Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series Championship race (3 p.m. ET, NBC) at Phoenix Raceway is sure to draw a lot of interested eyeballs after Ross Chastain's daring move at Martinsville went viral.
If you're one of those new sets of eyes, or even if you've been following along for years, there's always a little added fun by placing a wager on the race.
One driver's race-winning odds for this weekend stand out to me, and he's even a title contender, so that's where I'm looking with my best early bet of the week.
NASCAR Pick for Phoenix
*Odds as of Thursday afternoon
Chase Elliott (+230), Christopher Bell (+300), Joey Logano (+400) and Ross Chastain (+400) are rightly the favorites to win the race.
That's because these are the four drivers eligible to win the drivers' title. Since the single-race championship began in 2014, every single championship race has been won by a Championship Four contender.
Well, this year we technically have a Championship Five.
That's because Kyle Larson is actually in the Owners' Championship instead of teammate Chase Elliott thanks to some quirkiness that began with Kurt Busch's unfortunate concussion at Pocono.
That means Larson has the same motivation and support to go out and win the race as the other four title contenders.
In fact, it would behoove Hendrick Motorsports to have Larson and Elliott finish 1-2 in either order. That ensures one wins the drivers' title while the other wins the owners' title. That would be a handsome financial reward for the team.
Were this not a championship race, my statistical model would make Larson the race favorite at 10.3% to win.
Since the race win is extremely likely to come from one of these five drivers, we should probably boost their chances even more.
That makes the 15-1 price tag on Larson that DraftKings is handing out a late Halloween treat. Enjoy it while you can!
The Bet: Kyle Larson to Win the Race +1500 | Bet to: +1200
