Check out the latest NASCAR odds with an expert pick and predictions for the Enjoy Illinois 300 on Sunday, June 2.
NASCAR heads to World Wide Technology Raceway (aka Gateway) this weekend for Sunday's Enjoy Illinois 300 (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1).
Gateway is a bit of a unique track in that it's 1.25 miles in length, is relatively flatly banked with turns at 9 and 11 degrees, but runs the intermediate package making comparable tracks difficult to come by.
Probably the two most similar tracks are Phoenix, which has similar banking but is just a mile long and uses the short track package, and Nashville, which has banking of 14 degrees in its turns but has a concrete surface.
That makes building a relative sample size hard, as there have been only two races at Gateway in the Cup Series.
With that said, I do like a driver who has been successful here, at similar tracks, and drives for a team and a manufacturer that have made performance gains recently.
NASCAR Odds, Expert Pick, Prediction for Enjoy Illinois 300 at Gateway
Ryan Blaney has an average finish of 5.0 in the two races at Gateway. He led a total of 95 laps in the two races combined while turning 70 fastest laps. In each race, he led at least double-digit laps, and he had at least 30 fastest laps, showing his consistency here.
In addition, Blaney is arguably the best driver at Phoenix Raceway, one of the best comparable tracks for Gateway. Blaney won the championship at Phoenix last year, getting beat only by Ross Chastain, and he hasn't finished outside of the top five at Phoenix for six consecutive races.
The team he drives for, Team Penske, overall has been great at Gateway as well. In my "track quality" metric, which measures how each driver fares at a specific track compared to his average track, the Team Penske cars rank No. 2-3-4 behind only Kyle Busch.
Ford as a whole has seen a performance uptick in the past month or so, with a near-win at Kansas for Chris Buescher, a win at Darlington for Brad Keselowski, a win in the All-Star Race for Joey Logano, and a strong showing at Charlotte with Keselowski securing a runner-up finish.
I have Blaney at 11.2% to win, making his fair odds around +790. Thankfully, we can grab 9-1 at several shops at the time of this writing, including FanDuel, bet365 and BetMGM.
The Bet: Ryan Blaney to Win (+900) | Bet to: +850
