Top 3 NASCAR Betting Picks for Sunday (Darlington)
The NASCAR Cup Series returns to Darlington Speedway for the third time this season. The sport resumed its series here back in May with two races, so we’ve got plenty of recent data points to work with when making these picks.
Kevin Harvick and Denny Hamlin split the two Darlington races so far this year, and with the way things are going, chances are that one of them will win here again. At least if Harvick wins, we know that we’ll get some sick burnouts.
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To NOT Finish Top-5: Martin Truex Jr. (-159)
I don’t usually play negative lines, but I think that this one is justified. In 16 attempts, MTJ has just two career top-fives at this track — one with Michael Waltrip Racing in 2012, and one with Furniture Row Racing in 2016. That means this line has hit in 87.5 percent of his Darlington races, much higher than its implied odds of 61.4 percent.
To be fair, Truex isn’t bad at Darlington. His average finish is 11.13, which ranks him fifth among active drivers. In his last five races here, he’s finished no worse than fifteenth — but he’s also finished no better than sixth.
There’s always a chance that Truex’s bad luck corrects itself to help him land a top-five finish on Sunday. But the fact that Truex is due doesn’t make this line any less valuable, and you can rest easy knowing that any shred of bad luck would help it cash.
To Finish Top-10: Erik Jones (-134)
Jones may have lost his ride at Joe Gibbs Racing. He may also be out of the playoffs. But that Jones boy is really good at Darlington. He’s never finished outside of the top-10 here in his career.
That said, this race hasn’t usually been a playoff race, so Jones may feel obligated to let drivers jockeying for points pass him by. Or he might want to go out of JGR with a bang. We can’t anticipate Jones’ motivations, but we can project him for a strong finish based on his impressive Darlington resume.
For some perspective, Jones has the best average finish at Darlington among all active drivers (5.4). It’s almost two spots ahead of next-best Denny Hamlin (7.19), and it’s at least 3.6 ahead of everyone else. Jones’ dominance extends beyond finishing position and into overall driver rating, as he ranks as the third-best active driver here since 2017.
It would take a significant outlier result for this line not to cash. You should play Jones with confidence for Sunday.
Manufacturer of Winning Car: Ford (+130)
Ford has won more than half of the races in 2020, yet they sit in the plus money to deliver the win at Darlington. Three Ford drivers have won multiple times this year: Kevin Harvick (7 wins), Brad Keselowski (3), and Joey Logano (2). Ford is the only manufacturer that can say that — only Denny Hamlin (6) has won more than once for Toyota, and only Chase Elliott (2) has done so for Chevrolet.
This line gives you exposure to half of the top eight favorites to win: Harvick (+285), Keselowski (+1100), Logano (+1600), and Blaney (+2000). You don’t get action on Hamlin (+300), which is tough, but you don’t miss out on much with Truex (+800), Elliott (+1100), or Kyle Busch (+1100).
Also, the two best active performers here in terms of recent driver rating race for Ford: Harvick (112.8) and Keselowski (106.9).
I don’t think that Ford is guaranteed a win here, to be fair. It’s just odd to see them in the plus money because of their dominant performance this season, so I think that this is one of the best value bets of the week.
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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.