What happens in Vegas… can be predicted in a TobyChristie.com article, right? That’s right; today, I am going to tell you three best bets that I feel will hit during this weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
These are bets that you should hop on before qualifying hits this weekend for the NASCAR Cup Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, as the odds could shift dramatically once the starting lineup for Sunday’s race is set.
1. Alex Bowman to win, +2000
These odds are insane to me.
Bowman currently ranks 10th in average finish (13.6) at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for current full-time Cup series drivers over the past six events, and two of the drivers in front of him only have one start to go off of.
Bowman also won the last race he ran here at Vegas (he missed the ’22 Fall race with a concussion; Noah Gragson filled in and still drove his car to an 11th-place finish). It is really rare to have a defending race winner at a non-superspeedway open up outside of the top ten in odds, so throwing a unit on Bowman is probably a good idea.
These odds are sure to get shorter after qualifying barring any issues, as Bowman has an average starting position of 9.8. Well worth the risk to hop on early.
2. Christopher Bell vs. MTJ, MTJ -110 (Draftkings)
I have no idea who made this line. Martin Truex Jr. isn’t just good at Vegas; he is unbelievably consistent. In the last six races at the 1.5-mile intermediate oval in Sin City, MTJ has just one single finish outside of the top 10. He has an average finish of 8.2 over that six-race stretch and his worst finish over that span is 20th, which was six races ago in the 2020 Spring race.
Bell meanwhile, has been pretty bad at LVMS. Bell’s average finish at the track is 22nd, and he has just two top 10s at the track in the same time frame.
Now, it is worth noting that one of Bell’s top 10s came in last year’s spring race, where Bell sat on the pole, led laps, and finished 10th. Even then, Truex still beat Bell by finishing eighth. Not to jinx it or anything, but Truex has NEVER lost to Bell in Las Vegas. So, at basically even money, I am hammering Truex.?
3. Denny Hamlin Top 5, +165
I will preface this by saying, Denny Hamlin and I have an awful betting relationship.
Every time I tell people to bet on him, he sucks. Every time I tell people to avoid him, he rocks. But, here I am, telling you to take Hamlin to finish inside the top five at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Hamlin has finished in the top five at LVMS in four out of his last six starts at the track. It’s incredibly important to note too; Hamlin had one of, if not the best, car in the field in the 2022 Spring race. A drivetrain failure would eventually knock him out of the race that day. Essentially, that was likely another top five that was stripped away from him simply because NASCAR and the teams were still working out kinks with the new Next Gen car.
I usually don’t like top-five bets; I feel like too much can go wrong in racing for them to be valuable. But, Hamlin has been so good at Vegas that it’s hard not to love this bet. If you need a reference for just how great the value is, Kyle Busch, the only other driver with similar stats to Denny at LVMS, is listed at -120 for a top five. There is no doubt it is worth a unit or two.
