Auto Club Speedway: What to Expect

After one week of racing is in the books, NASCAR’s Cup and Xfinity Series will travel to Auto Club Speedway this weekend for the first race at Fontana since the COVID outbreak. Unlike last weekend’s superspeedway fiasco, Auto Club Speedway will provide a taste of traditional oval action for the first time with the Next Gen Car. As a result, this will be an important event to potentially establish performance baselines with the new package. Which teams/drivers will perform well right out of the gates and will that give us insight into the next few weeks of racing?

For those that are not extremely familiar with Fontana, Auto Club Speedway shares the same size (2.0 miles) as Michigan International Speedway. However, Auto Club Speedway’s racing surface produces a more rugged effect on tires which will put an emphasis on tire wear and long run speed. Again, we know drivers that excelled in those conditions over the last few years but will those trends change with the Next Gen car? Obviously, time will tell the story. The good news is that bettors will have an opportunity to make practice observations this week. The Cup Series will hold a 35 minute practice session on Saturday immediately before impound qualifying meaning teams will qualify in their race setups as no other changes will be allowed before the green flag.

For the Cup Series, we will have plenty of time to observe practice and qualifying results before Sunday’s green flag for the WISE Power 400. Unfortunately, the Xfinity Series schedule will produce a more narrow time window. Xfinity Series’ teams and drivers will hold a 30 minute practice session at 12:30PM (EST) on Saturday immediately before impound qualifying. In just a few hours after qualifying concludes, the green flag will wave for the Production Alliance Group 300. From a betting standpoint, my handicapping strategy will not be based solely around practice times as we have more historical data to aid in our predictions with the Xfinity Series cars. However, betting picks will only be finalized after practice concludes which means subscribers should expect most picks to be submitted on the site shortly before the green flag which is scheduled for 5:00PM (EST).

Betting Strategy

Last week we dropped 3.5 units after failing to find a winner in the Daytona 500. In the grand scheme of things, a 3.5 unit loss is not terrible for missing out on a race or prop bet winner. I’ve put a big emphasis on minimizing risk over the last year which has been attributed to minimizing losses on our off weeks. For the early part of the season, bettors must be disciplined and conservative even if it takes away some of the excitement. We don’t yet know the learning curve that the Next Gen car will yield and don’t want to dig ourselves a deep hole early in the season while that learning curve is identified.

Rest assured once we establish some common ground and baselines, we will increase our aggressiveness. Until then, expect downgraded wager sizes and a relatively conservative approach especially for the Cup Series. For the Xfinity Series, we may have some better opportunities and I have a few drivers on my radar already for Saturday’s Production Alliance Group 300. With all of the driver movement in both the Xfinity Series and Camping World Truck Series, we may have some unique matchup opportunities early this season. Odds makers are notorious for name chasing in the lower series and we will put heavier focus on backing better equipment with capable drivers that can extract value in those circumstances. More to come as the week progresses.