Posted on by PJ Walsh

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One of the keys to being a successful sports bettor is the ability to keep emotion out of your wagering decisions, but that’s not easy at times.

I had Ross Chastain at 100-1 in last night’s Xfinity race at Texas, and for those who didn’t watch, Chastain had the lead late before getting passed by Christopher Bell on a restart and ultimately finishing second.

Obviously, losing a bet with a massive payout like that creates emotions, similar to those of a poker player tilting after a bad beat.

And as difficult as it can be, it’s imperative to not allow the results of previous wagers to infiltrate your decision-making process, specifically those based purely on emotion.

With this in mind, I’m not going overboard on today’s AAA Texas 500 in order to try and make up what I hoped would be a huge win last night, but I am sticking to historical data and this week’s on-track activity at Texas Motor Speedway to land on two drivers worth betting to win.

All odds via the Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook as of Sunday morning

RELATED: Odds to win

NASCAR at Texas Best Bet Picks

Martin Truex Jr. (8-1) to Win

This number has overreaction written all over it. Truex was an absolute rocket at the most recent races run at Las Vegas and Kansas, the two NASCAR playoff events held at 1.5-mile race tracks, just like Texas.

The driver of the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota won at Vegas to kick off the playoffs and has the best driver rating by far over those two races.

But after qualifying just 17th, Truex’s odds have dropped to 8-1. While starting in the middle of the field isn’t ideal, guess his average starting position at those two 1.5-mile playoff races … 17.5.

MORE: Full starting lineup

An added bonus for Truex: He’s already locked into the championship race at Homestead after winning last week at Martinsville. This affords his team the ability to get off-sequence on strategy.

Just like Chastain yesterday, Truex doesn’t need to worry about playoff points like the rest of the top NASCAR drivers and can instead focus solely on putting himself in the best position to win the race.

Aric Almirola (40-1) to Win

Speaking of emotions, Almirola teased us last week at Martinsville, running in or near the top five before getting tangled up with Kyle Busch and knocked out of the race.

And since that result shouldn’t do anything to keep us off Almirola today, I’m going back to the well because the value is too good to pass up.

Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) is fast this weekend. Kevin Harvick is on the pole, while Clint Bowyer and Almirola showed plenty of speed in practice.

Interestingly, all four SHR drivers, including Daniel Suarez, have seen major odds adjustments, but Almirola is still the longest shot of the team and I don’t understand why.

To start, Aric had a good run at Texas back in March, finishing seventh. The No. 10 SHR Ford has had plenty of speed this week as well, qualifying sixth while ranking second, fifth and third in five-lap, 10-lap and 15-lap averages, respectively, in final practice.

So at 40-1 we get a driver who finished top-10 in the most recent race at Texas, has a great starting spot and was easily a top-five car in practice.

To be fair, I wouldn’t list Almirola among the favorites either, but him having longer odds than Suarez (30-1) is head-scratching.

While top-five numbers aren’t available at the time of writing, I’ll also look to play Aric for a top-five finish.

Posted on by Terrin Waack

FORT WORTH, Texas — As soon as the checkered flag dropped Saturday night at Texas Motor Speedway, drivers still alive in the Xfinity Series playoffs switched their focus ahead to ISM Raceway next weekend.

Three spots in the Championship 4 are actually still up for grabs. Of the two Round of 8 races so far, only one was won by a playoff contender. Christopher Bell just clinched a berth with his victory at Texas, but the week before saw a non-playoff driver win. That cracks the door open for the remaining seven, a little.

“There are so many scenarios that really we can’t even think of all the scenarios that could potentially happen,” Justin Allgaier said. “It seems like it never fails that when you think you have it figured out, that’s when God’s plan changes and you don’t really have anything figured out.”

RELATED: Race results | Bell prevails at Texas

Allgaier, who finished sixth at Texas, kept his fourth-place standing, holding the final transfer spot with an 18-point cushion. Chase Briscoe is still right below him in fifth after finishing 22nd.

