The NASCAR Cup series travels back to the Pocono Raceway for the second of two 400-mile races this season at the northern Pennsylvania track. The BetCrushers team is coming at you with a brief track overview and highlights of some interesting matchups we have our eyes on for Sunday’s race. Our final plays will be solidified Sunday morning when most books have their head-to-head lines out.
Pocono Raceway Track Overview
Pocono’s 2.5-mile, three-turn track is unique on the NASCAR Cup circuit. All three corners are banked to different degrees and two long straightaways allow for drivers to hammer the throttle between turns. This configuration puts added stress on the racing teams to properly prep their machines, like nailing the left-side tire pressure to get the right amount of grip.
More details and the history of Pocono can be found on its Wikipedia page.
Experience is Key
Experience is important at this one-of-a-kind track, though the newer high-downforce car configuration was run at the Pocono 400 for the first time on June 2nd. This shrinks the experience gap slightly, favoring recent performances here over those logged in years past. Still, seasoned vets like Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick have a leg up on Cup newcomers like Daniel Suarez and William Byron in this regard.
Kyle Busch (+275 favorite) has owned Pocono recently. Busch took the checkered flag in 3 of the last 4 runnings, including the June 2, 2019 race. Mainstays like Kevin Harvick (+550) and Brad Keselowski (+550) also have strong track records at Pocono over the past several years.
Narrowing the Field
We love betting the NASCAR head-to-head driver matchups. One part of our process is to avoid backing heavy-favorites like Kyle Busch. He’s currently laying -155 against Keselowski, Truex, and Harvick in the pre-qualification odds. Is there value in taking the +125 with his competitors? Perhaps, though it is just as tough to put your money against Kyle.
Below are a few matchups on our early-week radar. Practice and qualification can say a lot about a team’s current form, so most of our plays come on race day after the dust settles from those sessions.
The Experience Gap: Jimmie Johnson (-135) vs. William Byron (+105)
Experience isn’t necessarily everything. Jimmie Johnson has raced at Pocono dozens of times but has really faded out since 2016. In his last 7 runnings here, he’s posted only 1 T10 and 3 other T20s. It looked like Jimmie was rounding into form this season since the Dover race but has fallen off hard in his last two.
Byron has run Cup races at Pocono only 3 times, yet he’s T10’ed the last 2. Stack him against Johnson over the past couple months and he’s been comparable, if not slightly better. I typically like to see how the cars run in practice and qualification before nailing down a matchup wager, but this gets an early-week play. Bryon should have an edge over the veteran, yet he is catching plus-money.
I handicap the Johnson-Bowman matchup similar to Johnson-Byron, except that you have to lay -125 with Bowman. If the number changes in our favor after practices, Bowman should be playable at -115 or better.
Time to Rebound? Joey Logano (-130) vs. Chase Elliott (+100)
Chase and the #9 team have been struggling since a 4th place finish in the June Pocono race. His hot run started with a victory at Talladega and essentially ended at Pocono. Chase has been a guy to bet against or avoid altogether in recent weeks with half of his post-Pocono results falling outside the T20.
Joey Logano has run fairly well this season, racking up 2 wins and 14 T10s. 2 of his last 3 races at Pocono were T10s but 4 of his last 6 were outside the T20. This is a wait-and-see matchup; if Elliott looks good through the week and Logano is somewhere around 15th, Elliott could be the play in this matchup. However, this call must be based on the #9 team’s performance in practices and qualification. If he continues on the same path that he’s been on or if Logano looks strong, I’ll happily back off.
Not Even-Steven: Kyle Larson (-115) vs. Erik Jones (-115)
Larson has a several-year head start on Erik Jones when it comes to Pocono Experience. Both guys have been racing fairly well in the last couple months, warranting the oddsmakers’ pick ’em on this matchup. However, Jones has run extremely well at Pocono; 4 of his 5 races were T10s, and 3 of those were T5s. Larson came in 2nd in 2018 but otherwise has been outside the T20 in 3 of his last 4 here. This may warrant a play on Jones before practice begins though some value may get sucked out of it if he looks stronger than Larson.
