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December 15th Auto Racing news ... Bet Nascar at bet-nascar.net

NASCAR: Pennsylvania 500 (1:18 PM ET, ESPN)
2021-07-30

NASCAR continues its march towards the Chase when it travels to Pocono Raceway again on Sunday for the Pennsylvania 500. This will be the second time in two months that the Cup Series will have visited Pocono, following Denny Hamlin’s win in the June race. Hamlin just happens to be the defending champion of this race too, and accomplished the season sweep at this track in the 2006 season. Is it any wonder why he is the race favorite for Sunday at 4-1 odds according to ?

The rest of the favorites board includes Jimmie Johnson and Kyle Busch, at 6-1, plus Jeff Gordon, at 9-1. Of the three, none really commands any respect due to recent performance at this venue. Busch‘s career is actually littered with struggles at Pocono, as he owns just three Top 10 finishes in 11 prior starts. One of those came in June though, in his runner-up finish. Johnson has two career Pocono wins, but none since ’04. Gordon is tied with Hamlin at the top of the active career wins board, with four. However, since the advent of the COT, he has just a single Top 5 and average finish of 13.6 in five starts.

Hamlin truly is the man to beat this week, as he had led 179 of 404 laps in the last two races here and has been in the Top 15 in 403 of those, or 99.8%! He is the career average finish leader at 8.6 and owns seven Top 10 finishes in his nine starts. Oddsmakers might want to adjust their second tier favorites though, as several other drivers figure to have a better shot to win than Johnson, Gordon, or Busch. Instead you might want to consider Carl Edwards (20-1), Tony Stewart (10-1), Kasey Kahne (20-1), Juan Montoya (20-1), or Clint Bowyer (12-1). Edwards is second to Hamlin in laps led in the COT at 158, and has a win and average finish of 8.4 in those five starts. Stewart, like Hamlin, has three Top 5’s in those races, including a 3rd place finish in June. Kahne has a ’08 win and 145 laps led in the COT to his credit, while Bowyer is among the other drivers who seems to run out front at this track, evidenced by his 82 laps led. Finally, there is Montoya…victim of what seems to be the worst luck of any driver on these 2.5-mile flat superspeedway’s. He finished eighth here in June but has two DNF’s in the COT to go along with consecutive DNF’s at Indy.

A series sweep at Pocono is not uncommon, as the only real difference between this race and the June one figures to be that the track has heated up over the course of the summer. In addition, the schedule of recent years has this race always the week after the Brickyard 400, meaning a second consecutive race on a 2.5-mile flat track. While Indianapolis Motor Speedway's rectangular shape is significantly different than the Pocono triangle, many of the same skills are required to go fast on both. Drivers who ran well last week also should dominate the front of the pack this week. Of course, there always is the uncertain intangible of luck. Jamie McMurray (25-1) was the beneficiary of the luck last week, as he won the Brickyard 400 only after Montoya, who dominated most of the race, hit the wall late in a desperate attempt to get back out front after a miscalculated pit road choice.

Of the potential dark horses to consider, or those drivers who don’t boast the best Pocono stats, Kevin Harvick (10-1) finished fourth in the first Pocono race and enters the weekend with top-fives in his past two flat-track races and there is every indication he will add another at Pocono. Sam Hornish Jr. (25-1) is a bigger longshot but last year, he swept the top 10 in both races there and narrowly missed adding a third such finish with an 11th earlier this year. Dollar for dollar, he might be the best value in the game this week. Jamie McMurray is developing a reputation for stepping up for the big races after winning this year's Daytona 500, finishing second in the Coke 600, and winning last week's Brickyard 400. It remains to be seen if he can level out his results and also run strong on smaller stages, but considering that he earned a fifth at Chicagoland two weeks ago, he's well worth the risk. So far it's been difficult for McMurray to string together good results. This week, he enters Pocono with consecutive top-fives for the first time all season. Greg Biffle (20-1) is also noteworthy in that he had a strong third place run at Indy and may be readying himself for a late charge to ensure a Chase spot.

Other drivers you may want to avoid include Joey Logano (35-1), Kurt Busch (20-1), Dale Earnhardt, Jr. (35-1), and Mark Martin (25-1). Of the four, there is just a single Top 5 finish, belonging to Junior, in the five races run in the COT.

The action gets started with qualifying at 3:40 pm ET on Friday. Denny Hamlin started 4th in the June victory, and runner-up Kyle Busch started 2nd. In short, qualifying is very important here. In fact, of the last 16 races, six winners have started on the pole and six others were in the first three rows. Practice is also highly important, as the last nine Pocono winners have averaged a 5.0 Happy Hour rank with only one finishing worse than 6th in the session. Sunday’s race comes around at 1:18 pm ET.

