Coming off Monday’s thrilling finish at Daytona, NASCAR’s Cup Series gets an early jump on the annual West Coast swing with a stop at Las Vegas Motor Speedway this week. Sunday’s main event in a 3:30 p.m. (ET) start on FOX is the Pennzoil 400.
Pennzoil 400 – Top NASCAR Value Bets
Denny Hamlin has developed a knack for winning the Daytona 500 in dramatic fashion. His photo-finish victory on Monday left Ryan Blaney in second place in the Great American Race, followed by Chris Buescher in third. I went with Kyle Busch as my top-valued favorite at Daytona, but another disappointing run left him buried in the pack at 34th.
Turning to this Sunday’s race in Las Vegas, 5Dimes online sportsbook as set the odds to win, and I have come up with a trio of value picks based on the numbers.
Pennzoil 400 Top Favorite – Kevin Harvick +465
I went with Harvick as my top favorite in this race last season and worked his way into a Top 5 finish by taking fourth. While the swing-out west gets an earlier start this time around, I still like the No. 4 Ford to have a successful run over the next three Cup Series events on the slate. Racing out west seems to suit this racing team with highly successful results in the past. A strong showing at Daytona with the fifth-place finish on Monday is another boost to the value in these odds.
After the fourth-place finish in this race in 2019, Harvick went on to place second in the other race at this track last year. He has two career victories in the early race at Las Vegas, with the previous win coming in 2018. He has finished in the top five in three of his last four trips around this track.
Top Contender- Kyle Larson +1100
Larson started the new season with a respectable 10th-place finish at Daytona driving the No. 42 Chevrolet. This was the start of his seventh full-time season in Cup Series racing. His lone victory last season came at Dover as part of a run that included 17 finishes in the top 10 with eight making it all the way to the top five. He raced strong enough to end up in sixth place in the final 2019 Cup Series point standings.
As far as Larson’s track record at Las Vegas, he has come close to taking the checkered flag in this race with a second-place finish in 2017 followed by a third-place run the following year. He also placed second in the fall race at this track in 2018.
Top Longshot- Kurt Busch +3300
The elder Busch brother also had his issues at Daytona on Monday with a distant finish in the field, but wrecks have a way of yielding those kinds of results. The one thing you can count on from Kurt is resiliency. His lone win in 2019 driving the No. 1 Chevrolet was in Kentucky, and he was able to work his way into the top 10 in a total of 18 races that year. I also like the fact that as a veteran driver, he will remain competitive as long as his car is running on the track.
Busch was hit or miss last year at Las Vegas with a fifth-place finish in this week’s event before leaving the second race early in a wreck. He has never won a race at his hometown track, but being from Las Vegas is always an added incentive.
