NASCAR Betting Guide: Go Bowling at the Glen
It feels good to be back.
NASCAR returns off its break for the Olympics at the fifth road course event of 2021, and betting outright road courses has been boring for a while. Chase Elliott has won 7 of the last 12 road courses races, including each of the last two at Watkins Glen, but there are signs of life throughout the field that competitive challengers will be present in New York this weekend. There are plenty of betting props that are particularly interesting, as well.
Without further delay, let's examine the value points to attack for Sunday's event.
Kyle Larson to Win (+420)
Chase Elliott is +200 to win, so there's not much value to be had in betting on the 2020 champ to take the checkered flag on Sunday. The +200 line is an implied probability of 33.3%, and Elliott wins in the simulations from our Jim Sannes just 12.7% of the time.
Elliott -- perhaps surprisingly -- trails Kyle Larson, who wins in Sannes' simulations at a rate of 12.8%. That does not leave a ton of value in this betting number for Larson, either, but if the action is a bet to win, Larson is a much better value than Elliott.
Larson's finishes have not mirrored his seventh-place average running position across all 2021 road courses, which includes a win at Sonoma in June. Larson would have also likely won at COTA had the rain not come and forced Elliott, his teammate, to pit road. In terms of pace, Larson has been step for step with Elliott, and Watkins Glen was Larson's best road course statistically before his layoff, as he posted a pair of top-10 average running positions and finishes with his old Ganassi team.
Look for Larson, the championship favorite, to make plenty of noise this weekend.
Joey Logano to Finish Inside The Top 3 (+320)
In betting and daily fantasy, Logano is seen as a tier behind several of his competitors, but Logano has been right there with any driver in the sport on road course events this season due to a combination of his comfort as a driver as well as his team clearly emphasizing the 750-horsepower package that is used at all road course events.
Logano has a 9.33 average running position on road courses this season, which trails only the aforementioned Elliott and Larson, but both of those drivers have failed to finish inside the top-20 in at least one event. Logano's worst effort was 14th at Road America, where he also carried a 13th-place average running position.
At Road America, Logano had never seen the configuration before he arrived. At Watkins Glen, Logano already has a storied past here, with a win in 2015 and runner-up finish the following year.
There is plenty of inherent value on Logano having the sixth-longest odds to finish on the podium Sunday despite having the third-best average running position and finish on road courses this year.
Kurt Busch (+220) Over Alex Bowman, Ryan Blaney, and William Byron
FanDuel Sportsbook's Group 2 betting pool is an interesting mix of 2021 winners, but the results of these guys on road courses this season have not been particularly close.
Kurt Busch trails only Larson, Elliott, and Logano in terms of average running position on road courses this season (9.83), and he has three top-six finishes to show for his efforts. That was capped by his best finish of fourth at Road America in July. He likely would have added a fourth top-10 finish if not for a crazy hydroplane just before the race was cancelled in Austin.
The rest of the drivers in this tier simply have not shown the kind of upside Busch has. Bowman's best road course finish of 2021 was 8th at COTA, and the other two drivers have not bested a 10th-place effort.
Busch has been running regularly above the ceiling finish of the rest of his tier, which attaches plenty of value to his +220 odds to score the best finish in this group. Those are the shortest odds in the group, but the 31.3% implied probability of the +220 line seems too low.
Austin Swaim is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Austin Swaim also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username ASwaim3. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his personal views, he may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his personal account. The views expressed in his articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.
