Bristol Motor Speedway is a driver’s track. Since the best drivers of 2021 are also championship contenders in the second-annual playoff race on this rough old course, the top 16 should dominate this event much as they did at Richmond Raceway. Last year, several dark horse contenders broke into the top 10 in the Bass Pro Shops Night Race, however; and that means there could be some pleasant surprises this week.
Bristol belongs to two classes of tracks. When handicapping this week it will be beneficial to look at the other two short courses of Martinsville Speedway and Richmond. It remains to be seen if the Bristol Dirt Track belongs to this group or if it should strictly stand alone, but for the moment we are considering it as part of this statistical pool.
Gamblers and gamers will also want to look at the other rough-surfaced tracks, however. Dover International Speedway is a one-mile, big sister to Bristol, but Darlington Raceway and Nashville Superspeedway are also tough enough on tires to make them a good comparative.
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Handicappers will be glad to have these extra courses to consider because streaks at Bristol have become less frequent in recent seasons. Six different winners have graced Victory Lane in the last six races at the Last Great Coliseum. Kevin Harvick won last fall, Brad Keselowski, won last spring, Denny Hamlin was victorious in fall 2019, Kyle Busch took the top spot in spring 2019, and Kurt Busch won in fall 2018. This spring, Joey Logano won on the dirt track.
None of them are rightly considered dark horses, but last year the top 10 was peppered with longshots.
Christopher Bell, Aric Almirola, Austin Dillon, Tyler Reddick, Bubba Wallace, Chris Buescher, Ryan Preece, and Michael McDowell each earned one top-10 in Bristol’s two races and they should be on your radar again.
Click Here for the Bass Pro Shops Night Race Best Bets
The dark horse with the best record on this high-banked, concrete oval last year was Erik Jones (+35000). Jones swept the top 20 in his final season with Joe Gibbs Racing. As we suggested in this week’s Best Bets column, that organization should continue to dominate, so that makes Bell (+2800) a solid value. But you shouldn’t sleep on Jones either. Since driver ability is a bigger part of the equation at Bristol, Jones could sneak into the top 10 in his Richard Petty Motorsports ride. On another book, he is listed at +600 for that top-10.
Reddick (+5000) lost some of his speed in recent weeks as the pressure of the playoffs allowed other contenders to leap frog him. It will probably be too-little, too-late, but the odds are good that he will contend for a top-10 this week. He finished fourth in last year’s edition of this race and got off to a strong start this spring on the Bristol dirt with a seventh and at Martinsville with an eighth.
Matt DiBenedetto (+7000) has hovered around the 10th-place mark for much of the season on short tracks. A streak of four consecutive top-15s was started last fall at Martinsville and culminated with a ninth in the first Richmond race. He slipped to 18th last week in Richmond 2. His best opportunity at winning in NASCAR’s elite level came in fall 2019 when he finished second to Hamlin in this race.
Ross Chastain (+5000) has stepped up in a major way in the last two races. He finished third at Darlington, but more importantly, he actually challenged for the win and might have gotten it if Kyle Larson and Hamlin had made heavier contact on the final lap. To prove that was not a fluke, Chastain finished seventh last week on the Richmond short track. With 50/1 odds this week, he’s worth a unit or two for the outright win, but cover that with a bet for a top-10 at ~ +130.
On this week’s Beat the Edge podcast, we suggested Daniel Suarez (+25000) should be favored to score a top-10. His outright odds of 250/1 will drag his top-10 number to ~ +500 and as crazy as it sounds, he can cover that line. He contended for victory this spring on the dirt, showing car control that we did not know he had. He finished ninth at Dover, seventh at Nashville, and 13th at Darlington to show a high degree of prowess on rough-surfaced tracks.
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Dark Horses for the Food City Dirt Race (Bristol)
Federated Auto Parts 400 (Richmond 2)
Drydene 400 (Dover)
