If you like speed, then Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series race at Michigan is for you.
Michigan International Speedway is an extremely fast two-mile oval, evidenced by Christopher Bell's pole speed of a cool 193.382 mph – and remember, that's his average speed.
When it comes to NASCAR odds for Michigan, I'm not all that enamored with lines following Saturday's practice and qualifying sessions.
However, after digging into the numbers, one driver's performance at tracks similar to Michigan surprised me enough to get down on the following plus-money prop for the FireKeepers Casino 400 today (2:30 p.m. ET, USA and Peacock).
NASCAR Pick for Michigan
*NASCAR Michigan odds as of Sunday
The tire combination teams will run today at Michigan is the same combo used at five other tracks this season: Auto Club, Las Vegas, Kansas, Nashville and Pocono.
In those recent races, Alex Bowman has been much stronger than I initially expected.
For the record, Bowman did not race at Kansas while recovering from a fractured vertebrae suffered in a sprint car accident, so his sample of races on this tire combination is four while most other drivers have competed in all five.
Still, Bowman "the Showman" has been quite fast on this tire setup.
In those races, the driver of the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet has posted the seventh-best driver rating while running the sixth-most fast laps.
In addition, just four drivers had a better average running position than Bowman in those events.
Further, this car showed plenty of speed in practice on Saturday.
According to the Action Network's Nick Giffen's Practice FLAGS metric, Bowman's Chevy was the eighth-fastest car yesterday in practice.
Bowman has been a top-1o car on this tire combination throughout the season and appears to have similar speed heading into today's race at Michigan as well.
As a result, I'm snagging Bowman at +125 odds (Caesars) to score another top-1o finish this afternoon.
The bet: Alex Bowman for a Top-10 Finish (+125 at Caesars)
