2025 Heart of Health Care 200 Race Picks

Date/Time: Saturday May 10th, 2025. 7:30PM (EST)
Where: Kansas Speedway
TV: FS1

While NASCAR’s Xfinity Series will enjoy a two-week hiatus from competition, the Craftsman Truck Series and Cup Series teams will return to action this weekend at Kansas Speedway. The Truck Series will have the luxury of kicking off the race weekend with the running of the Heart of Health Care 200. Last week, Corey Heim earned his 3rd victory of the season with a victory at Texas. Heim emerged from an exciting last lap 3-way battle that also involved Ben Rhodes and Daniel Hemric to score the victory. On Saturday, Heim will look for an encore performance at Kansas Speedway where he swept both races last year!

Before last week’s race at Texas, I mentioned the fact that Corey Heim was going to be your weekly favorite throughout the remainder of the season and is likely to race up a lot of wins in the process. Despite numerous Cup Series drivers in last week’s field, Heim was pretty dominant throughout the entire race. The only reason we got the spectacular 3-way battle on the final lap was due to several late cautions that bunched up the field. Needless to say, I believe Heim could be poised for another similar performance this week at Kansas where he has been extremely strong over the last few years. In fact, Heim has led over half the laps in the last two races at Kansas and has easily been the strongest truck all season at the 1.5 mile venues.

On Saturday, Heim will have the opportunity to make it three in a row at Kansas and is currently priced as an expected heavy betting favorite. With that being said, there are some big names in the field once again this week which includes the likes of William Byron, Carson Hocevar, and Brandon Jones. Hocevar competed last week at Texas in the #7 for Spire Motorsports and was running really well before the team suffered repeated battery issues. Meanwhile, William Byron will step behind the wheel of the #07 with Spire Motorsports for his 2nd start of the season in the Truck Series. As a result, we should expect some challenges from the Cup Series stars and perhaps some challenges from some of the Truck Series’ regulars when the green flag waves on Saturday.

Betting Strategy

Betting odds are really conservative for Saturday’s Heart of Health Care 200. Corey Heim has entered the “Kyle Busch” range of betting favorites at less than 2-1 odds. Willam Byron is receiving similar heavy favorite odds at less than 4-1. Meanwhile, Carson Hocevar and Layne Riggs are also listed at 8-1 odds or less. While we will consider some of the dark horses deeper into the field, those 4 names have a very high likelihood of finding victory lane on Saturday despite the minimal betting value. Due to how well Heim has run at Kansas, it would be criminal to leave him out of lineups. The question is how do you use Heim and not kill the ROI for your betting card? For that reason, I believe the proper betting strategy for Heim is to create a parlay opportunity with Sunday’s Cup Series race. By doing so, we can build a betting card that has sufficient ROI and not be forced into overextending our risks which is what sportsbooks want us to do!

Truck Series Notes – Kansas

Matt Crafton leads all active Truck Series drivers with 3 career wins at Kansas.
Corey Heim (2), William Byron, and Grant Enfinger are also former winners at Kansas.
Corey Heim has won 4 of the last 6 races on 1.5 mile tracks. *Heim has also won both races at Kansas last year.
Layne Riggs posted a 117.0 driver rating in last year’s fall race at Kansas en route to a runner-up finish.
William Byron has just 1 victory in his last 6 starts in Truck Series competition.
Kaden Honeycutt finished 4th in both starts at Kansas last year.
Chandler Smith has finished 6th or better in 3 of 4 career starts at Kansas.
Tyler Ankrum has 5 straight top 5 finishes and leads the Truck Series with 6 top 5 finishes on the season.
Stewart Friesen has finished 6th or better in 3 of the last 4 races at 1.5 mile venues
Tanner Gray finished 7th and 6th in both races at Kansas last year.
Xfinity Series veteran Brandon Jones has just one career win (Pocono 2020) in 53 career Truck Series starts. Jones best finish in 4 starts this season is 12th (Homestead)
Ty Majeski has failed to finish inside the top 15 in his last 4 starts at Kansas.
Ben Rhodes’ best finish at Kansas is 10th in the last 8 races.
Dawson Sutton’s best career finish is 5th in last year’s Kansas race. *Sutton finished a season-best 9th last week at Texas.
There have been 5 cautions or less in 6 of the last 7 races at Kansas.

Betting Targets

Without question, I want Corey Heim in my lineup this week. While there is a case to fade him at his current betting odds, Heim has just shown too much speed and been too strong at Kansas to think he is not the biggest threat in the field going into Saturday. Behind Heim, I would rather have Carson Hocevar than any of the other favorites simply due to realistic value. While drivers like Byron and Riggs should perform well, I just don’t like the odds on either driver to warrant betting consideration. Behind the favorites, I would also consider Chandler Smith a legitimate dark horse going into the weekend. Smith and the #38 team have been really fast in recent weeks and Smith has been solid in Truck Series competition in the past at Kansas; I would argue Smith is a much better driver current day than those stats suggest as well. As a result, Smith is one of those drivers that can be targeted in all formats.

As we move deeper into the field, Kaden Honeycutt and Tyler Ankrum are a few of my favorite drivers in H2H formats. Honeycutt finished 4th in both races at Kansas last year and I believe that is because Kansas allows some of his talent to shine. Meanwhile, Ankrum has quietly posted 5 straight top 5 finishes and is still getting very generous odds on a weekly basis. As a result, I believe both drivers are undervalued and should provide solid value in H2H formats. For prop bet and potential fantasy fliers, Jake Garcia, Tanner Gray, and Luke Baldwin appear poised to shatter their current ceilings. All 3 of those drivers have top 10 to top 5 ceilings and yet are receiving rather enormous betting numbers!