Last week’s Credit Karma 250 at Atlanta was one for the record books. Kyle Busch completed his sweep of the five races he was allowed to start in 2021 with a perfect record of wins. That victory came on the heels of the Circuit of the Americas, Texas Motor Speedway, Nashville Superspeedway, and Road America.
Joe Gibbs Racing decided they like that kind of dominance and slotted Christopher Bell into the ride for the Ambetter Get Vaccinated 200 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Ty Gibbs has also run extremely well in this ride.
Throughout the last several seasons, their No. 20 team at the Cup level has been incredibly inconsistent and one suspects they want to balance out that program. Putting Bell in an Xfinity car is one good way to do so as he is starting to close the gap at the top level.
But Bell is not Busch. Still the traders at PointsBet Sportsbook have given Bell short odds and that means the remainder of the field is a better value by comparison. Is that enough? Only time will tell – and with an extremely short 200-mile race on a 1-mile track, it won’t take much time at all.
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Proposed Winner
We don’t think Bell can do what Busch has in the past several races. And we certainly value AJ Allmendinger (+1200) higher than the oddsmakers. If you ask this ace, he will tell you that road courses and flat tracks don’t have much in common. With respect to his opinion, that is because he is so adept on the twisty tracks that the slightest differences are much bigger in his head.
But at its core, the flat tracks reward many of the same skills as road courses. In order to go fast on both, drivers have to brake early and ease into the turns so they accelerate at the apex. What is different with the short, flat tracks is that the corners come up so quickly and rhythm is required to post consistent, fast laps.
Between the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course through Road America, Allmendinger earned a sixth-place finish at Texas and a pair of fifths at Nashville and on the long, flat track of Pocono Raceway. He was top-five finisher on both road courses with a win at Ohio, so that makes him a well-rounded pick. On another sportsbook, Allmendinger is available at +260 for a top-three and +130 to finish in the top five.
Best Bets for a top five
Christopher Bell (+130) is the prohibitive favorite for a reason. Gibbs has been dominant this year and Bell has more experience than many of the drivers in the field. He certainly deserves the distinction that top-ranked odds give him, but winning in Xfinity is often about more than having the best driver and car. He will contend for the victory, but even if he wins it is not worth the risk of placing a bet with such a low Return on Investment (ROI). This will be his first Xfinity start since 2019, but he was the winner that year in the most recent event held at New Hampshire.
It’s hard to know if Noah Gragson has put his bad luck behind him, but with five consecutive top-10s that include a third at Atlanta and fourth at Pocono in the last two oval races, one can start to trust this team again. One thing that should give you a little pause is that his blown engine at Phoenix Raceway this spring did not give us a chance to see how he would perform on a similar, 1-mile flat track.
If you take Bell out of the equation, Justin Allgaier (+540) would be the favorite. There are a lot of reasons to spend a sizeable portion of your Xfinity betting budget on him. Allgaier has top-three finishes in three of his last four oval races this year. He narrowly missed adding another top-five to the mix at Atlanta with his seventh place result. The last time the series visited New Hampshire in 2019, he finished third.
Now that it’s official Cindric (+550) will drive the iconic No. 2 in the Cup Series next year, he has an extra dose of pride and that will show up on the track. He has been consistent enough to earn the Xfinity points lead, but that has not turned into a domination of Victory Lane with four wins in 18 races this year. His top-five percent of .611 and top-10s at .778 make him an impossible driver to ignore each week, however, and so long as his odds remain in this same general range, he will break even on a consistent, even bet with another two or three wins.
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Xfinity Best Bets for the Pocono Green 225 (Pocono)
Credit Karma 250 (Atlanta)
Henry 180 (Road America)
