Last week, reigning Cup Series Champion Joey Logano became the 7th different winner this season in the Cup Series following a chaotic race at Texas Motor Speedway that produced 12 different cautions. This week the Cup Series’ returns to action at another exciting 1.5 mile venue at Kansas Speedway for the running of the AdventHealth 400. Last year, the spring race at Kansas produced the closest finish in NASCAR history with Kyle Larson edging out Chris Buescher on the final lap by a mere .001 seconds. On Sunday, NASCAR’s best will compete for another 400 miles at one of the most entertaining 1.5 mile venues on the circuit that has produced nearly 30 lead changes in 3 of the last 4 races!
Tomorrow’s race at Kansas will be the 2nd leg of 3 straight points-paying races at 1.5 mile layouts which will conclude Memorial Day Weekend with the running of the Coca Cola 600. Needless to say, this is an important 3 race stretch because the 1.5 mile venues will play important roles in the latter stages of the playoffs later this year. Therefore, any extra speed that teams and drivers can find over the next few weeks will definitely be worth putting into the bank for later this year. So far this season, Kyle Larson has been the driver to beat at the 1.5 mile venues. Larson has led the most laps in all 3 races at 1.5 mile speedways this season (excluding Atlanta) and also captured victory at Homestead back in late March.
As the defending winner of the AdventHealth 400 combined with his current momentum, Larson was already trending as the driver to beat before Saturday’s practice and qualifying sessions. However, Larson strengthened that argument on Saturday by winning his first career pole at Kansas with a fast lap of 183.73mph. Ironically, Larson edged out Chris Buescher again for the pole award which is the same way that last year’s closest finish in history unfolded for the race win. Needless to say, Larson will have the opportunity to lead the field to the green flag on Sunday and will be the outright betting favorite for the AdventHealth 400.
From a handicapping perspective, Kansas Speedway is a fast multi-groove 1.5 mile speedway that requires drivers to stay in the throttle as much as possible. While the track offers multiple grooves, drivers will gravitate towards the top of the track especially once tires wear down. As a result, the drivers that are able to excel by rim riding should be on everyone’s radar. Beyond that point, I would say that historical performance trends at Kansas and recent performances on the 1.5 mile layouts as a whole should be our primary handicapping angles this week.
Therefore, we will pay close attention to prior history at Kansas, examine dynamic averages, and recent trends to establish a handicapping baseline. With that being stated, I would continue to add that these Cup Series races continue to be very volatile in favor of track position. In fact, the two biggest surprise winners this season, in terms of betting odds, were from Josh Berry at Las Vegas and Joey Logano last week at Texas. Therefore, the 1.5 mile venues have produced the biggest surprises this year and for that reason we will have to consider some dark horses that could get the job done if they are able to get track position late in Sunday’s AdventHealth 400!
Just like last week, I believe bettors should pay attention to our dynamic averages which show loop data averages over the last 5 races at 1.5 mile venues. Without much surprise, Kyle Larson and William Byron are the top rated drivers in this metric. However, Tyler Reddick and Alex Bowman have both also produced 100+ average driver ratings as well which may be mildly surprising. Behind the top 4 drivers, there is a pretty significant drop off. However, names like last week’s winner Joey Logano, Josh Berry (Las Vegas winner), and others start popping up which could be potential dark horse indicators. Additionally, I also would point out disappointing metrics from the likes of Denny Hamlin (81.2), Ross Chastain (71.8), Kyle Busch (59.0), and Brad Keselowski (56.6) among notable names that we would expect to perform much better at these layouts.
While I did not create a section dedicated to practice observations, I think it is worth noting that all of the Hendrick Motorsports cars flexed a lot of speed in practice. For that reason and others, Kyle Larson has the #1 rating going into Sunday by a relatively wide margin. Judging by current betting odds, I would say that Christopher Bell has the best value among the drivers in the range of “favorites.” William Byron likely deserves some legitimate consideration based on momentum, performance on the 1.5 mile surfaces, and overall resume at Kansas. However, Bell has much better betting odds and is hitting on all the same indicators which warrants legitimate consideration.
Behind the range of favorites, Alex Bowman, Bubba Wallace, and Chase Elliott are among the names that appear to have legitimate dark horse potential. Bowman and Elliott are part of the speed shown by the Hendrick Motorsports brigade and I should add that Bowman is literally hitting every handicapping indicator to warrant consideration. Meanwhile, Elliott and Wallace have both been solid at Kansas and have higher ceilings than current betting odds suggest. Personally, I believe Bowman is the sharpest play in H2H formats but I can see arguments for all 3 drivers in varying formats. Deeper into the field, I believe Ross Chastain and Josh Berry are solid choices. The downside to Berry is that the #21 will be starting shotgun on the field following a bad qualifying effort. However, both drivers have shown really strong trends at the 1.5 mile speedways and may be worthy of H2H/prop bet considerations.
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