Long time no talk, betting friends!
I don’t know about you, but there simply haven’t been too many juicy-looking bets on the board for me since the Atlanta race, which was the last time a “Best Bets” article went up. I have made a couple of bets since then for the #JordanJinx, but nothing too crazy. Oh and we can’t forget nailing that in-race Martin Truex, Jr. bet at Martinsville last weekend at 8-to-1 odds:
That changes this weekend, though, because there are a lot of great values on the board with the Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond Raceway, and I’m like a rattlesnake ready to strike. So let’s get to the bets!
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Top Bets for Richmond
BIG BET: 5u on Christopher Bell (+120) over Ryan Blaney – Head on over to the William Hill app and grab this H2H while you can. EDIT: As of Sunday morning, William Hill was down to -105 for Bell, but you can still get him at +120 on PointsBet in this matchup. Seriously, I fully expect the odds to flip and Christopher Bell be heavily favored in this matchup. There is no reason why Ryan Blaney should be -140 here at Richmond going up against Christopher Bell. Simply put, Ryan Blaney sucks at Richmond Raceway. It makes no sense, I can’t explain it, but until he shows me any type of speed here, I’m betting against him. In nine career starts at Richmond, Ryan Blaney has never finished better than 17th and never had a driver rating better than 72.8. Meanwhile, Christopher Bell is in a Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota now–the organization that is always strong at Richmond–and has finished top 10 in both short, flat track races this season. Oh, and let’s not forget that Bell was dominant here at Richmond in the Xfinity Series. Any top 10 driver that you can get plus-money odds with against Ryan Blaney this weekend is probably worth it, but boy do I love this +120 with Christopher Bell. Also, just for full transparency, yes I do bet these:
1u on Austin Dillon Top 10 Finish (+140) – If I’m talking about and betting on Austin Dillon, you know there’s a reason. I will knock this guy literally any chance I get, but I have to admit, he’s pretty good here at Richmond. In fact, without penalties here last season, Austin probably had the car to beat. He finished 4th here last September, giving him three top 6 finishes in the last four Richmond races, and in addition to that, this #3 Chevrolet looked really strong at Martinsville last week–which is obviously another flat track. Getting Austin at +140 for a top 10 finish is great value in my eyes, and I also have a smaller bet on him to score a top 5 finish at +500.
2u on Kyle Larson Top 5 Finish (+120) – Hopefully you grabbed Larson to win at 10-to-1 on Monday when I posted about it, because he quickly dropped to +800 on most boards soon after. Any time you can get Larson at plus-money for a top 5 finish, it’s typically going to be a bet with good value. Here at Richmond, Larson has finished 7th or better in five of his last seven starts, including a win back in 2017 and a 2nd-place finish back in 2016. Now he’s in Hendrick equipment and has the fastest car week in and week out in the Cup Series. NOTE: DraftKings moved this line to +100 but as of Thursday afternoon, this was at +120 on BetMGM.
1u on Kyle Larson (+105) over Brad Keselowski – Last year, the #2 team had something figured out big time here at Richmond, as Keselowski started 9th but quickly got out front and ended up leading 192 of the 400 laps en route to a dominant victory. I’m just not feeling like that type of speed is there this year, though, at least right now. Looking at the 2021 flat tracks, Keselowski looked a little worse than expected at Phoenix even though he did end up finishing 4th, and this #2 team struggled at Martinsville last weekend as well before wrecking out. Add in the fact that Kez will start mid-pack here on Sunday, plus the fact that I think Larson can win this race, and I’ll take those plus-money odds any day of the week.
