From a high level, I have zero interest in getting too heavy on Sunday's Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 (3 p.m. ET, FOX) at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
I know, what a way to start a betting article, right?
But there's no denying that there's a lot of uncertainty heading into Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series race at Atlanta.
To start, we're still trying to figure out how to handicap the Next Gen car.
And second, Atlanta has been repaved and reconfigured since the Cup Series last visited the track, so we truly have no clue what to expect on Sunday afternoon.
Because of this, I didn't expect to have a bet that I liked until Friday afternoon's practice, at the very least.
But, per usual, I was wrong.
NASCAR at Atlanta Picks & Predictions
*Odds as of Tuesday afternoon
Many believe that Sunday's race at Atlanta will look similar to the pack racing we typically see at superspeedways like Talladega and Daytona.
If this is the case, Christopher Bell is very undervalued.
Since joining Joe Gibbs Racing prior to the start of the 2021 Cup Series season, Bell has been sneaky good at that style of racing, posting the seventh-best driver rating and tying for the fifth-most laps led among those who have competed in each of the five combined superspeedway races over that span.
And should Sunday's Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 also have the feel of a typical 1.5-mile intermediate race instead of a straight superspeedway event, Bell is covered there as well.
The driver of the No. 20 Toyota won the pole and led the third-most laps en route to a 10th-place finish at Las Vegas two weeks ago, the lone race run at a 1.5-mile track, like Atlanta, with the Next Gen car.
I don't hate Bell at 40-1 to win the race outright, but I'm instead opting for his 11-1 price at DraftKings to finish as the top Toyota.
It's not a stretch to think that Bell can finish as the top Toyota on speed alone.
And with a race that also projects to be quite random, there are only five other Toyotas in the field, so a little luck avoiding wrecks can bring this home for us as well.