Further down in the ranks are Michael Annett (-28 in sixth; 11th at Texas), Austin Cindric (-31 in seventh; third at Texas) and Noah Gragson (-47 in eighth; 30th at Texas). Gragson and Cindric swapped positions. Others stayed put, but numbers changed.

Cole Custer is on top of those still battling for a ticket to Homestead-Miami Speedway with a 52-point advantage. Tyler Reddick is then third and has 36 points to his name. Custer and Reddick were eighth and 29th at Texas, respectively. Reddick wrecked out on Lap 150 of 200.

“As long as the top four guys now don’t screw up, it’s going to be hard for any of us to catch them,” said Briscoe, whose tire blew with 24 laps to go at the 1.5-mile track. “If one of us wins the (Phoenix) race, that obviously kind of throws a change in the plans. So that’s what we’re trying to do.”

That’s the mentality for all of the guys outside the bubble now.

“It just makes it a must-win, honestly,” Annett said. “If you’re going to have one thing: To go in there and be 28 points back, at least you know exactly what you have to do. There’s no strategy. We can set ourselves up for the end of the race just to go win it.”

Full-time Monster Energy Series driver Kyle Busch won the Xfinity Series’ race at ISM earlier this season. So, among the active playoff drivers, Reddick had the best performance (third). Custer, Cindric and Briscoe followed him in order, though.

Allgaier and Bell are the only title hopefuls who have been to Victory Lane at ISM before. Neither has won a championship.

“Last year still haunts me,” Allgaier said. “I look at last year and not being able to make the final four was a rough situation. I’m disappointed with last year. So there’s a lot more on the line this year for me.”

Posted on by Reid Spencer

FORT WORTH, Texas – Christopher Bell shrugged off a short-lived brake problem in his No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota and cruised to a 5.635-second victory in Saturday night’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 300 at Texas Motor Speedway.

With his eighth win of the year — a career-best for a single season — Bell locked himself into the Championship 4 Round of the NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs, with the title to be decided two weeks hence at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

RELATED: Unofficial race results

Bell led 101 of 200 laps in winning for the first time at the 1.5-mile track and the 16th time in his career. Bell swept the first and second stages of the event, bringing his total of 2019 stage victories to 20.

“That’s pretty special to win here at Texas,” said Bell, a native of Norman, Oklahoma. “I have a lot of family here. This (checkered) flag right here is for my nephew (Trip). I promised him years ago that if I ever won, I’d give him the flag at Texas.

“I knew we were very competitive, and then I began having brake problems. And then whenever I got those brake problems, I just wasn’t as good. I couldn’t keep the car underneath me and I was really loose. So I had to work a little harder, and that red flag helped me and my brakes came back. We were able to drive away.”

Ross Chastain came home second after taking the lead by staying on the track under caution on Lap 142 while the other top contenders came to pit road for fuel. Chastain, driving the No. 10 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet he will race full-time next year, held the top spot through two subsequent cautions and led the field to the final restart on Lap 171.

But Bell surged past Chastain on the restart lap and widened his advantage over the final 29 laps.

One of the Xfinity Series’ Big Three took a big hit on Lap 161. Racing behind Chase Briscoe for the seventh position, Tyler Reddick lost control of his No. 2 Chevrolet when Briscoe ran too high in Turn 2 and hit the outside wall.

Reddick’s Chevy bounced off the outside wall, slid across the track and slammed nose-first into the inside SAFER barrier on the backstretch, destroying the radiator and knocking him out of the race. Reddick ended the night third in the Playoff standings, and despite the DNF, he holds a 36-point edge over fifth-place Briscoe heading to next Saturday’s elimination event at ISM Raceway in Phoenix.

“You’re never safe,” Reddick said after leaving the infield care center. “We had a lot better (points) cushion than that… I got us mired back in that mess there (after a restart on Lap 157) and that’s what I deserve, if I can’t be up front with a car like that, that fast.”

