NASCAR at Dover Odds & Picks: Best Prop Bets for Sunday’s Drydene 311 (August 23)

With one race at Dover complete, the NASCAR Cup Series returns on Sunday for another 311 miles at the track known as the Monster Mile.

Rules require teams to use the same car if possible. If a backup car is necessary, teams will have to start from the rear of the field. That means we should see a similar show to the first race.

With the on-track results from race one added to our arsenal of information, I’ve found two plus money props that offer value today.

NASCAR at Dover Best Prop Bets

Odds as of Sunday at 7:00 a.m. ET and via DraftKings. Get up to a $1,000 sign-up bonus at DraftKings today or see more offers and reviews for the best online sportsbooks.

Clint Bowyer (-118) for a Top-10 Finish

This isn't as generous as Bowyer's top-10 line for race No. 1, but this number still doesn't come close to where the true line should be. Bowyer had a top-five car in the first race. Furthermore, his overwhelming track history suggests this line should be at least -150.

Bowyer has top-10 finishes in five of seven Dover races for his current team, Stewart-Haas Racing. That includes three top-10 finishes in five races with low downforce rules.

If we extend his results back through the whole Gen-6 era and remove his year with underfunded HScott Motorsports, his top-10 rate increases to 76.9%. In fact, dating back to 2011, he's actually had a top-10 rate of 82.4% at Dover while racing for quality teams over a 17-race sample.

Simply put, this is an excellent track for Bowyer. His previous history suggests that the true probability of a top-10 finish is far greater than this line's implied odds.

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Chris Buescher (+350) to Win Group E

• Matt Kenseth (+125)
• Ryan Newman (+245)
• Chris Buescher (+350)
• Bubba Wallace (+350)

I do like Kenseth for DFS purposes thanks to his salary and relatively deep starting position. But, there are no driver salary considerations when betting, and the starting position works against him in this group. Buescher will start fifth thanks to the top-20 inversion while Newman rolls off second. The other two will start 22nd or worse.

If we look at each driver's points per race in 2020, we find that Newman actually leads the group with 17.8 points per race. That's slightly ahead of Buescher's 17.75 and Wallace's 17.58 points per race, and a good distance ahead of Kenseth's 17.05 points per race. Newman and Buescher both have average finishes of 19.1.

Finally, when looking at Dover performance, Buescher had the best finish in the first race, yet is the underdog in this group. Newman was close to Buescher in average running position and slightly faster in average green flag speed. However the discrepancies are minimal — certainly not enough to justify Buescher being such a huge underdog.

Wallace's track history is not compelling enough to warrant confidence in him. Kenseth has been the worst of the group overall in 2020 and has multiple factors working against him: his year off in 2019, part-time gig in 2018, and his advanced age (48). Those factors reduce the impact of his solid track history prior to 2018.

Buescher and Newman should be co-favorites to win the group, so take the driver with the longer odds.

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