The track affectionately known as "The Paperclip," Martinsville Speedway plays host to this weekend's NASCAR Cup Series race, the Cook Out 400 on Sunday (3:30, USA Network).
Martinsville is a short, flat track that's just over 1.5 miles long. Its unique shape and size for the Cup Series lends itself to being a driver-centric track, meaning I like to rely pretty heavily on track history when handicapping races here.
The Toyota stable of drivers has been quite strong on the short, flat tracks this year. Christopher Bell won at Phoenix, and his Joe Gibbs racing teammate Denny Hamlin taking home the checkered flag in an overtime finish last weekend at Richmond. Two other Toyota drivers, Tyler Reddick and Martin Truex Jr., led the most laps at Phoenix and Richmond, respectively, so it's understandable that Toyota is the favorite to win this weekend at Martinsville.
However, I'm going in a different direction, as I think there's a bit of an overreaction to these early results at somewhat similar but different tracks. Instead, I'll play the track-history angle to find value on a different manufacturer in this race.
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NASCAR Odds, Pick, Prediction for Martinsville
*NASCAR odds as of Thursday
Looking at Caesars Sportsbook, oddsmakers rightly have Toyota as the favorite to be the winning manufacturer at -105 odds. Meanwhile, they have both Chevy and Ford listed at +255 to win.
Yes, it's true Ford hasn't won a race yet, and it's the longest they've gone without a win to start a season since 2010. That said, I'm backing the Fords at this +255 number because the driver stable has arguably the most number of drivers who can win this weekend.
Just looking at the four Martinsville races in the Next Gen era, Ford makes up three of the top four drivers in percentage of laps run inside the top 15 (Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano and Chase Briscoe). They also have five of the top 10 drivers in average running position (add Ryan Preece and Brad Keselowski), meaning half of the drivers who have performed best here drive the blue oval.
That doesn't even include rookie Josh Berry, who has yet to run at Martinsville at the Cup level. Berry is a Martinsville winner in the Xfinity Series, grabbing a win in 2021, and backed that up with two top-five performances at The Paperclip just last year.
In addition to Berry, Noah Gragson has made significant strides at the Cup level this year, and he's also a former Martinsville winner in Xfinity, as well as the Truck Series levels.
Preece led the most laps at this race last year, and Briscoe is one of three drivers to finish inside the top 10 at all four Martinsville races. Briscoe leads everyone in quality pass percentage at a track where track position is important and passing is difficult.
Moving over to Team Penske, Blaney has the best average running position at Martinsville of all drivers in the Next Gen era while teammate Logano has spent the third-most laps inside the top 15.
RFK Racing's Keselowski and Chris Buescher are constant threats at shorter flat tracks, and even Todd Gilliland of Front Row Motorsports has performed well. The third-year driver has the 13th best average running position, and he ran the seventh-most laps inside the top 15 in the two races last year.
My model has Ford undervalued here, making them closer to +200 as fair value to win, so we're getting exceptional value at +255.
The bet: Ford – Winning Manufacturer (+255 at Caesars Sportsbook)
