Coca-Cola 600 betting: Chastain undervalued; sharps buy low on Ford

There’s been plenty of movement on the Coca-Cola 600 oddsboard since opening numbers were hung at the market-making Westgate SuperBook in Las Vegas on Monday, but one driver – despite sitting atop the NASCAR Cup standings – remains below the betting market’s radar. Considering Ross Chastain’s absence from Victory Lane since April 2022 at Talladega, his +1000 odds might not seem like much of a bargain. But the No. 1 Chevrolet has been positioned near the front of the pack all season and may have been the best car at Charlotte Motor Speedway last Memorial Day Weekend. Chastain led 153 laps in the 2022 edition of this race – most of any driver – and won Stage 3, before cutting a tire in the final stage and finishing 15th. While Chastain interrupts the Hendrick Motorsports/Joe Gibbs Racing flow at the top of the betting board, that’s a deserved distinction. MORE: Coca-Cola 600 odds | Full Charlotte preview “Throw in Chastain” to the mix of those top two garages, Ed Salmons, vice president of risk management at the SuperBook, told NASCAR.com this week. “He’s always fast.” This chart shows opening odds at the Westgate, as well as Friday’s numbers at the SuperBook and Barstool Sports. (Below, we discuss the drastic movement in the Ford pricing). [table id=37 /] “Definitely in on Ross Chastain,” Jim Sannes, a quantitative NASCAR fantasy and betting analyst at numberFire, said in a direct message. “My top tier is him with Byron and Larson all bunched together before a big dropoff. Chastain has the longest odds of them by a wide margin.” Yes, when analysis indicates a significantly narrower gap between betting entries than the odds do, the suggestion is to make the wager. “It's just really hard not to have a high rating on a guy who pushed for a win here last year and has constantly been up front using this rules package,” Sannes added of Chastain. “He hasn't won in more than a year (or ever on a non-drafting oval), but he's just in contention far too often for it not to happen soon.” Now We Got Bad Blood Chastain hasn’t exactly been making friends on the Cup circuit this year, and a bettor’s nightmare is watching a competitor spin out the No. 1 under the white flag. Can the bad blood be factored into handicapping this race? “Not really,” deadpanned Salmons. “It's almost impossible to try to understand how it's gonna affect [him] -- the good or the bad.” Sannes offered a different perspective. “I have a higher ‘incident rating’ on him than I do on other drivers, and that does impact his odds,” he said. “It shows up more in his top-10 odds, though, because it makes him more volatile, which impacts the more floor-based markets. For ceiling, it does play a role, but it's not as big of an issue there.” Ford's Odds Shorten – By a Lot Salmons didn’t give the Fords much respect with his opening numbers. Its +600 mark in the winning manufacturer prop is the longest the oddsmaker recalls ever pricing them. That number’s been adjusted to +405 (Chevy is -105, Toyota +220). And Joey Logano at +2500? Sharp bettors are calling those odds “ridiculous” and have bet the No. 22 all the way down to +1400. While Logano has drawn the most money at the SuperBook, Kevin Harvick has moved from +2000 to +1600, Ryan Blaney from +2500 to +2000, Keselowski from +4000 to +6000, and Chase Briscoe from +20000 to +10000. “I don't know where they're coming from, to be honest,” Salmons said of these bettors. “The Fords look terrible to me on these kinds of tracks.” He added in a text message Friday morning, “If you want to look at the history books and bet accordingly, Harvick, Logano, Blaney, Keselowski and Briscoe would look live to you.” Sannes isn’t giving the Fords a great chance Monday, either. In fact, +600 in the manufacturers' prop was generous, according to his model. “I've got +755 as the fair price on them (11.7% chance of winning), so I can't even bite on that, honestly,” he said. “They've just been so uncompetitive in these races.” Salmons, though, cautions that the 600-mile distance of this race throws a wrench into handicapping. “Certain tracks, like mile-and-a-half ovals, seem like they're really settling in here as far as it's pretty easy to predict who's gonna be around,” the oddsmaker said. “The only thing with Charlotte, this is obviously the longest race of the year, and it just goes on forever, and there's a million pit stops, and people make mistakes. And this race historically has had some goofy winners through the years. So I would never write off anyone, just given how long it is and all the things that can happen.”