2022 NASCAR Championship picks and predictions: Is this Blaney's year?

The 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season is just around the corner — excuse the pun. The Busch Light Clash gets things kicked off this Sunday in Los Angeles before the Daytona 500 officially starts the season that finishes with the Championship race in November. While I posted the season-long betting primer on how to bet each race earlier this week, for now we’re talking picks for the Clash and Cup Championship.

How does one win the NASCAR Championship, you might ask? Well, after the first 26 races of the year the NASCAR playoffs start. The top 16 drivers in the standings, either by wins or points, make the playoffs for the final 10 races. After 3 races, 4 drivers are eliminated, going down to 12, then 8, then the Championship Four. Those 4 remaining drivers battle it out in the last race with the one that finishes closer to the front winning the title.

Before we get to the championship picks, though, let’s look at some lines for the Busch Light Clash on Sunday at the L.A. Coliseum.

Odds for all picks are from the DraftKings Sportshook at time of publishing.

Busch Light Clash odds and driver breakdown

Martin Truex Jr. (+600)

Truex Jr. has been the king of short tracks for the last few years now. Even with this being a shorter track than they normally race, his recent success with 2 wins at Martinsville translates well to the Coliseum. When he makes the main field, the odds will only go up from here.

Chase Elliott (+650)

Elliott has spent his offseason racing Sprint cars, Dirt tracks, and Midgets (cars not tiny people). What do they all have in common? Short tracks, exactly like Sunday’s Busch Light Clash, will be raced on. He also has a Martinsville win under his belt as well. Just for kicks he’s also raced at The Madhouse (Bowman Gray Stadium), which is pretty close to this, too.

Kyle Larson (+800)

Larson is fast in anything he drives at any distance; that’s just an accepted fact at this point. He is coming off of a title win last year and an offseason similar to Elliott’s. It’s hard to turn down a small wager on Larson, as we don’t see him at this return very often throughout the year.

Ryan Blaney (+1200)

Blaney is always a factor when it comes to shorter tracks and he led quite a few laps at Martinsville last year. The 12-team would like nothing better than to start the year with bragging rights at one of their stronger racing styles.

Aric Almirola (+4500)

Almirola won the New Hampshire race last year, a flat track, and was competitive in most of the short track races. All of those are similar to the track for the Clash. Why not take a very small shot that he can replicate the New Hampshire magic?

Kevin Harvick (9/5 Top-5 finish)

Harvick isn’t known for winning short track races, but he has finished top 5 nearly 33 percent of the time on flat tracks in his 20-plus-year career. If he can do that again on Sunday in the Busch Light Clash, we get a very nice return.

Hendrick Motorsports leads championship odds

Kyle Larson (+360) and Chase Elliott (+500) are the top 2 favorites for the 2022 NASCAR Championship — as they should be. They are the last 2 champions and were the fastest cars nearly every weekend all of last year. William Byron (+800) is fourth on the odds list and actually had the best average finish on 1.5-mile tracks last year among his teammates. The steal of the team though is Alex Bowman at +1800. All four Hendrick cars made a deep playoff run last year and Bowman at times was the fastest among the 4. Given the choice of the quartet, Byron and Bowman are the 2 I’m riding with in 2022.

Denny Hamlin (+700), Kyle Busch (+1000) hungry for a championship

Both of these drivers are easily among the top 5 on the track every weekend in terms of speed and talent. They have been shut out of the championship conversation a bit in the last few years though and that should renew their hunger for 2022. Both had two wins and 15 or more top-fives last year and that was considered underperforming for their standards. Hamlin’s resume is only missing a title at this point to cap off his career, which makes him my pick of the 2. Busch has been a slower starter the last few years, which could drop his odds some and give even more value.

Is 2022 the year of Ryan Blaney (+1100)?

If we look at 2021 metrics, which don’t hold a ton of weight going forward, Blaney was the fastest Ford by Green Flag Speed for the entirety of the year. Speed doesn’t just go away with a new car and he has had one of the faster cars in testing, too. Blaney made a deep playoff run in 2021 and he is expecting to take the next step this year. So a guy who’s fast, consistent, has playoff experience, and nearly made the championship last year is +1100? Why isn’t he being mentioned as a spoiler for the NASCAR Championship?

New team, new car, same Kurt Busch (+2500)

Busch may be getting long in the tooth and switching teams, but that’s not necessarily a hindrance. In a year where everyone is starting from square one with a new car, he is right on par with everyone else. He is also a driver who has made every team he’s ever gone to faster, almost immediately. So why can’t he do it driving for Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin? Busch finished 11th in the standings last year; there’s a good shot he’s better than that this year in a faster car with an outside shot at another NASCAR Championship.

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