NASCAR’s Sprint Cup series returns to action from a week off this Sunday on the road course at Sonoma Raceway for the running of the Toyota-Save Mart 350. Sunday’s main event is set to get underway at 3 p.m. (ET) and it will be broadcast nationally on FOX Sports 1.
Toyota-Save Mart 350 Favorites and Top Value Pick
The last time NASCAR’s Sprint Cup series was in action at Michigan International Speedway Joey Logano posted his first win of the season in a point-race event. Rookie Chase Elliott continued to impress with a second-place finish and Kyle Larson ended-up third. My top-valued pick was Dale Earnhardt Jr. at +1800 betting odds, but his day ended early in a wreck.
The following is a look at a few of the top favorites to win this Sunday’s race along with my top value pick based on betting odds provided by TopBet.
Favorites
This is a good week to build your betting picks around the Busch brothers starting with Kurt Busch as a +500 favorite to win. He is coming off a big win at Pocono earlier this month that has his No. 41 Chevrolet in second place in the current Sprint Cup standings with a total of 496 points through the first 15 point race events. The main reason why Busch is favored to win this week is an excellent track record in recent runs at Sonoma. He finished second in last year’s event and, going back to a victory in this race in 2011, he has placed in the top four in four of his last five races here.
AJ Allmendinger is buried in the current standings with just one Top 5 finish this season, but this week on the road course at Sonoma he is one of three second-favorites to win at +700 betting odds. This relates back to his racing experience in Indy style cars which could pay some huge dividends on Sunday. This experience aside, he has not had the best of luck at this track. In seven previous Sprint Cup races at Sonoma, Allmendinger’s best finish was seventh back in 2009. He finished a distant 37th in last year’s race after starting from the pole and his average finishing position here is 21.9.
One of the other favorites at +700 to win this week is Jimmie Johnson. He has the No. 48 Chevrolet in seventh place in the standings with 441 total points and this team is a virtual lock to be in this season’s Chase with a pair of victories so far. What I like about Johnson this week is his versatility as a driver. Winning this race is more than just making left turns and, going all the way back to 2009, Johnson has finished in the Top 10 in this race seven-straight times including a victory in 2010.
