Sunday’s Jack Link’s 500 at Talladega is the third drafting track race of the year, and we’ve started to see a bit of a trend.
The Fords appear to be the dominant cars in single-lap qualifying, and they perform well in the race, led by Team Penske and its affiliated Wood Brothers Racing, which led 311 of the 467 laps between Daytona and Atlanta.
However, another team and affiliate combination has been lurking, at least in single-lap speed. Richard Childress Racing, along with Kaulig Racing, has placed cars inside the top 21 in single-lap qualifying at all three drafting track races. That includes multiple starts inside the top ten among the quartet of drivers, including a front row start for Kyle Busch on Sunday.
However, I’m looking toward another one of these drivers for my best bet in Sunday’s race.
MORE: Full Talladega preview | Weekend results, more
NASCAR Odds, Best Bet for Talladega
*Odds as of Saturday afternoon
Ty Dillon Top-10 Finish (+500) – FanDuel
Ty Dillon has yet to finish inside the top 10 at a drafting track race in the Next Gen era, but part of that is some bad luck.
The younger Dillon brother has two finishes of 11th at Daytona in the Next Gen era, barely missing out on a top-10 spot. He also had a 14th-place finish in the Daytona 500 earlier this year, which came on the heels of a near-Duel winning effort. But that was not all, because he also had a 14th at Talladega back in 2023 with Spire Motorsports.
If we go back even farther in Dillon’s history, he has been a strong drafting track performer despite racing most of those races with the smaller-budget Germain Racing before it shut its doors. At the big superspeedways of Daytona and Talladega, Dillon has five top-10 finishes in 27 starts, and three other finishes of 11th.
That means 29.6% of the time he’s either finished inside the top 10, or come within one spot of doing so.
At +500, we just need him to finish inside the top 10 only 16.7% of the time to break even. He’s accomplished that in 18.5% of his Daytona and Talladega starts, and my model gives him a 17.8% chance of doing so this weekend.
It’s not monster value, but with the odds board extremely tight on value this week, that’s my top remaining value play of the week.
The Bet: Ty Dillon top-10 Finish (+500 at FanDuel) | Bet to: +475