Best Bets for the Toyota 500 at Darlington Raceway (2020 NASCAR Betting)
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The NASCAR Cup Series season continues this Wednesday at Darlington Speedway. The sport returns to the same track that it raced on Sunday afternoon, and since some teams will re-use the same cars from the prior race, this one is easier to predict.
However, the weather will make things messy this week. There’s a near-guarantee for rain through to the weekend, and NASCAR doesn’t race at ovals when it’s wet. I expect that the race will run on Friday, and drivers will have to deal with a green racetrack again — just like they did last Sunday.
If you haven’t placed a bet on NASCAR before, you should check out my betting guide. Because NASCAR combines both driver skill and automotive power, my formula weighs a drivers’ career record at a track with their car’s recent speed.
Here are my best bets for the Toyota 500, whenever it runs.
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Past Performance at Darlington
Darlington is a unique track. It’s an egg-shaped, 1.366-mile course that features wide turns one and two and narrow turns three and four. There’s no other egg-shaped venue in NASCAR, so I’ll concentrate on track-specific stats. Here’s the same chart from last weekend’s column with updated numbers.
I’ll include all drivers with around a top-15 average finish. For context, I’ll also put Alex Bowman’s three finishes in his new Hendrick Motorsports ride on here, too.
| Driver Name | Avg Finish | Races | Wins | Top 5’s | Top 10’s | Driver Rating (Last 11) |
| Erik Jones | 5.50 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 107.40 |
| Tyler Reddick | 7.00 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 94.7 |
| Denny Hamlin | 7.60 | 15 | 2 | 8 | 12 | 107.97 |
| John H. Nemechek | 9.00 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 76.3 |
| Brad Keselowski | 10.92 | 12 | 1 | 4 | 6 | 101.73 |
| Martin Truex, Jr. | 11.20 | 15 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 99.15 |
| Kyle Busch | 12.00 | 16 | 1 | 4 | 10 | 107.08 |
| Austin Dillon | 12.29 | 7 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 77.02 |
| Ryan Newman | 12.68 | 22 | 0 | 7 | 13 | 83.86 |
| Jimmie Johnson | 13.27 | 22 | 3 | 9 | 12 | 89.26 |
| Kevin Harvick | 13.79 | 24 | 2 | 9 | 13 | 115.71 |
| Alex Bowman* | 14.33 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 90.86 |
| Chase Elliott | 15.00 | 6 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 86.65 |
| Kurt Busch | 15.92 | 24 | 0 | 4 | 10 | 95.33 |
Driver rating (which is calculated by using a driver’s finishing position, average running position, laps led, and lead-lap finishes, etc.) gives us a better picture than their raw average finish. It helps us to contextualize the one-race performances of Reddick and Nemechek, and it helps us to see Harvick’s dominance.
Harvick was the leader heading into last week, and he now leads in driver rating by almost 10 points! With Denny Hamlin, Erik Jones, and Kyle Busch all in the 107-point range, second place is much murkier. Hamlin’s two wins give him the edge in my book, but Jones’ inability to finish outside the top-10 is also impressive.
Brad Keselowski is the only other driver above 100 in this chart. He had a pretty solid performance going on Sunday, but he only managed a 13th-place finish. I’ll also give a hat tip to Truex, whose driver rating fell below 100 only after a reasonably solid sixth-place finish.
Three drivers who performed well last Sunday but find themselves toward the bottom of this list: Jimmie Johnson, Alex Bowman, and Kurt Busch. Johnson led early in the previous race, but then he wrecked himself before the end of stage one. Bowman the Showman ran a consistent race, turning his second-place starting position into a second-place finish.
Kurt Busch deserves a special shoutout here, as he’s scored top-10 finishes in his last four Darlington appearances. Over that span, he’s got a driver rating of 108.28 — good for second-best. And if you cancel out his two seasons in backmarker equipment (2012 and 2013), he’s got a driver rating of 100.96, which puts him up with Keselowski.
