The NASCAR Cup Series will visit Pocono Raceway for Sunday's M&M's Fan Appreciation 400 (3 p.m. ET, USA), and this race poses a couple of issues for bettors.
First of all, it'll be the first race at the track dubbed "The Tricky Triangle" in the new Next Gen car.
Second, Pocono is so unique that there really aren't any perfect comps to lean on from earlier this season.
And finally, because it's different, the tire combination that NASCAR Cup Series teams will run this weekend is new as well, so we don't even have tire data to examine either.
To be completely honest, I don't see any early matchups that are good enough for me to bet personally, but there is one that I do think is better than the rest for Sunday's race at Pocono.
NASCAR Pick for Pocono
*Odds as of Thursday morning
Due to the lack of data that I mentioned above, I'll be even more interested in practice speeds this weekend, but since we don't have those at this point in the week, I'm leaning very heavily on track history at Pocono.
And after doing so, I like Kevin Harvick at -130 (DraftKings) to finish ahead of Christopher Bell on Sunday afternoon.
Simply put, Pocono has been a very good track for Harvick and not so much for Bell.
Over the past four races at this circuit, Harvick has one win, three top-five finishes and four top 10s, giving him the best average finish in the entire Cup Series over that span.
The Stewart-Haas Racing driver also has the second-best average running position in those events, showing that he's been consistently running up front at Pocono Raceway in recent years.
Bell, on the other hand, has struggled.
Among active Cup Series drivers who started each of the past four races at Pocono, Bell has just the 20th-best average finish and just the 14th-best driver rating – Harvick's rating ranks third.
Again, the lack of data could ultimately work in Bell's favor this weekend as a clean slate with a new car levels the playing field.
However, their past performance at Pocono provides enough reason to like Harvick at -130 in this driver matchup.
