Top 3 NASCAR Betting Picks for Saturday (Richmond Night Race)
The NASCAR Cup Series heads to Richmond Speedway this weekend’s Federated Auto Parts 400. The Virginia track is a three-quarter mile, D-shaped oval, and that means NASCAR will bring its new short track package to the event. We’ve already seen some great finishes with it this year, so I’m looking forward to another exciting race on Saturday night.
Last week’s picks went a perfect 3-0, and I’m hoping to keep the money flowing this weekend.
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To Finish Top-5: Martin Truex Jr. (-155)
Going into Darlington, Truex had not finished worse than fourth since July’s Texas race. He looked like he would keep that streak up until the final few laps of the race — until he got into the wall when racing Chase Elliott.
You should expect Truex to get back on track this weekend. He’s been good in the short track package this summer. He won at Martinsville, and he posted a pair of runner-up finishes at Dover.
He’s also a very good driver at Richmond. Truex has led at least 100 laps in every race since September 2017, and he’s on a two-race winning streak at the track. While I don’t know if he’ll get back to victory late on Saturday, he’s a sure thing to compete for a top-five, which makes this line a relatively safe option.
To Finish Top-5: Kyle Busch (+105)
I’m doubling-up on Toyota drivers for the top five this weekend. While Truex has an impressive resume at Richmond, it’s nothing like what Kyle Busch has done. In his 29 career Richmond races, he has earned a top-five result in 18 of them — that’s a 62 percent hit rate on this line.
To put Busch’s dominance in perspective, five drivers in Saturday’s field have attempted more races than him, and none of them have that many top-fives. Busch’s average finish (6.79) is two and a half spots better than the next driver, Denny Hamlin (9.15), and Kevin Harvick (9.82) is the only other driver with an average finish below 10.
Oh, and he also has six wins here.
While Busch has struggled this season, Richmond is a great opportunity for him to get out of his funk. I would smash this line while you can still get it in the plus money.
To Finish Top-10: Clint Bowyer (+100)
Bowyer has been good, not great this season, and I expect him to stay consistent on Saturday. He may only have eight top-10 finishes through 27 races, but three of those have come in the short-track package. That makes him three-for-seven in earning top-10s at them on the year.
The Ford driver is also pretty good at Richmond. Bowyer is one of only nine active drivers to have earned four or more top-10s in the last six Richmond races. He ranks seventh in total top-10s, with 16 of them in 28 attempts. That 57 percent hit rate is a little better than what this tossup line suggests.
While I don’t think Bowyer will compete for a win, he knows that he must finish well to stay in the playoffs. Expect him to compete for a top-10 result this weekend.
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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.