Kevin Harvick ended his five-month winless drought last Saturday night with a much needed victory at Bristol. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. helped his slim chances to make it into the Chase by taking second and Denny Hamlin stayed hot with a third-place finish. I crashed and burned with Kurt Busch’s wreck in that race as my +1200 top valued pick.
The following is a look at a few of the top favorites to win this Sunday afternoon’s race along with my top value pick based on betting odds provided by TopBet.
Kevin Harvick’s win last week puts him back in the spotlight as one of the top favorites to win this season’s Sprint Cup title and he comes into this race as a +600 favorite to make it two trips to Victory Lane in a row. The No. 4 Chevrolet has been gearing up for another strong run in the Chase with a fourth place finish or better in three of the last five point races and the team is now back in first place in the Sprint Cup standings with 762 total points. Harvick is coming off a fifth-place run in the first race at Michigan this season. This followed a string of five runner-up finishes at this track in his last six Sprint Cup races here.
The second-favorite to win this week is Joey Logano at +700 betting odds. Driving the No. 22 Ford, he is holding down the fifth spot in the current standings with 684 points on the strength of nine Top 5 runs through the first 23 point-race events. More recently, he finished third at New Hampshire and second at Watkins Glen. Logano has only made his way to the Winner’s Circle once this season, but it just so happened to be at this very track with a victory in this year’s Firekeepers Casino 400. Going back to the 2013 season, he has not finished outside the Top 10 at Michigan in seven races including a victory in this race that year.
There is a group of five drivers with +800 odds to win on Sunday, but I would have to put Kyle Busch at the top of that list. He is coming off a rough outing at Bristol that ended in a wreck, but prior to that he won the race at Indianapolis in late July before taking sixth at Watkins Glen. The No. 18 Toyota has made its way to Victory Lane four times this season to go along with another seven runs inside the top five. Busch’s first trip to Michigan this season did not go so well with a 40th-place finish due to engine trouble. He could be due this week following a series of disappointing runs at this track since last winning this race in 2011.