2026 Cracker Barrel 400 Betting Race Picks

Date/Time: Sunday May 31st, 2026. 7:00PM (EST)
Where: Nashville Superspeedway
TV: Prime

Last week, Daniel Suarez scored the biggest win of his professional career by capturing a victory in the Coca Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Crew Chief Ryan Sparks made a gutsy two-tire call on the pit box with weather looming in the area and Suarez held the field off on the final restart before rain shortened NASCAR’s longest race which put an end to a somber weekend in Charlotte. With the win, Suarez became the 8th different winner in the Cup Series this season. On Sunday, the Cup Series will fire the engines for the running of the Cracker Barrel 400 at Nashville Superspeedway and potentially open the opportunity for another first-time winner this season.

Unlike the lower touring series in NASCAR, the Cup Series has only competed at Nashville Superspeedway since the 2021 season. This Sunday’s Cracker Barrel 400 will be just the 6th Cup Series’ race in history in Music City. Over the last few years, Nashville Superspeedway has produced 5 different winners and there is a good opportunity that trend continues again this weekend. Over the last two visits to Nashville, Team Penske teammates Joey Logano (2024) and Ryan Blaney (2025) have captured the notorious guitar trophy at Nashville. Before that, Chevrolet drivers (Chase Elliott, Kyle Larson, and Ross Chastain) won the first 3 races. However, all of those guys may be chasing the Toyota teams ahead of Sunday’s green flag.

The Toyota teams have been extremely fast throughout the season and perhaps even better over the last couple of weeks. Denny Hamlin, Christopher Bell, and Tyler Reddick were the class of the field last week at Charlotte but were on the unfortunate side of Suarez’s winning two-tire call. Despite the results at Charlotte, I don’t think anyone can deny that all of the Toyota teams have an advantage in the speed department. Obviously, Tyler Reddick leads all drivers with 5 wins this season but what many people may not know is that Toyota drivers own 5 of the top 6 positions over the last 5 races in average finishing position and average driver rating which is a testament to the current state of the Toyota organization. Needless to say, I believe those Toyota drivers will remain strong at a place like Nashville where raw speed will be undeniable.

Handicapping Nashville

Since rain cancelled both practice and qualifying sessions on Saturday, bettors may be wondering what is the best way to handicap a track like Nashville? I have spoken in-depth about this narrative in both prior race previews this weekend. Without trying to sound redundant, I would simplify it by stating we should be looking at prior Nashville performance metrics, prior performance metrics on concrete surfaces, and recent races (momentum) to find the drivers/teams that have been showing the most speed. If we can find drivers that fire on all of those parameters, we should be getting close to finding the correct betting targets. Obviously there are other handicapping metrics to consider but those are easily the most important going into Sunday’s race without any on-track activities.

Cup Notes – Nashville

Kyle Larson (2021), Chase Elliott (2022), Ross Chastain (2023), Joey Logano (2024), and Ryan Blaney (2025) are all former winners at Nashville.
Denny Hamlin (121.8), Ross Chastain (104.0), Christopher Bell (103.5), Tyler Reddick (101.1), and Ryan Blaney (99.6) have the top 5 highest average driver ratings at Nashville over the last 3 races.
Denny Hamlin has finished 3rd in 2 of the last 3 races at Nashville.
William Byron has finished in the Top 5 in 3 of 5 races at Nashville.
Ross Chastain has finished in the Top 5 in 3 of 5 races at Nashville.
Ryan Blaney has finished 6th or better in 3 of the last 4 races at Nashville.
Bubba Wallace has finished 7th or better in his last two starts at Nashville.
Kyle Larson has never finished worse than 8th in 5 races at Nashville.
Erik Jones has finished 8th or better in 2 of the last 3 races at Nashville.
Joey Logano has finished in the Top 10 in 4 of 5 races at Nashville.
Christopher Bell has finished in the Top 10 in 4 of 5 races at Nashville.
Brad Keselowski has finished 11th or worse in all 5 races at Nashville.
Zane Smith has finished 13th or better in two career starts at Nashville.
Alex Bowman has finished 14th or worse in all 5 races at Nashville.
Chase Briscoe has finished 17th or worse in all 5 races at Nashville.
There have been at least 10 cautions in 3 of 5 races at Nashville.
The eventual race winner has started from the Top 5 in 3 of 5 races at Nashville.
Toyota drivers are winless through the first 5 races at Nashville.

Betting Targets

Based on all of our handicapping metrics, Denny Hamlin should be considered the deserving outright betting favorite. Hamlin has been excellent at Nashville and has arguably been the fastest driver over the last several races. As a result, I can see a lot of reasons why bettors would want to have some exposure to Hamlin on Sunday. Our betting picks from the Truck Series race on Friday already have a near double-digit payout if any Toyota wins on Sunday. For that reason, I may not have quite as much exposure to Hamlin simply based on weekend ROI (vs. the ROI just for this race). Behind Hamlin, I believe Christopher Bell and Tyler Reddick are easily the next two options with the highest likelihood of visiting victory lane tomorrow afternoon. Like Hamlin, Bell and Reddick are also hitting on nearly every handicapping angle going into race day.

I am not a big fan of dark horses tomorrow. While guys like Ryan Blaney and Ty Gibbs are legitimate dark horses, they are receiving betting odds that rival the likes of Reddick and Bell. For that reason, I believe Blaney and Gibbs are overvalued from an odds perspective but I don’t deny their chances of potentially being in the hunt on Sunday. Another reason I do not like many dark horses on Sunday is because guys like William Byron, Ross Chastain, and Kyle Larson are among the names that have historically performed really well at Nashville. However, the Chevrolet teams, with perhaps the exception to Chase Elliott, have been struggling in the speed department over the last month or so. As a result, I just don’t have high confidence in those drivers despite their prestigious Nashville resumes. More importantly, I think most of the drivers that should be considered “dark horses” are completely overvalued from an odds perspective.

Instead of chasing dark horses, I would encourage bettors to find the drivers that are undervalued that can be used in H2H and/or prop bet formats. If we look for drivers that I believe are undervalued, I believe names like Bubba Wallace, Erik Jones, and Zane Smith start to stand out for various reasons. Wallace has finished 7th or better in his last two starts at Nashville and should have the Toyota speed on their side. Meanwhile, both Jones and Smith have found speed in recent weeks and have produced quality results for bottom-tier drivers. Both Jones and Smith are starting towards the front of the field and have shown the speed to keep those cars towards the front of the field. For those reasons, I like both Jones and Smith in prop bet formats.