Matt Selz
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The site of last year’s championship race — Phoenix Raceway — is the host track for this week’s United Rentals Work United 500. Yeah I know, a silly name, but it’s shaping up to be a good race nonetheless. While golfers will be dealing with the challenging doglegs at The Players Championship all weekend, the same can be said of NASCAR drivers too and Phoenix Raceway’s interesting layout. Who will reign supreme in the desert and what can we expect from the track? Read on for our best bets and props for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race from Phoenix.
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Phoenix Raceway track layout and betting strategy
So what exactly is this dogleg you were referring to? Well, Phoenix Raceway is a flat, short-ish, track at 1-mile in length. However, it has a unique feature that is essentially a kink in the front stretch that allows for 7-8-wide racing and dive-bomb passing moves on restarts. It’s become the main way to pass on this track and makes restarts must-watch parts of the race. The rest of the layout is a fairly standard configuration for a track this size and compares favorably with New Hampshire and Richmond.
When we’re looking at this track from a betting perspective, the first thing to note is that passing can be tough here. That leads to the second point that is, winning here typically happens from the front. In fact, of the last 10 races here (they race twice a year here), nine of the winners have come from starting inside the top-10 with six of those being from inside the top-five. The furthest back a winner has started in that span is P13. That should show how tough passing can be here and that this is a pit strategy type race. Fords and Toyotas are tied with four wins a piece here in that span with Ford winning both races a year ago. The 312 laps of the race will go by quickly in general which gives the impression of even less time to make moves.
United Rentals Work United 500 winning driver predictions and odds
Odds available at DraftKings Sportsbook at the time of publishing.
Ross Chastain +900
This is a great combination of a great return, a driver who’s remarkably fast right now, and one who’s been good at the current track. The last two times he’s been to Phoenix he’s finished no worse than P3 and has been a real threat in both races. He’s one of the fastest cars on track every week so far and comes in with the points lead as proof. The 9/1 line gets us a slightly better return than the co-favorites of Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney are offering as well. At the shorter flatter tracks last year he was quick too and was seemingly in contention every week.
Kevin Harvick +1200
We can’t in good conscience leave Harvick off the betting slip at Phoenix. It’s a track he’s beaten into submission in his career. Over the past 10 races here, he’s the only one with a top-10 every time and that stretch goes back even further too. Combine his history here with how well Ford has done in general and the speed they’re finding in the SHR garage and it’s a good combo. If we’re feeling like hedging a bit, he’s going off at +170 for a top-5 finish prop on DraftKings as well. That’s a feat he’s accomplished half of the last 10 races.
Chase Briscoe +1800
Briscoe won this race last year and then ran solidly in the Fall race too. While it’s been a relatively slow start to the year for him, he’s finding speed over the last two races. He’s been a guy that just kind of shows up out of nowhere some weeks in his Cup career and this has that feeling about it this week. If you want to shop this line there might be slightly longer odds elsewhere too but in general he’s a very good middling odds bet given his history here.
Austin Cindric +5000
Everyone loves a long shot right? Why not Cindric? In his first race here last Spring he finished P24 and then finished P11 in the Season Finale. Showing improvement is a good trend if we’re betting on someone. The other reason behind this pick? He’s in a Team Penske Ford. We’ve stated a few times that Ford has done well here but so has Team Penske. Hence the reason that Logano is 8-1 and so is Blaney. So if the books like Team Penske that much, why not get even better odds on a driver with identical equipment to the co-favorites?
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Best prop bets for NASCAR Phoenix 500
Aric Almirola Top-10 Finish (+340)
This one is quite simple. It’s a mispriced odd. He started at +430 when it opened so it’s corrected some but this is still too good of a return for a driver who’s at arguably his best track. We’ve been saying for a while that Almirola is best at shorter, flatter tracks which is conveniently what Phoenix is. These odds are giving him a 22.7% chance of finishing top-10 which is something he’s done 50% of the time in the last 10 races here. Jump on it before it moves again.
Austin Cindric Top-10 Finish (+340)
This is a bit of a hedge like we talked about with Kevin Harvick above. A driver coming off of a P11 finish his last time here and a P6 last week makes for an interesting one for this bet. Again he’ll have identical or very similar equipment to his teammates who are both -850 for top-10 finishes. The other thing in his favor? He’s qualified well here in the past starting no worse than P14 which should put him in striking distance of this finish prop.
Ross Chastain Top-5 Finish (+125)
We’re back to hedging… and why not? He’s fast and good here with back-to-back top-three finishes here in the Next Gen car. Getting positive money for a top-five finish is still nice for a guy of Chastain’s ilk since last year.
Kyle Larson Top-5 Finish (+125)
This one is basically as simple as the Chastain prop. The line on this of 5/4 equals 44.4% implied odds for it to hit. What’s interesting about that? That means he has a 4-in-9 chance of pulling it off which is exactly what he’s done in the last nine race here. Larson’s posted four top-five finishes in that span. Sounds like serendipity to me. Oh yeah and he’s got a remarkably quick Hendrick Chevy under him which seems to have the speed in it similar to when he won the Championship here in 2021.
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