The NASCAR Cup Series playoffs have arrived. Here is a betting recommendation for Sunday’s first playoff race. Top Sportsbooks have released their odds for the upcoming NASCAR Cup Series race in Darlington, South Carolina. This upcoming race marks the beginning of this year’s playoffs. Here is all of the information that you’ll want to know for this race as well as all the analysis that you’ll need to approach this race reasonably as a bettor.
Sunday, September 5, 2021 – 6:00PM EDT at Darlington Raceway
This upcoming race in Darlington is a special one because it is the first playoff race of the season. Last race was the final race of the regular season. With there being the 16th and final spot up for grabs, this race established which 16 drivers will participate in the playoffs. There will be 10 playoff races starting with Sunday’s.
The next 10 races, including this upcoming one, will determine who this year’s champion will be. For the playoffs, there are four rounds. Each round consists in three races. Sunday’s race is the first race of the Round of 16 of the playoffs. There are two ways in which drivers may advance to the next round of the playoffs. They may either have enough points after three rounds or they may win one of the three races in the round. So far, nobody has advanced.
Drivers must complete 367 laps for Sunday’s racing competition. As has normally been the reality, this event has three stages. Stage 1 mandates drivers to complete 115 laps. Stage 2 finishes upon the completion of lap 230. Stage 3 consists in 107 more laps.
An entry list is always published early in the week for an upcoming racing event.
In total, 37 drivers are listed on the current entry list as participants for this race. Obviously, some of these drivers are not playoff competitors. Last week, Tyler Reddick beat out teammate Austin Dillon for the final spot, in part because he received help from Ryan Blaney. With Reddick in the playoffs, we know who the 16 playoff drivers will be.
Drivers are historically very familiar with Darlington. Therefore, there will not be any practice or qualifying round for this upcoming race — there is no need for it as there was in Austin, for example. Like usual, a predetermined formula will establish the order of the starting lineup. The lineup conventionally is released on Wednesday morning for the next race.
Darlington Raceway is famous for a lot of reasons, a lot of reasons which make racing here an unusually redoubtable experience for even experienced NASCAR competitors. One nickname for this track is “Lady in Black.” This nickname refers to the history of its pavement, but also to the difficulty of competing on this track.
More immediately telling is the nickname “The Track Too Tough to Tame.” One reason why racing here is so difficult is its egg shape. As it was constructed, it was designed and thought of as a track that could only handle very limited speeds, speeds that are wholly unrealistic for today’s faster brand of NASCAR racing.
Hence, Darlington Raceway’s structure promises a rather dangerous race setting at current speeds. Moreover, the track is well-known for being uniquely narrow. Because they have a tough time passing, drivers normally scrape the wall. When a driver scrapes a wall, he receives a “Darlington Stripe” on the side of his vehicle.
Each lap in Darlington requires 1.366 miles. So, in completing 367 laps, drivers will have accumulated just over 500 miles. One factor that facilitates higher speeds at this track is the nice amount of banking. Turns 1 and 2 are banked at 25 degrees and turns 3 and 4 at 23 degrees. The front and back straightaways are banked at three and two degrees, respectively.
Know for your best bets that drivers require a special degree of skill and comfort in tough conditions in order to thrive or even survive on this notoriously tough track. Some drivers lack the history at this track that would justify relying on them in any form to do well here. For example, do not trust Ryan Blaney.
It might be tempting to invest in him at least in match-up betting because of recency bias. We tend to overemphasize what we most recently saw and his last performance was a strong one. However, with your sports betting in mind, be sure to take a step back and survey all of this with a broader perspective.
In Blaney’s case, realize that he has never finished higher than eighth at this track.
In nine attempts at Darlington, Blaney has finished outside the top 20 nearly half of the time. His average finishing position here is 19, which is 7.1 spots worse than his average starting position. So, his struggles here are not a matter of starting position. Also avoid investing in Joey Logano as there are much better drivers out there. He has never won at this track. Keep this in mind for the match-up betting opportunities that you can locate at an online sports betting site.
There are other drivers who have more positive track records here, but lack any consistency. One thing I like about Kyle Larson is his consistent comfort shown at this track. Consistency makes a person reliable. In each of his last three races here, Larson has finished top-three. As he is very fast this season in his dominance of the regular season, he is in a great position competitively to finally get a win at Darlington.
On May 9, his most recent race here, he finished second after starting 14th. One could only expect better starting position to improve his chances. For the above reasons, invest in Larson with your NASCAR Picks.
NASCAR Pick: Larson to win at +350 with Bovada (visit our Bovada Review)
*The line and/or odds on picks in this article might have moved since the content was commissioned. For updated line movements, visit BMR’s free betting odds product.