NASCAR Pocono Odds, Predictions & Best Bets for Highpoint.com 400

Bookies

19 July 2023

NASCAR Pocono Odds, Predictions & Best Bets for Highpoint.com 400

NASCAR bettors are living in the summer of Martin Truex Jr.

The Joe Gibbs Racing driver scored his third victory in as many months in Monday’s rain-delayed event at New Hampshire, he’s moved to the top of the championship futures list and opened as the co-favorite to win Sunday at Pocono Raceway.

And more important for sports bettors, he’s been incredibly reliable as a option since his Dover victory on May 1, with just a few occasional bobbles over that span.

We backed Truex as a top-three option at +180 last week in Loudon, and he won the race. We took him top-three at +210 in Nashville, and he finished second. We took him top-five at +400 (yeah, for real) in Sonoma, and he won.

If there’s been a rub here, it’s the two times we most recently backed Truex to win, at Gateway and Atlanta—in the former, he finished fifth, in the latter he was running near the front before the rain threatened and jumbled everything up.

So yeah, you’d better believe Truex is in our portfolio this week at Pocono. He’s been winning races, he has bettors swimming in profit, and his week-to-week consistency has been unparalleled.

So grab your sunglasses and a frosty beverage, and let the summer of Martin Truex Jr. continue.

NASCAR Pocono HighPoint.com 400 Odds

NASCAR HighPoint.com 400 Betting Tips

Pocono has proven very hit-and-miss for Truex, where he won in 2015 and 2018, and has finished top-10 in four of his last six starts. Among active drivers, the standard-setter in Long Pond has been Denny Hamlin, who leads everyone with six career victories on the high-speed triangle.

Hamlin appeared to claim his seventh Pocono victory after crossing the finish line first last season—but he was disqualified by NASCAR because of illegal modifications made to the front of the car. Kyle Busch—also DQ’d last year after a runner-up finish—owns four Pocono victories, the most recent coming in 2021, while the disqualification denied him an 11th top-10 in his last 12 races in Long Pond.

After Truex, seven active drivers own one career Pocono win: Kevin Harvick, Ryan Blaney, Alex Bowman, Brad Keseloswki, Chris Buescher, Joey Logano and Chase Elliott. Following Hamlin’s DQ, Elliott was credited with the victory last year despite never leading a lap. In fact, Elliott hasn’t led a lap at Pocono since 2019, and he’s led just one over the past month.

Who might be a potential upset candidate? Buescher pulled at a shocker by winning at Pocono in 2016, but has exactly one top-10 there since.

His RFK teammate Brad Keselowski, third at Pocono with Penske Racing in 2021, is coming off his two best consecutive weeks of the season with a sixth at Atlanta and a fifth at Loudon (which we snagged at +275).

Bubba Wallace has recorded two straight top-10s at Pocono, while Daniel Suarez placed a DQ-aided third a year ago.

NASCAR HighPoint.com 400 Best Bets

Kyle Larson to Win

Odds:

Larson has recovered from his late-spring slump to post top-10s in five of his last six starts, the exception being the street race in Chicago. He’s led laps the last two weeks, though his strong Atlanta car was swept up in a crash.

Larson has never won at Pocono, but he’s been ninth or better in four straight races there, and twice been a runner-up. He’s also led laps in three of his last five Pocono starts, always a positive sign.

Martin Truex Jr. Top 3

Odds:

Truex’s 254 laps led at Loudon on Monday was further evidence of the exceptional run he’s been on all summer. No, Pocono isn’t his best track, and yes, it’s been a while since he won at Long Pond, even though his average finish in his last six Pocono races has been 9.1.

Taking Truex as a week-to-week top-three or top-five option has proven profitable, and we’re not stopping now, even if his value isn’t the best.

Brad Keselowski Top 5

Odds:

Speaking of value, there’s Keselowski, who is in the midst of the best run of his two-year RFK tenure. We’re hesitant to take him as a +3500 long shot to win, given that he complained after his fifth-place result at Loudon that the RFK cars didn’t yet have the speed to compete up front.

But we like what we’ve seen the past two weeks. And Keselowski feasted on Pocono in his Penske days, ripping off top-10s in 11 of 13 starts at one point.