2024 Heart of America 200 Race Picks

NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Betting Predictions
Date/Time: Saturday May 4th, 2024. 8:00PM (EST)
Where: Kansas Speedway
TV: FS1

NASCAR’s Craftsman Truck Series will return to action this weekend, for the first time in 3 weeks, for the running of the Heart of America 200 at Kansas Speedway. The Truck Series last competed at Texas Motor Speedway back in mid-April in a race where Kyle Busch earned his 2nd victory of the season. The good news for Truck Series competitors is that Rowdy will not be in action this weekend and perhaps that opens the door for another first time winner like we saw back at Las Vegas with Rajah Caruth. For now, let’s discuss what bettors should expect going into Saturday night’s Heart of America 200.

For starters, the Truck Series has only competed at two true 1.5 mile venues this season by virtue of Las Vegas and Texas. I mentioned Caruth’s rather surprise victory back at Las Vegas but I believe bettors will need to pay close attention to performance results at both Las Vegas and Texas to set a foundation of expectations for this weekend. The 1.5 mile tracks, in the Truck Series and Cup Series, are very trendy because drivers are nearly full throttle around these intermediate speedways. As a result, the teams producing the best raw speed usually produce correlating trends in the performance department.

For those reasons, we will put heavy emphasis on the opening two races of the season at 1.5 mile venues and also discuss any potential nuances that could validate or change our expectations. With that being said, Zane Smith and Brett Moffitt are a couple of names that could be worth consideration. Both Smith and Moffitt have had successful Truck Series’ careers and are both former champions. While Smith competes full-time in the Cup Series, he will be making his 4th start of the season. In the prior 3 starts, Smith has not competed for wins but has not exactly performed poorly either with finishes of 8th (Las Vegas), 3rd (Bristol), and 5th (Texas). Meanwhile, Moffitt will be making his first start of the year as he tries to get his career turned around. The good news for Moffitt is he will step into strong equipment with the no. 1 truck at TRICON Garage, who has performed well throughout the season.

Performance Trends

If we look at the first two races of the season and even go back to the end of last year, TRICON Garage has shown the best speed among the Truck Series teams. Corey Heim finished 2nd and 3rd at Las Vegas and Texas while producing the highest average driver rating. Meanwhile, Tyler Ankrum and Taylor Gray have both shown strong speed and trends as well. If we take that specific trend into consideration, I believe that elevates the chances of Brett Moffitt also performing well Saturday evening. Despite Moffitt making his first start, he knows how to drive these 1.5 mile tracks and I believe he is a guy that is more likely to overachieve rather than underachieve.

Aside from the TRICON Garage brigade, Christian Eckes, Zane Smith, Ty Majeski, and Nick Sanchez appear to be the best talents in the Truck Series and have consistently been within striking distance at most of the 1.5 mile tracks going back to last season. Personally, I believe Majeski has been better at the shorter tracks despite being the best performer from ThorSport Racing. Meanwhile, Eckes and Sanchez are drivers that can always produce a victory especially at the 1.5 mile venues. However, neither driver is extremely consistent which makes things difficult to predict from a handicapping perspective.

Betting Targets

As things currently stand (Friday night), betting odds are downright disrespectful with 10 different drivers listed at less than 12-1 odds. All of this simply tells me that odds-makers don’t have a good grip on expectations for this race and have opted for an ultimate conservative approach. As a result, I am forced to reduce our risk this week simply based on the lack of value with betting odds. I mean I believe both Tyler Ankrum and Taylor Gray are legitimate dark horses for this race. However, both of those drivers are in the 12-1 odds range which is more along the lines of the betting “favorites” rather than a dark horse. Therefore, we simply are forced to be conservative for this race and perhaps we can get some better value after qualifying early Saturday.

For betting targets, I would love to have Corey Heim on my betting roster but there is no way I am taking Heim at his current price (+350). However, I will be looking to take Heim after qualifying in hopes of better value. Heim has qualified 25th and 14th at the prior two 1.5 mile venues therefore I will take a chance that his odds get better after Saturday’s early sessions. For the remainder of the betting favorites, I’m not sure if we have enough value to pull the trigger on anyone this early. All of the betting favorites’ values are saturated and hopefully we can get more defined betting targets following practices. With that being said, I do believe that Taylor Gray, Tyler Ankrum, and Tanner Gray are among the names that have higher ceilings than current betting odds suggest and may warrant early consideration especially in H2H formats.

Practice Observations – Final Thoughts

Update: Practice and qualifying just concluded from Kansas Speedway and Chase Purdy earned his 2nd straight Kansas pole. While Purdy has proven to be fast in qualifying at Kansas, it did appear that the track lost some speed during qualifying. As a result, several top names like Corey Heim, Zane Smith, Christian Eckes, and others are all starting in the 9th-13th range. Hopefully that leads to better odds but I am still waiting for betting odds to repost.

In terms of observations, I thought Corey Heim was the best on the stopwatch in practice. Heim also appeared to show the least amount of fall-off which is going to be important in tonight’s race. Zane Smith, Christian Eckes, and Tanner Gray were among others that appeared solid on the long-run. However, not all drivers committed to long-runs in practice. Ty Majeski, Taylor Gray, and Brett Moffitt all appeared to fire off well but did not run many laps. Majeski qualified 2nd and was one of the final trucks on track which means he was faster than all of the top trucks despite the track conditions and I believe that speaks to the strength of the #98 truck going into tonight’s race.

2024 Heart of America 200 Race Picks

*FINAL*

Ty Majeski +600 (.5 unit)
Zane Smith +800 (.5 unit)

H2H Match-Ups and Props

Zane Smith -110 over Nick Sanchez (2 units)
Taylor Gray +400 finishes Top 3 (.5 unit)
Tanner Gray +1200 finishes Top 5 (.5 unit)

Two Team Parlay

Corey Heim -185 over Christian Eckes
Brett Moffitt +105 over Rajah Caruth
Risking 1 unit to win: +215