday’s race at Bristol.
If a winless driver is going to get a victory, Truex and Blaney are the clear favorites to do that. Brad Keselowski and Ty Gibbs are the next winless drivers on the board and they’re all the way down at +8000.
We’re betting a driver with a win gets the victory on Sunday. And it’ll be a playoff driver. Who will that playoff driver be? Well, if we could tell the future we’d already be really rich by betting on sports. Here’s a look at what you need to know to bet the Texas race.
The favorites
Denny Hamlin (+600)
Christopher Bell (+650)
Kyle Larson (+700)
Chase Elliott (+800)
Kyle Busch (+1000)
Martin Truex Jr. (+1000)
Ryan Blaney (+1000)
Hamlin has three wins in 31 starts at Texas. His most recent win came in 2019, though he hasn’t finished any higher than ninth in the four races since. Bell has two top fives in three starts at Texas and was the first playoff driver to secure advancement into the second round. Larson won at Texas in the fall in his first race at the track for Hendrick Motorsports. Elliott has six top-10 finishes in 11 starts and has finished in the top 20 nine times. Busch has four wins, the most of any driver at the track and has finished in the top 10 in each of the last five races. Truex Jr. is winless at Texas but has 17 top 10s in 32 starts. Blaney is winless at Texas and his average finish at the track is skewed by 42nd- and 43rd place finishes in his first two starts at the track.
Good mid-tier value
Tyler Reddick (+1400)
Alex Bowman (+2000)
Reddick has the best average finish (8.7) of any driver at Texas but he’s only made three starts at the track. Bowman has two top-five finishes in 12 starts at Texas. We’ve got them both in the column here because they showed serious speed at Kansas two weeks ago.
Don't bet this driver
Ross Chastain (+1100)
We’re still fading Chastain in the postseason.
Looking for a long shot?
Chase Briscoe (+6600)
A playoff driver at these odds is worth the gamble even if no one at Stewart-Haas Racing outside Kevin Harvick has shown race-winning speed at intermediate tracks.
