2022 Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 400 Race Picks

NASCAR Cup Series Betting Predictions
Date/Time: Saturday April 9th, 2022. 7:30PM (EST)
Where: Martinsville Speedway
TV: FOX

After two straight nights of racing, NASCAR’s Cup Series will take center stage beneath the lights of Martinsville Speedway on Saturday for the running of the Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 400. Last week, Denny Hamlin earned his 1st victory of the season with an exciting rally in the closing laps of Richmond. Hamlin’s win continued an amazing streak of 7 different winners through the first 7 races of the season and also snapped a 12 race winless streak for one of the biggest organizations in the sport in Joe Gibbs Racing. On Saturday, NASCAR’s new trend of extreme parity will be highlighted at one of the most prestigious short tracks in the sport as drivers compete for an opportunity to win a prestigious Ridgeway Grandfather Clock, one of the unique trophies that signifies a victory at Martinsville!

If you look at the recent history at Martinsville Speedway, Martin Truex has been the man to beat in recent trips to the half-mile paperclip. Truex has amassed 3 victories in his last 5 starts. Those 3 victories have moved Truex into 2nd, in terms of total wins, among active NASCAR drivers. Last week’s winner Denny Hamlin, who passed Truex in the closing laps, leads all active drivers with 5 victories at Martinsville. However, Hamlin’s last victory at Martinsville came back in 2015. Behind Truex, Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski have been the best drivers at Martinsville in recent races. Rowdy is a two-time Martinsville winner and has captured 3 runner-up finishes in the last 10 races. Meanwhile Keselowski, who is also a two-time winner at the paperclip, has finished inside the top 5 in 6 of the last 7 races.

I am mentioning some of these historical narratives on purpose this week. For most of the year, I have advised bettors that historical narratives can be avoided with the Next Gen Car as we establish new trend lines. While that remains true to a certain extent, Martinsville has never been one of those tracks to cause a huge separation in the equipment department. Instead, drivers are usually the ones responsible for making speed and most importantly maintaining speed over the long run. Obviously, drivers need a car that can brake well, turn throughout the corner, and maintain grip on corner exit. With that being said, the Next Gen Car should not provide a huge difference for drivers behind the wheel this week with the exception of being able to drive the car deeper into the corners. As a result, I think the drivers that have historically performed well at Martinsville will continue to thrive on Saturday.

Practice and Qualifying Discussion

Cup Series’ teams had another limited practice session this week in preparation for Saturday’s green flag. In Friday’s brief session, Chase Elliott paced the field with a fast lap of 94.704mph over Kyle Busch, Bubba Wallace, Alex Bowman, and Christopher Bell. After practice concluded, Elliott backed up his fast lap by winning the pole with a faster lap of 96.151mph. Elliott will have the opportunity to lead the field to the green Saturday following one of his best pre-race sessions of the season. While Elliott’s lap was not too surprising, there were several surprises in qualifying which included guys like Chris Buescher, Cole Custer, and Todd Gilliland who all qualified inside the top 10 spots.

In terms of practice observations, last week I praised the speed of the Joe Gibbs Racing cars and unfortunately picked the wrong ponies with Truex and Busch. For this week’s race, Hendrick Motorsports were the guys that impressed in practice that perhaps should equate to elevated expectations. William Byron, Alex Bowman, and Kyle Larson all posted times that could have been covered with a blanket. Though Kyle Larson’s historical results have never been overly impressive at Martinsville, he actually posted the best lap times in race trim among all competitors. However, I would say that all of the Hendrick Motorsports cars looked very competitive going into Saturday’s event.

On the other end of the spectrum, I thought guys like Martin Truex, Denny Hamlin, and Kevin Harvick were among the popular names that I expected to be much better on the stopwatch. In fact, I thought Hamlin and Truex could easily battle for another victory this week before practices began. While practices do not exactly overwrite any expectations, it was eye opening to see Hamlin and Truex both miss the mark off the hauler. Other drivers that also appeared to miss the mark off the hauler included names like Erik Jones and Chase Briscoe who will have work to do to make their cars better.

Betting Targets

While Chase Elliott stole the spotlight on Friday, I really like teammate William Byron as the sharper choice going into Saturday. Byron has really become a strong Martinsville talent in recent years and I believe that has been largely overlooked because he has not won on the short tracks yet. However, I feel pretty strong about Byron’s chances especially if the Hendrick Motorsports cars maintain the speed they displayed in practices. While I am keeping my eye on all the Hendrick Motorsports cars, I have to also admit that Kyle Busch looked really good in practice. Busch has the historical strength that I am looking for this week but he has not been as impressive as expected throughout the first 7 races of the season. Busch had a relatively mediocre qualifying result (11th) so if his odds continue to get better I may take another chance on the #18 for the 2nd straight week.

While predicting race winners has been difficult in the Cup Series this season, I have been pretty strong in the H2H match-ups department and hoping to keep that trend intact. The drivers that I have high on my H2H target list this week include names like William Byron, Bubba Wallace, and AJ Allmendinger. While I understand that is quite a diverse list of names, each driver is in different categories of favorites, intermediates, and long shots. I mentioned my strong beliefs about Byron above so I will avoid repeating myself. For Bubba Wallace, bettors may be surprised to see that Wallace has strong results at Martinsville which came in relatively bad equipment.

In fact, Martinsville is the site of Wallace’s first NASCAR win in the Truck Series back in 2013. If you throw in the parity of more equal equipment this season, Wallace has the stats, practice speed, and all other indicators that could equate to a surprisingly strong performance if he avoids trouble. Lastly, AJ Allmendinger has always performed well at Martinsville even during his Cup Series career. Following troubles in qualifying today, Allmendinger will start dead last and will likely be forgotten in the Cup Series since we are not at a road course venue. For that reason, I like Allmendinger in bottom-tier match-ups.

Draftkings Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 400 Optimal Lineup

2022 Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 400 Race Picks

*Final*

Kyle Busch +800 (1 unit)
William Byron +1000 (1 unit)
Alex Bowman +1400 (.5 unit)
Denny Hamlin +1400 (.5 unit)

H2H Match-ups and Props

William Byron -120 over Christopher Bell (3 units)
Bubba Wallace +145 over Erik Jones (3 units)
Number of drivers to lead a lap over 7.5 +125 (2 units)
Chase Elliott +275 wins Stage 1 (1 unit)
Tyler Reddick +700 finishes Top 3 (.5 unit)
Ross Chastain +500 finishes Top 5 (.5 unit)