The variety on NASCAR's 2022 Cup Series schedule continues this weekend as the series visits its first road course of the season for Sunday's EchoPark Texas Grand Prix (3:30 p.m. ET, FOX) at Circuit of the Americans (COTA).
And stop me if you've heard this before: there's plenty of uncertainty heading into Sunday's race.
First off, it is the first time the Next Gen car will race on a road course.
And second, while the Cup Series did race at COTA last year, that event was held in a monsoon, and since NASCAR does race in the rain at road courses we're still not all that sure which drivers should perform well here under dry conditions.
I'm opting to wait until we see cars on track for practice and qualifying on Saturday to dive into the outright market, though there is one top-10 prop to consider betting early for Sunday's race at COTA.
NASCAR Picks & Predictions for COTA
*Odds as of Wednesday afternoon
Road course performance was very much considered throughout the design of NASCAR's Next Gen car, so I'm expecting Michael McDowell to have plenty of speed in Sunday's race.
McDowell comes from a road racing background which has helped him carry his car to two top-10 finishes in NASCAR's seven Cup Series road course races last season.
That's a 28.6% top-10 rate across those races and I believe he has even more upside in the Next Gen car considering its road racing capabilities.
Now compare that to McDowell's +320 odds for a top-10 finish at FanDuel, which translate to an implied probability of 23.8%, and we can see that there's value locking in this price right now.
I'm good betting this down to +300.
