Richmond Raceway plays host to the second short-flat track race of the NASCAR Cup Series season.
Three weeks ago, Cup cars were at Phoenix Raceway to debut the new low-downforce package that is being used at road courses and shorter flat tracks. At Phoenix, the package contributed to higher tire wear than in past years.
With Richmond being a high tire wear track itself, Phoenix provides us with some relevant data in order to build our sample size beyond just a driver's track history at Richmond.
When using these relevant races, I've found some solid value on the Alex Bowman vs. Daniel Suarez matchup for Sunday's Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond Raceway (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1). BetMGM is offering the matchup.
Let's take a look.
NASCAR Odds, Picks for Richmond
When comparing Bowman and Suarez, we need to look at a relevant sample of races.
We'll start by using all the Richmond races in which they squared off, other than 2020, when Suarez raced for the underfunded Gaunt Brothers Racing. In addition, we'll include this year's race at Phoenix.
In that nine-race sample size, Bowman leads Suarez in head-to-head finishes, taking six of the nine matchups.
Diving further, we can see neither driver had a major incident in any of those races. That means those finishes haven't come as a result of incidents or other problems.
Bowman also topped Suarez in even more predictive metrics such as green flag speed, driver rating, and average running position in six of the nine races, including all of the past five.
Looking at Phoenix earlier this year, Bowman finished ninth to Suarez's 22nd-place finish. The current points leader topped Suarez in average running position, driver rating, green flag speed, as well as my advanced analytics speed metric: FLAGS.
My model makes Bowman a two-to-one favorite, so despite laying some significant juice at -165, Bowman is still good value.
The Bet: Alex Bowman -165 over Daniel Suarez | Bet to: -180
