The iconic Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) hosts the final round of the NASCAR In-Season Challenge, where No. 6 seed Ty Gibbs faces No. 32 seed Ty Dillon with the best finisher of the two in this year's Brickyard 400 (Sunday, 2:00 p.m. ET, TNT) taking home a million bucks.
However, there are 37 other cars entered as well, and with IMS being a large, 2.5-mile flat oval that's shaped like a rectangle with rounded corners, track history is one of the biggest factors in early-week evaluation.
I'm going to take a shot on a driver that, I believe, statistically has IMS as his best track.
Brickyard 400 Best Bets
In four starts on the IMS oval, Bubba Wallace has finished third, ninth, and fifth. The other race was a DNF in his rookie season.
Yes, Wallace has wins at Talladega and Kansas, and some may argue those are his best tracks. Still, considering Wallace was in Richard Petty Motorsports equipment for his third- and ninth-place finishes in 2019-2020, those results represent nearly a 50% improvement compared to his average track performance.
Last year in his lone IMS oval start with his current team, 23XI Racing, Wallace led 26 of the 167 laps, or 15.6% of the race, en route to a fifth-place finish, showing he still has the goods at the IMS oval despite the series running on the road course from 2021-2023. Once again, Wallace's performance at IMS showed a 30% improvement over his average track.
All told, if we look at his last four non-DNF starts at each course, IMS is Wallace's No. 1 track with a 42.8% improvement over an average track for him, while Michigan — another horsepower circuit — comes in second at 19.9% above average.
Additionally, during his time at 23XI Racing, Wallace has +13.1% at Pocono in his five non-DNF starts, which is the other 2.5-mile flat oval.
Currently, Wallace is 35-1 at DraftKings, which is a fine number.
The Bet: Bubba Wallace to Win (+3500 at DraftKings) | Bet to: +3000