Briscoe stayed on the track after the contact with the wall and eventually paid the price. He lost three laps after his tire shredded and finished 22nd, falling 18 points behind sixth-place finisher Justin Allgaier for the final berth in the Championship 4.

“That was just unfortunate,” Briscoe said. “I don’t think we were the car to win by any means, but I think we would have run fifth to eighth area. We just had to stay in that same ballpark where the 7 (Allgaier) was. We were in really good contention to do that, and then I made a mistake running the top and tried to get too much.

“We thought all our tires looked good, but we had a rub and the tire went flat and put us three laps down. Obviously, we have our backs against the wall going into next week but we have really good fast race cars. We’ll go there and try to win the race.”

Playoff driver Austin Cindric finished third but goes to Phoenix seventh in the standings, 31 points behind Allgaier. Brandon Jones, John Hunter Nemechek, Allgaier, Harrison Burton and Cole Custer finished fourth through eighth, respectively.

Custer is second in the Playoff standings, 52 points ahead of Briscoe. Noah Gragson took the biggest hit in the Playoff race, crashing out of the race in 30th place after turning down across the nose of Burton’s Toyota on Lap 149 and oiling the track.

Gragson leaves Texas 57 points below the current cutline needing a victory at Phoenix to advance to the Championship 4.

Posted on by Staff Report

Kevin Harvick is on the pole for Sunday’s AAA Texas 500 (3 p.m. ET, NBCSN/NBC Sports App, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Is the two-time Texas winner — both victories coming since the 2017 repave — worthy of a spot on your roster? How should you navigate the playoff game format? We’ve dissected the numbers to offer a suggested lineup worthy of your Fantasy Live consideration.

PLAY NOW: Set your lineup | How the game works | Tips to set your lineup

RJ Kraft’s Fantasy Live lineup for race day at Texas
Playoff driver 1: Kevin Harvick
Playoff driver 2: Denny Hamlin
Non-playoff driver 1: Kurt Busch
Non-playoff driver 2: Erik Jones
Garage: Kyle Larson

RELATED: Odds for Texas | Lap averages | Weekend preview

Analysis: For the playoff plays, Harvick and Hamlin — the two most recent winners at Texas — will anchor my lineup. I already have five points in the bank with Harvick as my pole pick. Both Harvick and Hamlin had strong cars on the lap average board and the recent history for Harvick is extremely favorable — two wins in his last four here. Larson is my garage play because the long-run averages are right there with Harvick and a tick above Hamlin. The Texas history has been hot and cold for Larson, so I like the safety net of having him in the garage and seeing what happens.

On the non-playoff side, Kurt Busch is at the top of my list. The recently-extended Chip Ganassi Racing driver has the third-most points on the repaved 1.5-mile track and has been fast all weekend. For the other spot, I am taking a bit of a gamble with Jones. The gamble isn’t in his Texas numbers of late — three straight fourth-place finishes. It’s in his recent 2019 results with five races of three points or less in the past eight. That said, I think the upside and track history are extremely favorable. Alex Bowman was a consideration for me if I wanted to play it a little safer.

For the bonus picks: I’ll take Harvick for everything — the Stage 1 win, the Stage 2 win and the race win with Ford as the manufacturer.

Each week in this space, we’ll also highlight two Props Challenge items for players.

MORE: Play the Props Challenge today

1. A playoff driver below the cutline wins on Sunday: Yes or No. Simply put, I think Harvick has THE car to beat and will win on Sunday. He is currently below the cutline to advance, so I am a YES on this one.

2. O/U 4.5 Fords finish in the top 10. The over has been hit in three of the past four Texas races. We have five Fords starting in the top 10 and does not include playoff drivers Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney, who, based on their history at the repave, are two drivers I’d expect to see in the top 10 when the checkered flag falls. I think two other Blue Ovals join them with Harvick so I’ll take the OVER here.

