The NASCAR Cup Series has already been a bit difficult to handicap this season with the introduction of the Next Gen car. And that uncertainty will be taken to a whole new level for Sunday's Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 (3 p.m. ET, FOX) at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Not only will drivers, teams and NASCAR bettors still have to worry about the newness of the Next Gen car again, but now there's the added curveball of a "new" Atlanta, which has been both repaved and reconfigured since the Cup Series last visited the circuit.
And let's not forget that NASCAR will be using the same low-horsepower, high-downforce race package this weekend that's run at Daytona and Talladega, and we have all the makings of a very unpredictable event.
So, with all of this in mind, I don't plan on betting much on this race until cars hit the track for practice on Friday.
However, if you are jonesing for a little early NASCAR at Atlanta action, Chase Elliott vs. Tyler Reddick is my favorite featured matchup for the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500.
NASCAR Picks & Predictions for Atlanta
*Odds as of Tuesday afternoon
The trickiest aspect of handicapping Sunday's race at Atlanta is that we don't truly know what the racing will be like. Many expect this race to look very similar to a superspeedway race, though we won't be sure until we see it.
With this in mind, I'm only interested in make early bets on drivers who I'm willing to invest in at both superspeedways and intermediate tracks, and Tyler Reddick fits that bill with wins at Daytona and Talladega in the XFINITY Series, while showing plenty of speed at Auto Club and Las Vegas already this year.
Briscoe, on the other hand, is overvalued this week after winning Sunday at Phoenix, which is a 1-mile flat track and has absolutely no similarities with a superspeedway or a 1.5-mile track.
The bet: Reddick (-110) to Finish Ahead of Briscoe at BetMGM
