For the first time since Las Vegas in early March, the NASCAR Cup Series returns to a 1.5-mile track for Sunday's AdventHealth 400 (3 p.m. ET, FS1) at Kansas Speedway.
Per usual, I'm largely waiting until practice and qualifying (weather permitting, of course) on Saturday before really digging into NASCAR odds for Kansas.
However, there is one pick I'm bullish on right now ahead of this weekend's on-track activity at Kansas.
NASCAR Pick for Kansas
*Odds as of Wednesday afternoon
The Trackhouse Racing drivers of Ross Chastain and Daniel Suarez have been very quick at this style of race track in the Next Gen car, and both deserve hard looks at current NASCAR odds.
With that said, I'm specifically keying in on Suarez to score a top-10 finish at +150 odds (bet365).
At Kansas last fall, which is important because Goodyear brought a new tire compared to when the Cup Series was here in the spring of 2022, Suarez posted the 12th-best driver rating en route to a 10th-place finish.
To be fair, Suarez's No. 99 Chevrolet was just outside of a top-10 car in that event, but remember, we're getting +150 odds here.
In addition, the Cup Series ran that same tire combination (and the same combo that will be run this weekend) at Las Vegas and Auto Club earlier this year.
At Vegas, which is the much better comparison to Kansas, Suarez once again secured a 10th-place finish.
But we shouldn't just ignore his performance from Auto Club either.
Despite being a completely different configuration and causing more tire wear than Kansas and Las Vegas, Suarez came home in fourth place and with the third-best driver rating on this tire combination.
Now, I don't expect Suarez to be slicing and dicing with the top three to five cars again on Sunday, though it's possible.
But at +150 odds, we need Suarez to be a top-10 performer more than 40% of the time for this bet to have value and, in my opinion, it does.