It’s had a handful of different names over the years, including Firecracker 400, Pepsi 400 and now Coke Zero 400, but Saturday night’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Daytona is always one of the best on the yearly schedule. This race is how NASCAR honors the 4th of July weekend, and it is well-recognized for fireworks both on and off the track. The combination of night racing, superspeedway action at the circuit’s most famous track, and holiday pageantry make the Coke Zero 400 “must-see TV”. On top of all that, Daytona is always competitive down to the final pass of the start-finish line, and while there are certain favorites who will be out front for much of Saturday’s race, underdogs are certainly capable of winning. Consider Jamie McMurray, winner of February’s Daytona 500, and owner of three straight Top 2 finishes on plate tracks. Oddsmakers show him at an intriguing 16-1 price.

There are a handful of drivers who have consistently set the pace at Daytona and Talladega since the introduction of the COT in NASCAR back in ’07. In fact, there are four drivers that have led over 200 laps in the 11 plate races run in the new cars. Those would include Kyle Busch (310 LL, 13-2 odds), Denny Hamlin (244, 18-1), Tony Stewart (242, 6-1), and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. (201, 10-1). Of the four, Hamlin and Junior haven’t registered a win in that span, while Busch and Stewart have recorded two each. Jamie McMurray is the only other driver with multiple plate wins in that time frame. Furthermore, Stewart, Busch, and McMurray make up the last five winners of this race, with Stewart having accomplished the feat three times, including last July. As you analyze the stats for the plate tracks, note that they can be deceiving, as Busch and Stewart, despite their lofty laps led totals and multiple wins, are tied for just fourth in average finish in plate races since October ’07, with 15.91. A driver is just as likely to score a Top 10 finish in these races as he is to wreck and DNF.

As I just indicated, average finish statistics at Daytona can be misleading. Look no further than the fact that the driver with the lowest average finish in his career here is Clint Bowyer (14-1), with a very modest 17.9. He only owns two Top 5’s without a win in eight career starts. Jeff Gordon (8-1) paces the field with six career DIS wins but has not reached Victory lane at this prestigious venue since February ’05. Therefore, with the favorites being recognized earlier, albeit some with less than favorite odds, are there any other darkhorses to consider? Of course, and I would start with Kurt Busch (8-1), Matt Kenseth (12-1), Kevin Harvick (13-1), and Ryan Newman (22-1), each of whom is highly regarded for his plate-track prowess. In fact, the driver with the best record during the past three years is Kurt Busch. He entered this year's Daytona 500 with a five-race streak of top-10s; better still, four of these were top-fives and that means he was in contention to win on any given weekend. He hasn't won on this track yet, but with three second-place finishes, he's come close. His willingness to push other drivers across the finish line is actually part of his strength, in fact, because it means he is less likely to get into trouble while trying to make an ill-timed pass. Kenseth, Harvick, and Newman have all actually benefitted recently from Busch’s help, each with a recent Daytona 500 win to his credit. Their timing has proven to just be a little better than that of Busch. Juan Montoya, David Ragan, Elliott Sadler, and Kasey Kahne are also capable plate racers.

You may have noticed that I’ve yet to mention the name of Jimmie Johnson, the four-time defending series champion and winner of the series’ last two events. The truth is that Daytona has been far from his best track with just one win, 59 total laps led, and an average finish of 21.2 in 16 career starts. oddsmakers don’t seem to be taking him all that seriously for Saturday, listing him at 10-1 odds, well below his normal standard. In the COT, his average Daytona finish dips to 23.6 and he’s only been out front only five laps in five races. Jeff Gordon’s numbers haven’t been strong either, as he seems to have lost some of the plate track touch that highlighted the early part of his career. In the 11 COT plate races, he has a win, but that is his only top 5 in that span with an average finish of 24.8. Martin Truex has been even worse, with an average finish of 25.0 in those 11 starts and just a single Top 10. Of course, you can’t talk about plate track racing without mentioning the name of Mark Martin, whose disdain for it is well documented. The stats reflect it too. Though qualifying very well (5.9 average start), Martin has been bumped back often, with an average finish of 22.9 in his last eight starts.

It should be a colorful, exciting, and patriotic event as always, as the Sprint Cup Series runs its 18th race of the season, reaching the halfway point. The Green Flag is set to drop on Saturday at 7:49 PM ET on Saturday night. As always, the StatFox NASCAR FoxSheet, Driver Pages, and Matchup Analyzer are here to prepare you for all of the high speed excitement…