Posted on by Reid Spencer

FORT WORTH, Texas — The thesis has always been that, if rim-rider Kyle Larson ever advances to Homestead-Miami Speedway as one of the Championship 4, he’d have to be considered a favorite for the title, given his unmatched prowess at running the wall at the 1.5-mile speedway.

The problem has been getting there, and approaching Sunday’s AAA Texas 500, Larson is 24 points behind fourth-place Joey Logano in the race for a playoff berth in the season finale. Accordingly, Larson has no margin for error—and he knows it.

RELATED: Full Playoffs standings

“Obviously, we have to have a really good day,” Larson said. “Twenty-four points out, if I can’t win, I need to do a really good job in each stage and probably finish in the top three. Hopefully, I can go win, and that would make next week (at Phoenix) easy. I know I have to have a really good day.”

Fortunately for Larson, his average finish of 20.4 at Texas belies the speed he typically has in his No. 42 Chevrolets.

“We’re always really fast here at Texas, especially since the repave (after the November 2016 race),” Larson said. “I’ve just had a crash and two blown right-front tires. I’ve always ran really well here. If you just look at a piece of paper, you would think that I don’t run well here. But we’re always really fast. We just have to keep the right-front holding air.”

Posted on by Reid Spencer

FORT WORTH, Texas – Kevin Harvick took the first step toward getting back on the right side of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoff cutline, winning the pole for Sunday’s AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway (3 p.m. ET on NBCSN, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Harvick, who trails fourth-place Joey Logano by 14 points entering the second race of the Round of 8, toured the 1.5-mile track in 28.465 seconds (189.707 mph) to win his second Busch Pole Award at Texas, his series-best sixth of the season and the 31st of his career.

RELATED: Starting lineup | Photos: All 40 cars

Erik Jones, already eliminated from the playoffs, was second fastest at 188.890 mph, .123 seconds behind Harvick. Denny Hamlin, second in the playoff standings, qualified third at 188.12 mph, followed by Kurt Busch, Alex Bowman and Aric Almirola.

“The best part is our car drove really well in race trim yesterday and still had a lot of speed when we put it in qualifying trim today,” said Harvick, winner of the last two playoff races at Texas. “So, hopefully, we can keep our track position.

“As you saw the last race (at Texas), you want to be up front and you want to be on the right cycle of rotation of pit strategy. Having that first pit stall is definitely an advantage here. It will be a track position game, and hopefully we can play it right and keep ourselves up front.”

Logano will start 11th in his attempt to protect his position in the standings. Other playoff drivers earned the following positions on the grid: Kyle Busch 12th, Kyle Larson 13th, Chase Elliott 14th, Ryan Blaney 15th and Martin Truex Jr. 17th.

Truex has already qualified for the Nov. 17 Championship 4 race at Homestead-Miami Speedway by virtue of last Sunday’s victory at Martinsville.

After a broken axle and a 36th-place finish at Martinsville, Elliott trails Logano by 44 points and likely must win one of the next two races to advance to the Championship 4.

In a substitute role for Front Row Motorsports driver Matt Tifft, who suffered a seizure last Saturday at Martinsville, John Hunter Nemechek qualified 29th.

“That was the first qualifying run I have ever done in a Cup car,” Nemechek said. “It was pretty interesting. We went faster today than we did yesterday. That is a positive. We’re getting faster every time on the race track. It’s a whole new deal for myself, being over here in the Cup garage. Different scenarios, a whole new team. Different communications. A lot of variables that play into this weekend.

“I’m really thankful for the opportunity from (owner) Bob (Jenkins) and everyone at Front Row Motorsports. I hate that the circumstances are like this. I really wish Matt Tifft a speedy recovery and hope he is back at the race track very soon.”

Posted on by Reid Spencer

FORT WORTH, Texas – Kurt Busch will be driving for Chip Ganassi Racing for at least two more years, with Monster Energy as his primary sponsor.

