Head-to-Head NASCAR Matchups Back on The Board at Online Sportsbooks

One of the first sports to return to live action in the US is NASCAR. Led by Cup Series racing, there are seven different races on the schedule over an 11-day span from Sunday, May 17 through Wednesday, May 27.

Four of the seven events are Cup Series point races. There are two Xfinity Series races on the slate and one truck race in the Gander Series. All told, motor sports betting enthusiasts are back in the game in a big way.

The online sportsbook industry has gone out of its way to keep a wide variety of betting options on their board during the shutdown of live sports and sporting events over the past two months. With the return of NASCAR to the board, many online books are expanding the betting options for the races.

The most basic way to bet a Cup Series event is picking the outright winner. This is also a tough bet to cash in. The moneyline return is high but this bet comes with low probability to collect. A more efficient way to bet on the races at an online sportsbook is through posted odds for head-to-head matchups.

This wager pits one driver against the other in a head-to-head race. The drivers you bet on do not have to win the race or even finish in the Top 5. All they have to do is finish higher in the final running order than the driver they were pitted against.

The first NASCAR Cup Series race on the board is this Sunday’s Darlington 400. There will be another Cup Series event at this track on Wednesday, May 20. In an effort to fill in some of the gaps in the two-month shutdown, there will be two more Cup Series point races at Charlotte the following week. The highlight of that run is the annual Coca-Cola 600 over the Memorial Day weekend.

The fact that the best stock car racers in the world will be running four events in an 11-day span without any real practice creates a very interesting betting scenario. Overall driving skill takes precedence over current driving form. Since none of these cars have been racing competitively for two months, pure skill is worth betting on.

Another factor that does come into play is a driver’s past performance at these two tracks. For example, the betting odds are set at -115 for either driver in a head-to-head matchup between Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin in this Sunday’s race.

Driving the No. 18 Toyota, Busch has an average finishing position of 11.1 at Darlington aided by a pair of Top 3 runs in two of his last three trips around this track.

Hamlin comes in with an average finishing position of 7.8 at this racetrack over the course of his 14-year Cup Series career. His No. 11 Toyota faded to No. 29 in last year’s race but he has only finished outside the Top 10 in three of his 14 previous runs at this track. The advantage in this head-to-head bet goes to Hamlin.

There will be a bit more guesswork in betting NASCAR races right now than using a pure statistical analysis but it is great just to have a chance to wager on a live sporting event. Check out all the different ways you can bet NASCAR at your favorite online sportsbook.