Martinsville NASCAR Predictions, Best Bets & Cup Series Odds
By Phil Bobbitt in Racing
Published:
- We’re hunting value in two Martinsville matchups that could have us celebrating a battle for 27th.
- A rough qualifying result has our underdog buried on the grid. Our numbers suggest the sportsbook has buried his chances a little too far.
- Start time/TV: Sunday, Nov. 1, at 2 p.m. ET on NBC.
Here’s our plan for Sunday: watch the championship contenders at Martinsville, check the running order, and become deeply invested in whether a car running 27th can stay ahead of a car running 28th.
This is what happens when you give gamblers access to live timing.
The broadcast can handle the championship battle. We have some personal business elsewhere on the scoring pylon.
Martinsville Best Bets
Daniel Suarez over Connor Zilisch (-110, Fanatics)
Zilisch qualified 19th, five positions ahead of Suarez. He also edged Suarez in our SpeedwaySteve2 practice metric, ranking 20th against 24th. We understand why he has some support.
Over the full race, we prefer Suarez’s broader body of work.
Both models rank Suarez ahead. My model has him 21st against Zilisch’s 26th, with projected finishes of 20.56 and 24.45. Steve ranks them 23rd and 27th.
Our matchup estimate gives Suarez a 57.7% chance of finishing ahead. The -110 price requires 52.4%, putting our fair price around -137.
In this year’s eight selected comparison races, Suarez has beaten Zilisch five times. Suarez’s average finish across that matched sample is 18.9, compared with 23.1 for Zilisch. Their average running positions are 18.9 and 22.4.
At Martinsville this spring, Suarez finished 20th against Zilisch’s 26th. The running-position gap was larger: 20.0 for Suarez against 29.0 for Zilisch.
Suarez also finished ninth against Zilisch’s 32nd at North Wilkesboro, 16th against 25th at Richmond, and seventh against 20th at Phoenix two weeks ago. Those are useful results across the tracks we’re leaning on for this race.
Zilisch has had his afternoons, too. He finished 11th against Suarez’s 23rd at Iowa and seventh against 29th at Gateway. We’ve included those races in the comparison. The overall advantage still belongs to Suarez.
At -110, we’re comfortable backing that advantage. He can let the championship contenders have their television time. We’d be delighted to hear his name when somebody reads the final results.
AJ Allmendinger over Austin Hill (+165, Fanatics)
Hill had the better Saturday. He qualified 17th while Allmendinger will start 32nd, and our practice metric ranked Hill sixth against AJ’s 25th.
That explains most of the favoritism. It also gives us an opportunity to examine how much favoritism we’re willing to pay for.
Fanatics has Hill at -220 and Allmendinger at +165. AJ needs to win this matchup 37.7% of the time to justify that underdog price.
Our model estimates his chances at 44.6%, making our fair price approximately +124.
My projected finishes actually favor Hill, 25.02 against Allmendinger’s 27.73. We can acknowledge Hill’s better Saturday and higher projection while still finding value in AJ at +165. The price gives us room to lose this matchup more often than we win it and still come out ahead over time.
Steve provides another piece of support, ranking Allmendinger 31st and Hill 33rd. His preference is modest, but it puts him on AJ’s side.
Allmendinger has finished ahead of Hill in six of this year’s eight selected comparison races. His average finish in that sample is 23.3, compared with Hill’s 25.6. Their average running positions are closer, 26.4 and 27.1, which fits our view of a competitive matchup.
AJ finished eighth against Hill’s 26th at Iowa, 16th against 21st at Gateway and 23rd against 24th at Phoenix two weeks ago. At Martinsville this spring, Allmendinger finished 27th and Hill finished 33rd.
Twenty-seventh. An entire afternoon of watching somebody drive around in 27th, and we still would have cashed. Try explaining that level of enthusiasm to someone with a normal hobby.
At +165, we’ll take Allmendinger to give us another finishing order worth celebrating.
For our full Xfinity 500 betting card and any race-day additions, follow along with SpeedwaySteve2 on JuiceReel. We’ll be keeping an eye on the less glamorous end of the leaderboard, too.
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Phil Bobbitt is a motorsports betting analyst and recurring guest on CBS Sports HQ, The Early Edge, and VSiN’s A Numbers Game. He and his pal Steve developed a racing algorithm that’s profited over 260 units and $1 million in DFS winnings since 2020.
