The Action Network: Cracker Barrel 400 predictions, picks, odds for Nashville

Nick Giffen

1 year ago

Jonathan Bachman | Getty Images

NASCAR heads to the 1.33-mile concrete track, Nashville Superspeedway, for tonight's Cracker Barrel 400 (7 ET, Prime Video). Nashville represents the fourth consecutive intermediate-track, points-paying race. Notably, practice times have been extremely useful over the first three races at Texas, Kansas, and Charlotte in predicting race speed. In particular, my FLAGS metric identified Larson and Chastain as the clear best cars in each of the last two weeks. The week before, it pinned Austin Cindric as fastest in practice, and he won Stage 1 before ultimately running into issues with a poorly timed pit stop just before a caution, then getting caught up in a late wreck. So it should be no surprise that I'll be heavily relying on practice FLAGS to find some value for tonight's NASCAR best bets for Nashville. MORE: Full starting lineup in photos | Fantasy Live advice

Cracker Barrel 400 Best Bets

DraftKings is hanging a ton of head-to-head bets this week, and that's the market I'm looking to attack. I'm showing pretty clear value on four of these matchup bets, so without breaking down each individual matchup, I'll simply list them with their FLAGS rating and their median finishing position as determined by my model. 1. Tyler Reddick -110 over Christopher Bell

FLAGS: Reddick 89.6% (1st), Bell 74.9% (8th)
Med. Finish: Reddick 6.5, Bell 7.5

2. Cody Ware -110 over J.J. Yeley

FLAGS: Ware 16.4% (36th), Yeley 4.6% (38th)
Med. Finish: Ware 30.5, Yeley 31.5

3. William Byron -115 over Kyle Larson

FLAGS: Byron 85.3% (4th), Larson 57.9% (16th)
Med. Finish: Byron 5.5, Larson 6.5

4. Chase Briscoe -120 over Joey Logano

FLAGS: Briscoe 78.7% (5th), Logano 49.8% (21st)
Med. Finish: Briscoe 11.5, Logano 13.5

Notably, in all four of these matchups, the driver I'm betting on is also starting ahead of their opponent, so we're firing off with the early advantage on cars that also practiced faster. I'm also going to have a little fun and parlay these four bets at DraftKings at +1149 odds. It's quite unlikely to hit, but it's a fun way to compound these edges.