NASCAR Cook Out 400 Predictions, Odds & Start Time at Richmond Raceway (Aug. 15)
By Phil Bobbitt in Racing
Published:
- Two top-10 prices moved in the wrong direction after practice and qualifying.
- Our Richmond card targets a major market disagreement and one favorable head-to-head matchup.
- Read below for NASCAR Cook Out 400 predictions, odds and start time at Richmond Raceway.
Until our trip to Pigeon Forge, I assumed the Cook Out 400 was NASCAR’s way of promoting outdoor family fun. Fire up the grill, invite the neighbors over and spend a pleasant Saturday evening watching 37 cars fight over the same three-quarter-mile patch of Virginia.
Then Pigeon Forge introduced me to Cook Out, the restaurant.
I have been waiting to use this introduction ever since.
And what a restaurant it is. You can feed an entire family with three crumpled dollar bills, an arcade token, two buttons and the copper wiring from an abandoned ceiling fan. I have not confirmed whether Cook Out officially accepts bartering, but the prices suggest management would at least hear your offer.
Walk inside with some pocket lint, a half-used gift card to a defunct electronics store and a moderately valuable chicken, and there is a reasonable chance you are leaving with dinner for six.
The menu appears to have been assembled by somebody who refused to eliminate any ideas. Burgers, barbecue, quesadillas, chicken nuggets, corn dogs and about 40 milkshake flavors are all involved. The Cook Out Tray allows customers to combine foods that have never previously shared a plate. You can order a quesadilla with a side of quesadilla, add a corn dog because nobody stopped you and wash everything down with Cheerwine.
Cheerwine, despite its name, contains no alcohol. It is a delicious cherry soda, which feels like important information before somebody orders three at lunch and waits for the afternoon to become interesting.
The betting board for Saturday night’s Cook Out 400 offers considerably fewer choices. DraftKings has not posted matchups, presumably because courage is in short supply. Fanatics and theScore Bet should expand their boards in a few hours, but the grass will not cut itself. By the time the market fully develops, I will be outside making straight lines across the lawn and pretending that qualifies as a productive hobby.
That leaves us with a compact three-play card at Richmond Raceway. The two top-10 prices available at bet365 and theScore Bet are wildly different from the rest of the market, including Kalshi. Some people call this cherry-picking. I call it making a wise investment. Nobody gives out high-fives for betting the third-best number available.
NASCAR Cook Out 400 Odds
Odds from Kalshi ahead of Saturday’s race at Richmond Raceway. New to prediction markets? Lock in our Kalshi promo code, and see how the top prediction markets price the Cook Out 400.
NASCAR Cook Out 400 Predictions
William Byron Top-10 Finish (+120 at theScore Bet)
The model makes William Byron one of the strongest top-10 values on the entire board.
The price movement makes the wager even more remarkable. Byron was +100 to finish inside the top 10 before practice and qualifying. He then qualified fifth, earned the fourth-best projected finish in our model and somehow moved to +120 at bet365 and theScore Bet.
Normally, improved information makes a good price disappear. Here, the market watched Byron secure a top-five starting position and responded by offering us more money. Mind-blowing is probably the appropriate technical term.
Byron is projected to finish 7.88, the fourth-best projection in the field. Our model gives him a 70.8% probability of finishing inside the top 10, producing fair odds around -242. The available +120 price carries an implied probability of only 45.5%. That creates more than 25 percentage points of separation between the model and the market. Even if we assume the model is feeling a little too enthusiastic on Saturday morning, there is an enormous amount of room between -242 and +120.
The raw comparable-track statistics support the projection. Byron owns an 8.69 average running position across our 12-race sample, the best mark among the drivers on this card. He has averaged 19.17 fastest laps and 48.92 laps led per race while completing 82.8% of his laps inside the top 15.
The individual results have been equally strong. Byron finished 12th at Richmond last season after posting an 11.8 average running position. He won at Iowa and led 141 laps last year, finished third at New Hampshire and later dominated Martinsville with 304 laps led.
His current form on the selected tracks remains solid. Byron finished seventh at Phoenix, fifth at Martinsville and ninth at Iowa this season. He has now finished inside the top 10 in three of the four most recent comparable-track races in the model.
Byron ranked only 22nd in our practice metric, but his long-term speed, fifth-place starting position and projected finish create far too much value at plus money.
Austin Cindric Top-10 Finish (+200 at theScore Bet)
Austin Cindric qualified 23rd, which helps explain why the market is offering +200 on a top-10 finish. His practice speed tells a much different story.
Cindric ranked first in our SS2 practice metric. Our model projects Cindric to finish 13.93 and gives him a 40% probability of reaching the top 10. That translates to fair odds around +150. The +200 price carries an implied probability of 33.3%, leaving a meaningful gap between the projection and the market.
His raw comparable-track profile includes a 14.09 average running position and nearly 65% of his laps completed inside the top 15. Cindric also averages more than 40 quality passes per race across the 12-race sample, an encouraging number for a driver beginning the night in traffic.
Richmond has already produced his best recent result in this track category. Cindric started 13th and finished fifth here last season with a 7.9 average running position. He also finished eighth at Martinsville this spring after running sixth on average and recording 25 fastest laps.
Cindric’s 29th-place finish at Iowa last weekend is ugly, but the No. 2 Ford showed considerably more speed in Richmond practice. At +200, we are being paid to trust that speed from the 23rd starting position.
William Byron over Bubba Wallace (-114, BetRivers)
The final official play brings us back to Byron.
The model projects Byron to finish 7.88 and Bubba Wallace to finish 12.53, creating a difference of 4.65 positions. Using the matchup tool’s win curve, Byron has approximately a 59.2% probability of finishing ahead of Wallace.
The -114 price implies a probability of 53.3%, leaving an edge of nearly six percentage points.
The raw comparable-track comparison is decisive. Byron leads Wallace in average running position, 8.69 to 15.68; fastest laps per race, 19.17 to 9.67; and percentage of laps inside the top 15, 82.8% to 54.2%. Byron also owns the stronger projected finish and a substantial pit-road advantage in the model.
Wallace starts seventh and has been part of Toyota’s outstanding season, so this is not a matchup against a struggling car. Byron simply grades better across nearly every category that matters at Richmond. Also, Bubba finds creative ways to finish worse than he should.
Matchup to Watch: Chase Briscoe over Bubba Wallace (-135, theScore Bet)
Chase Briscoe over Bubba Wallace is a defensible lean, although the current price does not quite qualify as an official play.
The model projects Briscoe to finish 8.77 and Wallace to finish 12.53. Our matchup tool gives Briscoe approximately a 57.5% probability of finishing ahead, almost identical to the 57.4% implied probability at -135.
Briscoe starts second, carries the stronger pit-road rating and enters with hotter recent form. He has also finished ahead of Wallace at North Wilkesboro and Iowa this season. The raw comparable-track numbers are mixed, but Briscoe has completed 70.2% of his laps inside the top 15 compared to 54.2% for Wallace.
theScore Bet’s current number is fair. If additional sportsbooks populate their matchup boards and Briscoe becomes available at -125 or better, the wager becomes much more interesting. Consider this one worth monitoring while the market wakes up and I begin losing a fight with the lawn mower.
Cook Out 400 Start Time
The Cook Out 400 begins Saturday at 7:00 p.m. ET on USA Network and HBO Max.
Looking for the best places to bet the Cook Out 400? Check out our guide to the top online sportsbooks before Saturday’s race.
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.
