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Darlington Raceway is not typically kind to dark horses or Young Guns. A handful of the drivers who are entered this week scored top-10s in their first attempt, and some of them, like Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin, and Erik Jones – all of whom are favorites this week – have been nearly unstoppable since, but for the most part this is a track that takes a lot of experience before drivers find success.
Brad Keselowski and Tyler Reddick finished seventh in their first attempts, Joey Logano was ninth in his, while Austin Dillon and Chase Briscoe narrowly missed with an 11th, so each of them deserve some attention as well.
This is a track on which the metaphorical switch flips, however, and once a driver figures out how to best manage his tires and race within the limits of the track, long streaks of top-10s and -fives are commonplace. Kyle Busch finished 23rd in his first Darlington attempt before he eventually rattled off four consecutive top-10s and 10 in a span of 12 races.
It is unlikely that the drivers listed below will cash in an outright win ticket, but odds above 10/1 often drag those for a top-five to plus levels on other sportsbooks, so there is money to be made this week even if a driver like Larson or Hamlin walks away with the trophy.
Dillon (+4000) narrowly missed out on joining the list of drivers with inaugural top-10s and while he has not yet scored consecutive results that strong on this course, he rarely stumbles. In 11 attempts on this difficult track, he’s finished worse than 16th only twice; seven of those efforts were 12th or better, including a 10th in last year’s Southern 500. He hasn’t won on this track, but came extremely close in the 2020 Southern 500 with a second-place finish behind one of the hottest drivers that season, Kevin Harvick.
Logano (+1600) has been much too erratic to be considered a favorite this week, but he is also too strong to be disregarded outright. After finishing ninth in his first attempt, he was outside the top 20 in four of his next five attempts, but his switch flipped in 2015 when NASCAR returned Darlington to its once traditional Labor Day weekend slot. Since then, he has earned four top-fives, two more top-10s, and a worst of 18th in the last 10 races. His best finish of second came in 2018.
Briscoe (+3000) does not have the experience to accurately handicap him on this track type yet, but there are signs that he might eventually become a factor. His 11th-place finish in last year’s Goodyear 400 was his first attempt in the Cup series on a rough-surfaced track and he did not follow that up with strong results in his next two at Dover Motor Speedway or Nashville Superspeedway. His 19th-place finish in the Southern 500 didn’t move the needle much, but a 13th in the Bristol Motor Speedway Night Race last summer and a 12th last week in Dover has him on our radar.
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Christopher Bell‘s (+3000) fourth-place finish last week casts him a new light. That was his first top-five on a rough-surfaced track and it is not as much that he earned the result as how he did so. Bell popped in and out of the top 10 throughout the afternoon, constantly adjusting his car, and by the end of the race, he had the 14th-best Average Running Position and a top-10 Driver Rating. More than half of the day was spent in the top 15, which suggest that he managed the race extremely well.
After winning the pole at Dover, we predicted Chris Buescher (+6600) would fall back and finish outside the top 10. We were wrong. His eighth-place finish in the Drydene 400 gives perspective to what was an unclear record on rough-surfaced tracks. He had two top-10s in five starts there in 2021, but an eighth at the end of 2020 now means that he is batting .500 in his last eight attempts. It’s not enough to shake a lot of money out of your wallet, but it does make him a driver that needs to be considered – and with 66/1 odds, he’s going to have a plus line for a top-10 on other sportsbooks.
Daniel Suarez (+4000) is also poised to have a strong run. His 14th-place finish in the Drydene 400 put him close enough to the top 10 to make him an attractive dark horse when that result is added to a pair of top-10s and a 13th on the track type last year. Unfortunately, his record isn’t good enough to warrant a wager right now and if he has a strong showing in the Goodyear 400 preliminaries, his odds will fall dramatically from his current 40/1.
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Dark Horses for the 2022 Drydene 400 [Dover]
Food City Dirt Race [Bristol dirt]
2021 Goodyear 400 [Darlington]
