Prior to the season the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS) introduced a new aero package designed to encourage more passing and make the racing more exciting.
Because of this, much of the historical data NASCAR bettors typically use to identify value became much less predictive, which therefore made betting on this year's early-season races more challenging.
However, now that we're entering the dog days of summer, there is finally a decent sample of races to analyze from this season that can help us project which drivers will perform well (and poorly) going forward.
In fact, this weekend's Camping World 400 will take place at Chicagoland Speedway, a 1.5-mile racetrack. Why is this important?
The MENCS has already visited five 1.5-mile tracks (Atlanta, Las Vegas, Texas, Kansas and Charlotte), giving us a nice base of data to analyze.
And after looking at the results from those five races, one head-to-head driver matchup is already popping as one being grossly mispriced by oddsmakers.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (-110) over Austin Dillon
I just don't get this matchup. Stenhouse has dominated Dillon at 1.5-mile racetracks this season, yet oddsmakers at the Westgate SuperBook in Las Vegas have priced it as a pick'em.
Not only is Stenhouse's average finish of 11.2 significantly better than Dillon's 21.2 at these five tracks, but Ricky's average running position of 11.6 (compared to Austin's 17.4) shows that the Roush Fenway Racing driver isn't just lucking into good finishes, but he's consistently running up front at each of these races.
There's plenty of value to warrant taking Stenhouse right now, and I'll consider betting it again should Dillon qualify better and reopen as a favorite on race day.
