Matt Selz
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It’s been a minute since the NASCAR Cup Series has raced at a 1.5-mile oval. That changes this weekend with the Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway. Back in May, the first race here this year, we saw a phenomenal race that had a bit of everything in it. We’re in line for another great race this Sunday as the second race of the Playoffs goes green.
With as much excitement expected as the Detroit Lions-Kansas City Chiefs game on Thursday, what can we expect for betting? What are the tracks we can compare to Kansas Speedway? Are there betting tips for the Hollywood Casino 400? All those questions plus winner predictions and the best prop bets for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race.
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What tracks are comparable to Kansas speedway?
The tri-oval shape of Kansas can fool you into thinking it’s a simple, cookie-cutter track. But you’d be wrong. It’s one of the more driver-friendly tracks on the schedule with multiple racing lines and a lot a driver can do to find speed during the race. The spring race here had a lot of multi-groove racing and drivers making up places throughout the race, expect to see that again on Sunday.
What does that mean we can compare to Kansas, though? Well, in general it can compare to the other 1.5-mile tracks they’ve raced this year in Las Vegas, Charlotte, and Kansas 1. However, in a broader sense, we can compare this to Auto Club, Michigan, Homestead, Las Vegas, Charlotte, Texas, other Kansas races and even Nashville. So the stats mentioned in the piece will be using those races in the Gen 7 car, aka since the start of 2022.
Betting tips for Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas
Usually when we come to a 1.5-mile track, we’re talking about how track position is king and we want to focus on the drivers who are starting closer to the front for winning bets. It’s not like that at Kansas. This is one of the more open races of the year in terms of track position on an intermediate layout. We’ve seen winners come from all over the starting grid at Kansas previously. In terms of prop bets, we do want to see who’s been consistently good at similar tracks — but we also want the drivers with speed this weekend. This is a track where a driver can show up with speed and run better than his similar track stats would suggest. That might sound a bit open-ended, but to be honest Kansas races are like that and we have seen drivers show up here and win or perform well out of the blue.
Winner predictions for Hollywood Casino 400
Odds provided by DraftKings Sportsbook unless otherwise noted
Denny Hamlin (+500 at BetMGM)
Over the 13 similar races in the Next Gen car, Hamlin has two wins while also threatening for several others. This is a track he’s done well at in his career and one in which Toyotas have been running well at, as well. We also — for good measure — have a narrative here as he is coming off signing a multi-year contract extension with Joe Gibbs Racing which should give him a boost.
William Byron (+750)
Byron has simply been fast in this package all year. We have seen that several times including his win at Las Vegas and the speed he had at Darlington and Charlotte. Even with his playoff standing, he would still feel comfortable nabbing a win this week and locking his way into the next round before Bristol. So far at 1.5-mile tracks this year, Byron has led nearly 30 percent of the laps and run top 3 on nearly 57 percent of his laps he’s completed.
Bubba Wallace (+1400 at BetRivers)
Wallace won this race a year ago and his team won both Kansas races last year as a whole. Wallace is coming off one his best runs at Darlington last week and has been showing consistently good speed in the 1.5-mile package in 2023. Pressure is on for him to have another good showing at a good track for him since he’s right on the playoff cutline and doesn’t want to go to Bristol needing a big day.
Ross Chastain (+2000 at FanDuel)
Given the storyline about Chastain and his driving style, you might be shocked by this stat. He is the only driver in the field to finish every lap of all 9 1.5-mile races in the Gen 7 car. How surprising? Pretty crazy. Why is that important? Completing all the laps should give him the ability to be running well and high in the grid as the race winds down. Granted he has only led 4 laps in the 3 1.5-mile races this year, but all he needs to do is lead the last one for a bit of a bounce back win.
Ryan Blaney (+2200 at BetMGM)
Blaney dominated at Charlotte, the last 1.5-mile track the Cup series has raced. He has also run really well here in the past before issues have caused him to not finish where the speed/car should’ve allowed him to. He has back-to-back top-10 finishes at comparable tracks including the win at Charlotte and if that speed shows up again, he could be a threat on Sunday.
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Best prop bets at Kansas Speedway
Odds provided by DraftKings Sportsbook unless otherwise noted
Bubba Wallace Top-5 Finish (+180 at BetMGM)
Three of the last 4 similar races to Kansas, Wallace has finished P4. As stated above, he won here a year ago and finished P7 at Darlington, nearly nabbing a top-5 there, too. That’s a lot of things in the right direction for a guy who has these odds at one of his best tracks on the schedule.
Ryan Blaney Top-10 Finish (+110 at Caesars)
All we really need from Blaney is a clean race and he should have this one covered. The 12-car has the speed to finish in the top 10 nearly every week and he’s shown that with back-to-back top-10 finishes on similar tracks.
Erik Jones Top-10 Finish (+550 at FanDuel)
Jones has posted 4 straight top-10 finishes in this rules package including a week ago at Darlington. While the recent runs at Kansas haven’t been great, he did previously run well here in JGR equipment. If the recent speed in the 43-car shows up this weekend, we could be looking at a nice return on Jones with this one.
Ross Chastain Top-10 Finish (-115 at Caesars)
Chastain, over the last 13 similar races, has a sub-10 average finish position. He also has the best average running position in the field at 8.1. So why are we getting odds so close to plus money? When we compare his average finish and running position and top-10s to others, he compares well with Denny Hamlin, Martin Truex Jr. and Kyle Larson — who are all going off between -275 and -295 for top-10s. There’s value here.
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