In a performance that looked like pure destiny, Tyler Reddick made NASCAR Cup Series history as the first driver to win the first three races of the season. The #45 team found their way to the pole on Saturday and executed one hell of a race to capture the checkered flag on Sunday. Reddick goes from a winless 2025 to already beating season win total on March 1st. Now we head to Phoenix Raceway for the 2026 Straight Talk Wireless 500 – a track where Tyler has come close to winning in the spring a couple times. But there’s a very strong group of contenders he has to beat out in order to claim four straight victories.
- Track type: shorter flat track
- Track length: 1.0 mile
- Laps/total miles: 312/312
- Stage lengths (laps): 60/125/127
Handicapping the 2026 Straight Talk Wireless 500
After chopping our early week matchups at Daytona and Atlanta, we fell to an unfortunate 0-2 at COTA. While the Chase Briscoe mechanical issue wiped out a very advantageous even-money position, the late boot to Chris Buescher sealed the deal on what was a losing proposition for most of the afternoon. All in all, our results for the road course contest were a mixed bag with some interesting tickets on the ledger. I bet you all noticed some of the very lopsided matchups that were very hard to pass up.
As for Phoenix Raceway, the ifantasyrace.com Similar Track Guide groups this 1.0-mile flat track with Gateway and New Hampshire as primary comps. That provides plenty of data points between two races per year at Phoenix and one each at the primaries. Throw in a little extra to chew on with the secondary comps at Richmond, North Wilkesboro, and Iowa – albeit at a lower weighting than the two primary comps. I’m still working with reduced weighting on current form for a few more weeks, which is why that third factor is not represented in the power rating plot below.
Joey Logano’s presence toward the top right is heavily influenced by winning two Cup Series Championships at Phoenix. Plus he has good race metrics in the last three races here. You also see Denny Hamlin and William Byron up there given their consistently strong work in the desert. But it’s Ryan Blaney, Christoper Bell, and Kyle Larson who have shown a little something extra at Phoenix race after race. That’s why these five top our pre-qualifying ratings. Plus they’re some of the strongest teams on the other shorter flat tracks.
Featured Head-To-Head Matchups
D Hamlin (-130) vs. C Bell (+100)
These two Joe Gibbs Racing teammates are clustered in the “elite” upper right corner of the plot for a reason. For a thorough breakdown of why Denny Hamlin and Christopher Bell belong up there, check out ifantasyrace.com’s Top Tier Elite Picks article. Simply put, both score very well at Phoenix and on the shorter flat track comps. In fact, their work on the comps score nearly identically in our framework. Yet our numbers give the #20 Toyota the pre-qualifying edge given both race quality and finishing position at Phoenix specifically. A small nod goes to Bell in the form department given how this team closed out the 2025 season. (Although the two superspeedway races starting this campaign beg to differ.) But current form is such a minor factor in our early season handicapping anyways.
Is there enough separation between these upper echelon drivers’ Phoenix profiles? Since prior seasons’ results weigh less the further they go back, Hamlin’s strong 2025 results here matter more than his less dominant work in 2022-2024. He had the best ride in the heartbreaking 2025 Championship race and delivered top five metrics in the last two spring races. In fact, the #11 has posted top ten performances in the last six Phoenix races. That’s a high bar to surpass!
Christopher Bell, on the other hand, suffered a blown rotor in the 2023 Championship race and was a non-factor in the spring 2022 contest. Otherwise, the #20 produced top ten race quality figures in six of eight Gen7 Phoenix races. Most recently, three of the last four race rankings were either 1st or 2nd. Those top performances happened to yield victories in the last two spring races.
WAGER: Bell +100 > Hamlin (Bet365)
Unless there’s a really good reason not to, a bettor has to fire with a several percentage point edge on an even-money proposition. (My view is not gospel as value is truly in the eye of the originator.) This is such a situation and I don’t see any red flags for Christopher Bell. We have to split hairs here given that Denny Hamlin is one of the toughest competitors on the track. But the price is certainly right to back the #20 JGR Toyota in this spot. The conversation is different when evaluating a -115 price on each side like Bovada has up right now.
W Byron (-200) vs. T Reddick (+155)
I have prioritized not burning up my account at Bet365 because they often offer unique matchups from other books. Some of them have very lopsided head-to-head matchup prices. A good example includes Mr. Three-peat Tyler Reddick as a huge underdog to one of the most complete racers in the Cup Series, William Byron. Ryan’s Early Week Quick Rankings has these two competitors’ finish projection ranges overlapping. That’s a decent indicator for the underdog with a big price. But you can see in the plot above that our evaluation has a larger spread between them.
I’ll argue that Byron has been the better racer at Phoenix, posting top five performance ratings in six of the eight Gen7 races. Three of those came as the second best in the field. Reddick has often been one step behind him despite a pair of P3 finishes in the 2022 & 2023 spring races. The gap narrows when evaluating comp track results, though Tyler’s “throwaway” 2025 season really put a damper on things. The case is slightly different going back to 2024 when he was neck and neck with William’s short and shorter track work.
Either way, Tyler Reddick is on an epic heater with seemingly endless momentum. Not adjusting too quickly to recent results – whether it be NASCAR or MLB – has kept me out of trouble over the years. But it has probably made me miss out on some juicy momentum spots. This may very well be one of them. My intuition as a sports bettor for close to a couple decades now rarely puts me on a position where the numbers say otherwise. I will act on that intuition from time to time when it says to lay off a bet though. Willy B is a big enough favorite by my process so I will stay on the sidelines here. If you are someone who likes to pony up cash to arb a matchup, this one has a 20 cent spread between another domestic book’s lay price and Bet365’s +155.
The Heat Is On!
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