NASCAR heads to one of its fastest tracks of the year for the FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan International Speedway (June 8, 2 p.m. ET, Prime Video).
Last year, Michigan ended up being a bit of a hectic race, with many misleading finishes and several drivers whose box scores looked much worse than they ran.
That's why my FLAGS metric is extremely handy. It uses the car's laps only from when they were a representation of its true form. In other words, if the car suffered damage or had a parts failure that negatively impacted the lap times, FLAGS adjusts for that.
One driver, in particular, stands out to me, having some similar results this year at a comparable track to back up that pace, and is going off at a pretty bonkers 150-1 odds to win.
FireKeepers Casino 400 Early Bets
What if I told you a driver finished fourth at arguably Michigan's best comparable track earlier this year, was a top-15 car last year (and possibly better), but had a right rear tire go down just past the halfway point?
That's exactly what happened to A.J. Allmendinger in last year's race, flying from a 35th-place starting position all the way up to 13th in just half the race distance until the tire failure.
His Kaulig Racing teammate last year, Daniel Hemric, even had a decent race. He ran with an average running position inside the top 20 if we remove the opening stint after Hemric started 32nd himself, which is great considering his 29th-place finish in the standings.
Allmendinger was 14th in my track position-adjusted FLAGS metric and probably would have been even better had he not had the tire failure, considering his FLAGS numbers were improving throughout the 108 laps he ran prior to the issues.
Moving to this year, "The Dinger" has three top-10 finishes at intermediate tracks, with a seventh at Las Vegas, an eighth at Homestead, and a fourth at Michigan's best comparable track, Charlotte.
The best bet is to take Allmendinger for a Top-10 finish at +550 odds at FanDuel, but I certainly am sprinkling his 150-1 outright odds at ESPN BET and adding some on his Top-5 finish at +1800 there or at FanDuel.
The Bets: A.J. Allmendinger ladder (+550 Top-10, +1800 Top-5, at FanDuel, +15000 to Win at ESPN BET) | Bet to: +500, +1500, +12500
