NASCAR Odds, Picks, Predictions: Bet This Plus-money Matchup Between Teammates (Sunday, May 7)

Today’s AdventHealth 400 at Kansas Speedway should be a good one for bettors to target thanks to the abundance of relevant data to dive into.

Earlier this year the NASCAR Cup Series ran 400 miles at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, which is the track that correlates the strongest with Kansas over a multi-year sample size. Additionally, drivers were able to log 20 minutes of practice, which should be quite relevant and predictive given the similar weather conditions that both yesterday’s session and today’s race will have.

Using all that data, I’ve found a matchup bet I’m quite interested in.

NASCAR Odds, Picks for Kansas

Toyota looked to be the class of the field in practice with Denny Hamlin, Christopher Bell and Tyler Reddick logging the three fastest 10-lap averages. However, lurking behind them in fifth is their Toyota teammate – and a driver fresh off his first win in 54 races – Martin Truex Jr.

See, the Toyota trio ahead of Truex all made their laps in the second practice session, which seemed to be a bit faster than the first practice session. In that first group, Truex laid down some incredibly quick laps even as far as 19 laps into his practice run. Hamlin, Bell and Reddick all set their 10-lap average on their first through 10th laps. Truex managed to go even faster after his first two laps and set his 10 best consecutive laps on Laps 3 through 12.

Truex had such little falloff that he actually went faster than Reddick over 15 consecutive laps and closed the gap on Hamlin from 0.28 seconds per lap over five laps to 0.07 seconds per lap over the 15-lap run.

That’s the sign of a very fast long-run car.

Additionally, Truex was the fastest of the Toyotas at Las Vegas, and fourth overall in my FLAGS metric, showing he had one of the cars to beat at Kansas’ most comparable track.

All together, Truex should be at worst a coinflip against his teammate Christopher Bell, but FanDuel and DraftKings are giving us a very generous +130.

I’d back Truex here at any plus-money number.