Busch and team owner Chip Ganassi announced the multiyear extension of Busch’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series contract on Saturday at Texas Motor Speedway, but not before Busch teased reporters with an impending retirement gag, amplified by the gift of a rocking chair from TMS president Eddie Gossage.

RELATED: Key players in Silly Season

The specific terms of the driver and sponsor contracts weren’t revealed, other than that both were multiyear commitments.

“It’s been a good career, it’s been fun, and it’s been tough at the same time to see how things have changed and how things have gone,” deadpanned Busch, the 2004 series champion who advanced to the Playoffs this year on the strength of his win at Kentucky Speedway. “Wait! Eddie, really? A rocking chair? It’s not time for a rocking chair. This old guy’s got some kick left.”

With that, Busch and accompanying Monster girls popped a spray of confetti out of champagne bottles to announce the new contract.

Ganassi had high praise for the 41-year-old driver, crediting him with elevating the performance of not only the No. 1 Chevrolet but also with helping teammate Kyle Larson’s effort in the No. 42 Chevy.

“With his driving this year, he’s sparked the No. 1 car, taken it to a place it’s never been before,” Ganassi said. “That was the first time a Chevrolet won at Kentucky, so we were pretty pleased with that. And, obviously, having Monster as a great partner has been a real shot in the arm for our team …

“As Kurt will tell you, he and Kyle Larson have had a great time becoming teammates, and I think it’s made Larson a better driver. … So this guy brings a lot more than just what’s on the track. He brought a lot of guys on that 1 team their first Cup win, and I think you saw that in the exuberance at Kentucky. So I’m proud to keep him as part of this team for the foreseeable future.”

A multiyear deal for Busch is an anomaly. His recent contracts — and Monster’s accompanying commitments — have been for one year each.

“To have a multiyear deal, it’s comforting that I won’t have to answer the questions weekly about being a 41-year-old veteran in a sport where there’s a young push,” Busch said. “To have that done, that’ll be refreshing, because the focus should be on track.

“It should be the on-track product, what happens out there racing, what happens during the week with different promotional things and continuing to build this sport that’s given me so much — those are some of the big reasons why I signed on again to keep going, smile out there and go for the trophy.”

Chip Ganassi Racing is the sixth stop for Busch in his Monster Energy Series career. He spent the previous five seasons with Stewart-Haas Racing, where Busch landed six of his 31 big-league wins.

Contributing: Staff reports

Posted on by Terrin Waack

FORT WORTH, Texas — The word Chase Elliott kept coming back to was unfortunate.

It was unfortunate his engine choked eight laps in at Dover International Speedway four weeks ago, forcing Elliott to exit early and finish in dead-last 38th. It was unfortunate once again his engine failed in the first practice at Martinsville Speedway last weekend, requiring Elliott to start competition from the rear after a complete change. And it was unfortunate in that following race his axle broke on Lap 180 of 400, leaving him 36th and 55 laps down when the checkered flag waved.

“Like I said, it is unfortunate,” Elliott said Wednesday at Texas Motor Speedway. “And I think if you’re going to fail something, now is not the time to fail it.”

Both incidents were during round openers in the NASCAR Playoffs. Dover kicked off the Round of 12. Martinsville started the Round of 8, which continues Sunday with the AAA Texas 500 (3 p.m. ET, NBCSN/NBC Sports App, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

RELATED: Texas schedule | Texas 101 | Texas gallery

A scant three points and a runner-up performance at Kansas Speedway squeaked Elliott into the latest three-race set. Now, though, the driver of the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet sits eighth in the standings and 44 points below the cutline with two races to go until the Championship 4 is set.

“We can’t break parts,” No. 9 crew chief Alan Gustafson said at Martinsville. “You can’t win these races if you don’t finish them. Certainly can’t gain any points if you don’t finish them.

“Yeah, we gotta finish races. We can’t continue to do this. This is not acceptable and we’re not going to get very far if we don’t finish, so that’s a lot to clean up in my opinion.”

