NASCAR heads to Talladega for the second race of the Round of 8 in the Cup Series playoffs.
In the first race, Denny Hamlin locked himself into the championship race with a win at Las Vegas, meaning he is free to do whatever he wants for the next two races.
And at Talladega specifically, where the draft rules all and one driver can give another driver a push, that leads to a perfect correlation spot for my favorite early week bet.
NASCAR at Talladega Best Bet
Let's turn the clocks way back to three weeks ago at Kansas, when the finish at Kansas came down to five Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) aligned cars on a final green-white-checkered overtime restart.
Bubba Wallace led the field to the two-lap shootout and on the last set of corners, Denny Hamlin — who owns the car Bubba Wallace drives — dived under Wallace, forced him up into the wall, and ultimately not only cost Wallace the win, but also himself and the other JGR-aligned cars, allowing Chevy's Chase Elliott of Hendrick Motorsports (HMS) to steal the win.
That disaster led to Wallace calling out Hamlin as a "dumbass" for that move.
Fast forward to Las Vegas, a somewhat sister track to Kansas in how they race, and Hamlin took the win on another late restart, stealing this one from HMS's Kyle Larson to claim the first spot in the championship race at Phoenix in just over two weeks' time.
With Hamlin locked into Phoenix, he's free to do whatever he wants. It would be wise of him to try to prevent the Team Penske cars of Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano from winning here at Talladega to keep the two drivers who are currently outside the cutline out of the championship race, given that they've won the last three titles between the two of them, with the title race at Phoenix each time.
You may say, well, couldn't Hamlin push one of his playoff teammates, Christopher Bell or Chase Briscoe, to the win?
He could. But those two are also exceptionally strong at Phoenix, and Hamlin would love nothing more than to make his shot at his first career championship as easy as possible.
Enter Bubba Wallace.
If Bubba takes the win at Talladega, that still leaves the door open for Denny to face arguably weaker competition, specifically at Phoenix in the three HMS cars of Elliott, Larson, and William Byron. Don't get me wrong, they will all be stiff competition, but it seems the Penske and JGR cars have the edge at Phoenix since the start of 2024, when both Ford and Toyota introduced new bodies to their cars.
Hamlin would also be wise to push the car he owns to a win, especially to pay back the driver he somewhat wronged at Kansas.
Bubba Wallace himself is a fantastic superspeedway racer, with a win here at Talladega and multiple close calls for other wins at Daytona and Talladega.
That makes these two drivers highly correlated, so I'll take a shot at them at 137-1 at DraftKings, or even 126-1 at Caesars.
I also don't mind if you want to place a bet on their exacta (also called a "straight forecast"), meaning a 1-2 finish with Wallace winning and Hamlin finishing second, at 250-1 at Bet365 or 225-1 at Caesars.
The Bet: Bubba Wallace to Win, Denny Hamlin Top-3 Finish Parlay (137-1 at DraftKings)
Bet to: 125-1
