The rich keep getting richer. Kevin Harvick held off a fierce bid from Kyle Busch to notch his ninth win of the 2020 season last weekend at the Bristol Night Race. Four drivers’ Championship hopes were crushed, but there isn’t much time for the survivors to catch their breath because the NASCAR Playoffs Round of 12 starts at Las Vegas on Sunday!
The general feedback on last weekend’s race was less than great, probably due to the lack of cautions and restarts. Not that you should expect superspeedway-style carnage at Bristol, for that matter. The lack of yellow flags led to long runs that buried most of the field at least one lap behind the leaders. That’s what happened to both Joey Logano and Chase Elliott – my matchup bet combatants. Logano finished two laps behind, due in part to a tire issue that caused an early pit stop before a caution. I won’t say that’s what caused Joey to lose to Chase since Elliott was faster overall. Despite losing that +130 bid, Clint Bowyer did his thing and finished as the 6th and final driver on the lead lap. Clint was quietly strong and delivered us a dead-even 1-1 chop in Thunder Valley. No harm, no foul.
Oh yeah, ICYMI, MJ is now in the NASCAR game:
Vegas, Baby!
My betting failures the last couple weeks directly resulted from backing Joey Logano in matchups. Don’t get me wrong, Joey raced decently but I picked the wrong drivers to pit him against. I’m not too bent out of shape, considering my combined cards went 2-2 for the tiniest bit of profit. I digress. When it comes to winning at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, respect is due to the #22 Penske Ford. Logano and his team won the Pennzoil 400 the last two springs and has Top 10 finishes in the last nine Vegas races.
Logano’s teammate Brad Keselowski gets the Mr. Consistency award at LVMS with ten Top 10 finishes in a row here. The 3X Vegas winner finished no worse than 7th since 2012 and sits comfortably in 3rd place in the playoff standings. Defending South Point 400 winner Martin Truex, Jr. scuffled a bit in the Round of 16, though I doubt many expected too much out of him at Bristol. MTJ has a pair of wins here and really needs a big race this weekend to avoid losing ground to the bottom half of the playoff field.
Shaping the Round of 12
The Round of 12 starts in Las Vegas Sunday evening and is followed by Talladega and the Charlotte Roval. Talk about a whirlwind of travel and track configurations! Chase Elliott has his sights set on repeating at the Roval to stay in the Championship hunt since Vegas has not been particularly kind to him. Talladega is a friend of very few, which means a ton of pressure will be on the playoff teams sitting behind Denny Hamlin to stay afloat when the field is cut again.
Despite Top 10 outings in all three Round of 16 races, Kyle Busch is faced with the reality of being eliminated at the Roval in a few weeks. In fact, both of the Las Vegas-born Busch brothers are in serious danger of the upcoming cut to twelve contenders. The bad news for the Busches is that neither have had much success here in recent years. Kyle’s last two Vegas Cup races were outside the Top 10 after a few seasons of good runs in the desert. His falling just short of Kevin Harvick last week at Bristol may have been his best shot to jump several positions in the standings. I’m not counting Busch out, but he has a massive uphill climb ahead of him.
The BetCrushers Betting Card
We lost one of our best NASCAR betting accounts this week when 5Dimes cut off US customers on Monday. They were early to post a solid matchup menu that paired well with BetRivers’ placing markets. Now I am relying solely on the latter for their mid-week betting menu. As a handicapper, I am constantly forced to make adjustments. This is a macro level shift I must make to continue to squeeze as much value as possible out of the early markets.
The Round of 12 leads off at Las Vegas where a who’s-who of strong drivers atop the opening odds board. Our good friend @NASCARstyleodds says this is a Ford track and I cannot disagree. Ford has the upper hand in the top slots on the board, but don’t sleep on the Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas. Truex, Hamlin, and Kyle Busch all opened at 10/1 or shorter. There’s a significant drop-off from Chase Elliott at 11/1 to Aric Almirola at 25/1, indicating a wide gap between contenders and pretenders this weekend in Las Vegas.
Austin Dillon -122 vs. Clint Bowyer
Oh, how fickle money can be. Clint Bowyer is the reason why I walked away from Bristol with no damage done to the bankroll. This week, however, I’ve put the fade on Clint. Austin Dillon is anything but an ace at Las Vegas, but Bowyer is markedly worse. I cannot give either driver a significant advantage in terms of current form, as both are running well in the early portion of the postseason.
As mentioned earlier, Clint scored us a Top 10 win last week by being the 6th and final driver on the lead lap. I expected a big night from him and he delivered. This came on the heels of back-to-back 10th place finishes at Darlington and Richmond. Dillon’s 12th at Bristol was in line with expectations, but his work in the two races before that resulted in career-best finishes on those tracks. Now AD returns to Las Vegas where he posted another career-best this spring in 4th.
The Las Vegas Edge
Austin Dillon’s February result was an anomaly, considering that his 5th place finish in 2016 was the only other time he cracked the Top 10 here. That Top 5 result in the 2020 Pennzoil 400 may be a bit misleading due to the late yellow shenanigans, though you have to respect the fact that he made his way up there after starting in 21st. Since breaking through here in 2016, Dillon has finished 13th or better in five of seven races.
In this same period, Clint Bowyer has pretty much done the opposite. He’s finished better than 14th in just two of those seven contests (10th, 12th). Clint wasn’t much better before 2016 either, although his three career Top 10s at LVMS came in those early years. Even if you back out Bowyer’s 22nd in 2016 that occurred prior to joining Stewart-Haas Racing, Dillon has outraced him four times in the last six races. In the ten Las Vegas Cup races that they both raced in, Austin beat out Clint eight times. Both drivers may be running well in the postseason, but Austin Dillon holds a distinct advantage over Clint Bowyer making AD a prime target to lay -122 behind in this matchup Sunday evening.
The Stakes are High
Once again, Yanni crushed NFL props in Week 2 and cranked out a 5-0 main betting card. Things are just heating up in the NFL and I’ll keep the race handicaps rolling through Phoenix. Be sure not to miss any of our football betting advice or NASCAR features through the end of the season! Connect with us on Twitter or subscribe below for inbox alerts:
