The thing about these Saturday night races is that sometimes you have to go against what logically makes sense. Let us explain. We had two practice sessions this weekend at Kansas Speedway, and both were ran in the middle of the afternoon on Friday. Yeah, you can get a rough estimate on which cars are fast with those speeds, but let’s not forget that the GoBowling.com 400 is going to be ran at night. So not only will track conditions be quite different, but the track is also going to change through the course of the race. That puts the pressure on the crew chiefs to keep up with the track with their adjustments. Over the years we have seen qualifying not mean a lot here at Kansas as well, so don’t think a driver is going to finish up front just because he starts there.
Race Day Betting Picks for the Richmond Toyota Owners 400
The driver odds in this post are accurate as of 11:45 am ET on May 07, 2016 and came from Bovada.
Joey Logano (+115) over Matt Kenseth – Of course this is a matchup… Like we said in the beginning of this article, sometimes you have to do things that defy logic with these Saturday night races. Remember back to Texas and how that race played out–not exactly how most people thought it would, that’s for sure. Looking at this matchup of Logano vs. Kenseth, we’re going more from a safe factor than anything else. The #22 Ford has been unstoppable here at Kansas as of late with two wins in the last three events and five straight top 5 finishes. Kenseth, meanwhile, hasn’t finished better than 6th over that same five-race span. Now, this weekend, the #20 Toyota looks to have an absolute rocket ship and is probably going to lead a lot early. But remember, these tracks go through a lot of changes as we transition from late afternoon to night. We personally think that the #22 team is one of the better teams in the garage at adapting to those changes, and there have been many times this season where he has shown up out of nowhere to finish up front. Back at Texas, Logano finished 3rd. Meanwhile, we all know the story of Matt Kenseth and this #20 team: they simply can’t catch a break this season. We’re betting that that bad luck streak continues and Logano ends up higher than Kenseth on Saturday night…hopefully without wrecking him this time.
BET OF THE DAY: Carl Edwards Top 5 Finish (EVEN) – Well if you want a way to double up your money this weekend, here you go. This #19 Toyota has arguably been the best in the Sprint Cup garage this season and has finished 7th or better in eight of the first ten races this year. Here at Kansas, Carl didn’t end up inside the top 5 in either race but it’s safe to say that this is a much better team in 2016. In 2014, when he was still with Roush-Fenway Racing, Cousin Carl did end up 6th and 5th in the two Kansas races, and his career average finish of 10.6 here (2nd-best in the series) is pretty indicative that Edwards knows how to get around this place. Typically whenever he makes a longer run in practice, Carl has a good car for the race, and the #19 Toyota did show up on the ten-lap average chart in Happy Hour. On Saturday night, Edwards will start from 12th, but we’re not too worried about that because the two Kansas winners last season started 19th and 14th. We have Cousin Carl as a potential race winner here on Saturday night so betting on him for a top 5 finish seems like a no-brainer to us.
Carl Edwards (+105) over Matt Kenseth – We’re just going to go ahead and go all-in on Carl Edwards and against Matt Kenseth this week. Honestly, we think the #19 Toyota will end up being the better car in this matchup even if Matt Kenseth doesn’t run in to problems, so while we do have a small amount of apprehension with our first pick (Logano over Kenseth) this week, there’s not much here. We think that the sports books are just a little too high on Kenseth for Saturday night and a little too low on Edwards, so this pick just makes the most sense to us. You can say what you want about momentum and “bad luck” in this sport, but it has to affect these teams. Those #20 crew members have to be constantly reminded of all of the unfortunate events that they have run into this season, and while that may not cause them to make mistakes, it can exacerbate a problem–to the effect of “here we go again.” However, like we said, we think Edwards is simply going to have the better race car between these two, and being able to grab him at +105 is great in our mind.