Recent Speed
Driver skill isn’t everything. Even the best driver can’t overdrive their car, so we need to evaluate their relative on-track speed. Ryan Smith, formerly of the Athletic, calculated speed rankings for each driver through the first four races, and they’ll be useful again this week. If you want to support Smith, you can check out his website (and Patreon) here. I’ll include each driver’s finishing position last Sunday for additional context.
| Rank | Driver | Average Central Speed | Finishing Position |
| 3 | Brad Keselowski | 5.00 | 13 |
| 5 | Kevin Harvick | 6.33 | 1 |
| 7 | Alex Bowman | 7.67 | 2 |
| 8 | Kyle Busch | 9.00 | 26 |
| 12 | Kurt Busch | 12.00 | 3 |
| 14 | Denny Hamlin | 12.67 | 5 |
Last Sunday made it clear that the Joe Gibbs Toyotas have lost a step. Yes, they posted three top-10 finishes, but they lacked the speed to lead even a single lap. That’s grim.
But as Toyota has fallen off, both Ford and Chevrolet have picked up the pace. Harvick dominated on Sunday by leading over half the laps, and Keselowski led 80 more — that’s 81 percent of the race! The only other guys to lead more than one lap were Hendrick Motorsports drivers: Bowman (41), Johnson (9), and William Byron (3).
So while it’s still safe to pick a Toyota to finish in the top-5 or top-10, I’m not comfortable playing them to win.
Betting Odds
Let’s take a look at the betting odds for our six drivers over at DraftKings Sportsbook.
| Driver | To Win | Top-5 | Top-10 |
| Kevin Harvick | +400 | -143 | -455 |
| Kyle Busch | +650 | +110 | -305 |
| Denny Hamlin | +800 | +125 | -250 |
| Alex Bowman | +850 | +133 | -235 |
| Brad Keselowski | +850 | +133 | -235 |
| Kurt Busch | +1400 | +215 | -159 |
Unsurprisingly, Harvick is the betting favorite, and I think his +400 line offers some strategic value.
Best Single-Driver Bets
Isaiah’s Pick is currently 1-0 on the season.
To Win: Kevin Harvick (+400)
It’s tough to bet against Harvick here. While the partially inverted starting order will put him in 20th place, he’s got both the car and the talent to pull off a win. This week’s race is 63 laps shorter than Sunday’s, but his Ford Mustang flashed both the short-run and long-run speed needed to win again. Harvick’s team proved that they could adapt to a changing racetrack on Sunday, and with the rain sure to wash away the rubber before the Toyota 500, that’s a big leg up on the competition.
To Finish Top-10: Kurt Busch (-159) — Isaiah’s Pick
Taking a top-10 line as my play of the week? It’d be cowardly if the line weren’t so good — you’ll make a 62.9 percent profit if it cashes. This bet would’ve hit in each of the last four Darlington races and in five of the past six. Kurt led 94 laps of last fall’s race, and although it took him some time to shake off the rust on Sunday, he steadily improved his position on his way to a third-place result. If you’re feeling lucky, take Kurt to finish in the top-5 at +215.
Best Prop Bets
Manufacturer of Race Winner: Chevrolet (+190)
Yes, I picked Harvick to win this race. But there’s no other Ford driver I feel comfortable putting money on to win, and I can see a handful of Chevrolet drivers (Bowman, Ku. Busch, Johnson) leaving here with the checkered flag. Chevrolet actually has the longest odds of any manufacturer to win this race, but only Chevrolets and Fords led any laps on Sunday. You can make this bet even safer by…
Manufacturer of Race Winner: Chevrolet (+190) AND To Win: Kevin Harvick (+400)
Adding To Win: Kevin Harvick to the other side. I like this bet for two reasons: first, I want to bet against Toyota this week. They did not seem prepared for Sunday’s race, and I don’t think they’ll have enough time to recover. Second, I just don’t see a Ford driver other than Harvick getting the win. Keselowski looked great in clean air, but terrible when he was in traffic, and no other guy in the Ford camp was that competitive.
| Side of the Bet | Units | Total Bet | Odds | Total Payout | Total Profit |
| Chevrolet (Manu.) | 5 | $5.00 | +190 | $14.50 | $6.50 (81.25%) |
| Harvick (Driver) | 3 | $3.00 | +400 | $15.00 | $7.00 (87.50%) |
As you can see, the 5-to-3 unit ratio gives you a reasonably even payoff on both sides of this line. You get to cover more than half the field with this bet, and you’re still poised to make a nice return if it hits.
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Isaiah Sirois is a featured writer at BettingPros. For more from Isaiah, check out his archive and follow him @is_sirois.