2024 Food City 500 Odds & Picks: NASCAR Bets from Bristol Motor Speedway

The World’s Fastest Half-Mile is ready for its riders as NASCAR goes green with its first spring concrete Bristol race since 2020 today. Let’s take a quick look at the updated Food City 500 Odds and make some bets.

2024 Food City 500 Odds and Picks

The sportsbooks really squeezed the pre-practice and qualifying outright Food City 500 Odds market as most of the perceived “competitors” for this week were all priced inside 14 or 12-1 odds. Now that cars have run through practice and set the starting grid with qualifying, this number has shrunk, but only a little.

We do have a new favorite, and that’s Ryan Blaney who, just like Christopher Bell last week for the Shriners Children’s 500, was clearly the best car during practice. Unlike the eventual winner in Phoenix, however, Blaney backed up that practice speed with a dragster during qualifying, putting it on the pole pretty easily. It’s Ryan’s 10th career Cup Series pole award and his first at Bristol Motor Speedway.

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Practice didn’t go without incident or the weekly storyline as has become the norm in NASCAR. Resin or “traction compound” was put down in the lower groove to encourage multiple lanes before practice. It didn’t last long, and multiple drivers complained that “marbles” (essentially tiny rubber pellets made from wearing tires) were building up in the resin, causing handling issues and sketchy conditions.

Others even mentioned how drastically the track changed from session to session, or even within a session as was the case for group B of practice. Just a couple minutes after firing up, Ty Gibbs hit the wall and brought out a red flag, resulting in everyone having to stop. When cars reemerged on track, they were significantly slower, and we’re talking multiple tenths from when they first started their session. We’re in for an exciting race that’s filled with some unknowns with this being the first springtime event here in the Next Gen car. So buckle up.

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2024 Food City 500 Odds

As mentioned above, there has been a decent shift in Food City 500 odds since numbers were posted prior to practice and qualifying. So here’s a glimpse at the updated outright prices from DraftKings Sportsbook.

2024 Food City 500 Picks

Austin Dillon -112 over Corey LaJoie (FanDuel)

Corey is one of my favorite drivers in the sport, and I especially enjoy betting on him at superspeedways, but Bristol just isn’t his thing. Dillon isn’t the greatest here either, but in comparison, he’s much better in the Bullring than LaJoie over the last 10 visits and it’s not particularly close.

Obviously, we’re talking about two cars that’ll probably be mixing it in the middle or back of the pack, so contact and wrecking are a possibility for both. But in a vacuum, this should have much shorter odds no matter the recent struggles of RCR and Austin Dillon.

2024 Food City 500 Odds: Bristol Motor Speedway Best Bet

William Byron Top 10 -135 (Caesars)

I’ll start by saying I’m not particularly high on Byron this week, but it’s not often you see his top 10 number this long, nor to even refer to any odds below even money in that manner. But in the case of William Byron, these are extremely long odds. He’s posted top 10s in three of the previous four visits to The Last Great Colosseum, and in four of the last five as well.

Byron is among NASCAR’s elite drivers, one of the best North Carolina NASCAR drivers, and sleeps and breathes inside the top 10 almost every week. Had it not been for the chaotic final stage in Phoenix last weekend, he’d probably be coming off a top 5 finish. With his practice and qualifying results this week, he would probably be closer to -200 in this market. I don’t normally bet placements in this price range, but I’m making an exception this week.