After an underwhelming race at Texas Motor Speedway, the NASCAR Cup Series heads to Talladega Superspeedway for one of the most thrilling events of the year. The NASCAR YellaWood 500 odds have already been released, and sharp bettors have started to bet up some of the best lines. However, bettors can still find value on the drivers highlighted in the YellaWood 500 picks and predictions below.
2022 NASCAR YellaWood 500 Odds, Picks & Predictions
YellaWood 500 Betting Odds
Justin Haley to Win | +5000 (0.1 Unit) at DraftKings
Justin Haley Top 10 | +220 (0.3 Unit) at FanDuel
Justin Haley remains a superspeedway ace. Although he couldn't bring home the checkered flag at Daytona to secure a playoff spot, he led eight laps before a sudden rain shower caused the entire front half of the field to crash. Haley has one top-10 result in five superspeedway races thus far, but he narrowly missed the mark at both the spring Atlanta and Talladega races. He finished 11th and 12th in those events, respectively.
Haley's superspeedway dominance doesn't jump off the page when looking at his Cup Series statistics, but it does when you turn to the Xfinity Series. In 12 superspeedway starts in the Cup Series, Haley owns one win and three top-10s. However, he boasts an average finish of 16.2 across his five superspeedway starts this year, which would jump to 13.3 if the summer Daytona race is excluded. But again, he performed fantastically at superspeedways in the Xfinity Series. In 13 starts, he owns four wins, five top-fives and nine top-10s. He never finished worse than eighth at Talladega.
These odds have moved slightly since they opened. Haley was going for 75-1 at DraftKings before sharp bettors bid this down to 50-1. However, value remains on both these lines, although bettors should note that Haley has underperformed in superspeedway qualifying this year.
Brad Keselowski to Win | +2000 (0.1 Unit) at DraftKings
Brad Keselowski and RFK Racing scored their first Cup Series win at Bristol -- although it was Chris Buescher, not Keselowski, who won the team's first race. However, Keselowski could find his way to victory lane next, especially at a track like Talladega.
Keselowski is one of the best superspeedway drivers ever, especially at Talladega. He has six wins in only 27 starts, which puts him in a three-way tie for the second-most Talladega wins of all time. He also scored his sixth win in his 25th start, a faster pace than what Dale Earnhardt Sr., Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. achieved here. Keselowski finished first and second in last year's two Talladega races as well.
The outcomes at superspeedways haven't fallen Keselowski's way this year, but he and RFK Racing have shown speed. Keselowski led the most laps at the Daytona 500 before finishing ninth. He then finished 12th at Atlanta 1, 23rd at Talladega, 18th at Atlanta 2 and 35th at Daytona. Keselowski just qualified on pole at Texas last week and finished eighth in the event, giving him his second top-10 in September and fifth of the year.
Odds of 20-1 are far too long for an all-time Talladega great, which is why some other books have this line as short as 13-1. If Keselowski can replicate what he did in qualifying last weekend, this number will drop significantly before the green flag flies.
Harrison Burton Top 10 | +600 (0.33 Unit) at DraftKings
Todd Gilliland Top 10 | +650 (0.33 Unit) at FanDuel
Ty Dillon Top 10 | +650 (0.33 Unit) at FanDuel
Springing a full unit on some attrition-related props should yield bettors a positive return on investment. While multiple drivers have top-10 odds well into the plus money, the raw mathematical odds of scoring a top-10 result in a 37-car field at 27%, or +270. These three drivers all own top-10 odds that are (or almost are) less than half of that. While these individual drivers and their equipment haven't been great this season, superspeedway tracks are a great equalizer and tend to produce strange outcomes because of crashes.
Further, these three drivers have shown enough talent at superspeedway tracks to warrant shorter odds. Ty Dillon barely missed the top-10 in this year's Daytona 500 and owns five superspeedway top-10s in 23 starts. Rookie Harrison Burton scored a top-10 in the second Atlanta race. Rookie Todd Gilliland nearly won three Truck Series races here and scored two top threes in four starts. Another high-attrition race could be on the horizon with playoff drivers desperately looking to avoid elimination, so drivers who usually run toward the rear of the field may benefit from faster cars crashing out.
These odds also vary across the market. DraftKings has Dillon, Burton and Gilliland all at 6-1, but FanDuel has Burton down to +430 already. Only one of these drivers must finish inside the top 10 for bettors to profit from these three plays. Adding a few other drivers like Corey LaJoie (+380) or Noah Gragson (+380) could increase the hit rate, but those lines do not offer as much of a positive return.
