One fact about the NASCAR Cup Series so far in 2021 is that it has been anything but predictable. We have had seven races so far — and seven different winners. The Daytona 500 got the surprises off to a big start, as Michael McDowell came out of nowhere to win in a big upset as Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski had a wreck on the last lap. Let’s take a look at some ways in which surprises have influenced NASCAR betting in stock car racing.
NASCAR News: Early Surprises in 2021
At the Daytona 500, Denny Hamlin was the early favorite at +500, as he had already won three times at the Great American Race — and had won in 2019 and 2020. McDowell came in as a +6600 pick, near the bottom of the sheet. However, that late wreck pushed McDowell to the win.
The next week was back at Daytona but on the road course. Chase Elliott was the obvious favorite, coming in as the defending NASCAR Cup Series champion, with five wins on road courses on his resume. Martin Truex Jr and Kyle Busch, other drivers with road course success, were also near the top of the odds list, but it was Christopher Bell, who had never cracked the top 20 in a road course race, who ended up winning.
The third race was at Homestead, on their 1.5-mile track. Hamlin, Logano, Harvick or either Busch looked like promising choices based on their history at that track. So of course it was William Byron, who had finished ninth at the last Homestead race but was still nowhere near the top of the odds sheet, who ended up leading 102 of the race’s 267 laps and taking the win.
Next, the Cup Series shifted to Las Vegas. Kyle Larson was closer to the top of the odds list than the earlier winners had been so far in 2021, and he was able to outduel Brad Keselowski for the win. Perhaps the biggest surprise here was that it took Larson so long to grab a win in 2021.
When Martin Truex Jr won in Phoenix, that might not have sounded like that much of a surprise, as Truex is a former Cup Series champion. However, Phoenix was not a place where Truex expected to win as he had led a grand total of 123 laps — in 30 races at this track. Harvick, with nine career wins at Phoenix, was the favorite, just above Elliott, who had dominated the track at the Championship 4 race here in November.
It looked like Larson would win again in Atlanta, as he won the race’s first two stages and led for 269 laps. However, it was Ryan Blaney who tracked him down and took the lead with eight laps to go, and he would hold on for the win.
The last race was an historic event on dirt, the first in decades in the Cup Series, at Bristol. Austin Dillon, who had swept three races at the Bristol Dirt Nationals, Bell and Larson were the favorites going in because of their “track” record on dirt (pun intended). However, none of them were even close to contending in the races. Larson came in 35th at the Camping World Truck Series race — which went to Truex, who had only raced twice on the dirt, both in exhibitions. In the Cup Series race, Dillon settled for 21st, a lap behind the winner. Larson got tangled up with Bell in an early crash and settled for 29th. Bell ended up losing control when he attempted to make a high side run and finished 34th. So the race came down to Hamlin, Logano and Daniel Suarez, all relative novices on the dirt, with Logano prevailing.
So what will happen this week at Martinsville, with a race coming up under the lights? The favorites will be Elliott, Truex and Keselowski on the short track. Hamlin has won here five times, and each Busch brother has won here twice. Or will this week just turn into the latest surprise?
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