Elliott survived but did not thrive in Wednesday’s pair of practices at Texas, coming in 26th at 185.293 mph for the first and 15th at 187.039 mph for the final. He, along with the rest of the field, will qualify Saturday at 7:05 p.m. ET (CNBC/NBC Sports App, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

When it comes to the 1.5-mile Texas track, Elliott’s best run in seven starts through 3.5 seasons is fourth in fall 2016. His worst is 13th earlier this season, in which he did lead a career-high 35 laps, though. Elliott has tallied two top-five and five top-10 finishes, ultimately good for an 8.0 average finish in Forth Worth.

“All you can do, in my opinion, is do the best you can do, right?” Gustafson said. “Optimism, stats, history – all that (expletive) does not matter. It doesn’t pay any points. You’ve got to go, and you’ve got to perform.”

And, like Gustafson already noted, actually complete races.

There have been 10 instances this season where Elliott has not completed every lap. He has turned 8,754 of the 9,342 laps run through 36 events. That cranks out to be 93.7%.

OK, but of the 588 he missed, 448 (55 at Martinsville, 392 at Dover and one at Richmond Raceway) have been during the NASCAR Playoffs alone. Now that’s 76% within seven postseason races.

“I think that it’s unfortunate,” Elliott said. “But it’s not like somebody is back there putting stuff together and thinking, ‘Look, this is going in the 9 car. I want to mess that up.’ That’s not the mentality, and that’s not how this stuff works. It is unfortunate, but it is what it is.”

Posted on by Chase Wilhelm

Martin Truex Jr.’s triumph in last Sunday’s race at Martinsville Speedway served as his 26th career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series victory, continuing Truex Jr.’s surge up the all-time wins list late in his NASCAR career.

As it turns out, when it comes to winning, it’s actually Truex and Dale Jarrett who have much in common at NASCAR’s highest tier. Truex is just six wins away from tying the Hall of Fame driver on the all-time wins list, but it’s a particular span where their success on the race track link up.

RELATED: 10 stats: Truex still searching for Texas win

Let’s first focus on the initial nine seasons of their respective Cup Series careers. While his first career win came at Michigan International Speedway in 1991 driving the iconic Wood Brothers Racing No. 21, Jarrett scored four race wins in that time span, earning two victories driving the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing entry in 1993-94, including the ’93 Daytona 500. He followed that up with another win in his inaugural season driving the No. 28 for Robert Yates Racing in 1995.

For Truex, his first nine years brought along a pair of checkered flags. His maiden Cup Series victory came at Dover International Speedway in 2007 in the No. 1 Dale Earnhardt Inc. machine. In 2013, his first season with Michael Waltrip Racing, Truex scored another win at Sonoma Raceway.

But it’s their next 177 starts where the similarities between their accomplishments really begin to take shape. Truex’s span of 177 starts stretches from the 2015 Daytona 500 through last Sunday’s race at Martinsville, while Jarrett’s begins with the 1996 Daytona 500 and ends with the 2001 spring race at Dover.

Dale Jarrett Martin Truex Jr.
Starts 177 177
Wins 23 24
Championships 1 (1999) 1 (2017)

Among the 24 victories for Truex include a trio of crown-jewel events, including the Coca-Cola 600 (2016, ’19) and 2016 Southern 500. Jarrett was able to earn five trips to Victory Lane in crown-jewel races during that stretch — the Coca-Cola 600 (1996), Brickyard 400 (1996, ’99) and Daytona 500 (1996, ’00).

The only major difference overall lies in Daytona 500 victories where Jarrett owns three triumphs, while Truex’s quest for his first Harley J. Earl trophy continues into the 2020 season.

The biggest takeaway is Jarrett’s 2014 induction into the NASCAR Hall of Fame makes it almost certain that Truex is destined to have a place among the sport’s legends. With a bid now secured in the Championship 4 at Homestead-Miami Speedway later this month, Truex has the opportunity to bolster that cause even more with a second title, which would surpass Jarrett on another all-time list.

Contributing: Stats from Racing Insights