NASCAR Cup: 2022 YellaWood 500 Odds & Analysis

Playoffs Intensify at Talladega

September 29, 2022 317 5 minutes readNASCAR News

Atlanta’s New Track on Full Display — SEAN GARDNER / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA

Race & Track Information
Current Playoff Standing
Who are the favorites?
Best of the Rest
They Can Win
Where’s the Value?

The NASCAR Cup Series playoffs continue as it heads toward one of the most exciting tracks in all of NASCAR odds. Here, you’ll have everything you need in terms of analysis before you place a bet on the 2022 YellaWood 500 odds.

Race & Track Information

Date & Time: Sunday, October 2nd, 2:00 pm ET.
Location: Talladega Superspeedway
Streaming: NASCAR TV

Talladega Superspeedway is a 2.66-mile tri-oval track made of asphalt. Turn one and two are at a 33-degree angle, 32.4 into the third turn and 32.5 into the final turn. Stages one and Stage two will be 60 laps each with the final stage being 68 laps for a total of 500 miles.

Current Playoff Standings

It was too little, too late for Tyler Reddick at Texas in the previous race as he won the week after being eliminated from the playoffs. As things currently sit, Joey Logano leads all drivers in the NASCAR Cup series standings with 3,071 points, 12 points ahead of second-place Ross Chastain.

Kyle Larson trails Chastain by just two points and Ryan Blaney trails by just three in fourth. Denny Hamlin is fifth with 3,049 points, Daniel Suarez and Chase Elliott tied with 3,045 points and Chase Briscoe eighth with 3,041 points.

Austin Cindric is the first driver on the outside looking in at 3,034 points with William Byron close behind with 3,033 points. Christopher Bell is 25 points back of Briscoe and William Byron 26. The two will have a lot of work to do if they want to advance to the next round after Charlotte in two weeks.

Who are the favorites?

Four drivers are currently tied as the favorite at +1400 among the 2022 YellaWood 500 odds: Logano, Blaney, Elliott and Hamlin.

Good news for potential Logano bettors is that he’s found a way to lead in 13 of his last 14 starts at Talladega.

Talladega has been less than kind to Logano recently, as three of his last four starts at the Superspeedway ended in accidents. The exception was a third-place finish in the fall of 2021. He has three wins at Talladega all time with two having come in the fall. Good news for potential Logano bettors is that he’s found a way to lead in 13 of his last 14 starts at Talladega.

In his hunt for a championship, Blaney comes into Talladega at the perfect time. The Team Penske driver won back-to-back Talladega starts in the fall of 2019 and the summer of 2020. While he’s figured out ways to get to the front even when he doesn’t win, he’s finished in the top 10 just once in his last four starts at the Superspeedway. Which Blaney will we see come Sunday?

Hamlin comes into Talladega as one of only two Toyotas in the playoffs. He’s got a pair of wins here, the first came back in 2014 with the most recent in 2020. Hamlin has still performed admirably even when he doesn’t win, as he’s finished in the top five in four of his last eight Talladega starts. After a less than stellar regular season, Hamlin is in the perfect opportunity to set himself up for a championship.

Elliott’s lone win at Talladega came back in 2019. All in all, his career at Talladega has been a mixed bag. While he has six top 10 finishes, he has seven instances when he’s finished outside of that circle. Elliott was No. 1 in the standings all season and is still in a prime position for a championship this year, but that starts with a solid performance on Sunday.

Best of the Rest

After the four-way tie at the top of the 2022 YellaWood 500 odds board is a three-way tie at +1400, followed by a five-way tie at +1600. Drivers tied at +1400 are William Byron, Kyle Larson and Bubba Wallace.

Byron has a pair of top-five finishes at Talladega, including a second-place finish in April of 2021. Outside of that, Byron has zero finishes inside the top 10. He’ll hang around and likely place at the end of the first two stages, but who knows where he’ll be by the time they wave the checkered flag?

Larson has had stretches as possibly the most dominant driver in the sport over his career. However, Talladega isn’t one of his better tracks. Sure, he finished fourth the last time out, but he has no wins here. That fourth-place finish was the first top-five finish for him in 15 starts at the track. There will be better times to back Larson.

Wallace won this race a season ago. He’s also performed well at superspeedways recently. Despite Wallace being out of the playoffs, that didn’t stop him from taking the checkered flag at Kansas. He’s a driver that we’ll certainly have to watch for in 2023, but his 2022 season might still have some surprises to it.

They Can Win

Brad Keselowski, Kyle Busch, Reddick, Chastain and Cindric are all tied at +1600 odds.

Concluding our 2022 YellaWood 500 odds preview: Keselowski had a rough first year with RFK Racing. He had a solid run at Texas in the previous race and walked away with a top-10 finish. The big question now is whether or not he can follow that up with another good performance. It seems like a long time ago, but Keselowski was one spot away from sweeping Talladega last season. This is one of his tracks and will likely be in contention.

Reddick’s best finish at Talladega is back-to-back seventh-place finishes. He’s shown a lot this season and is coming off a win in his last race. Reddick will be the driver to watch in 2023.

While he may have finished third in the spring, Talladega hasn’t been one of Busch’s better tracks. His only win came back in 2008. Before his third-place finish this season, it had been nine races, dating back to 2017 that he finished in the top 10 at Talladega.

For Cindric, he has his Daytona 500 win going for him. Back in the Xfinity Series, Cindric performed well at Talladega. While he never won, he finished in the top 10 in four of the six races and in the top five in three of them, including a second-place finish. Cindric proved out of the gate he can run with the bulls.

Chastain enters with high hopes. Going from relative unknown at the beginning of the season to contending for a championship has to have been a wild ride to this point. He has just one top-10 finish at Talladega that came in the form of a win earlier this season. Can Chastain sweep Talladega and put himself in the driver’s seat for a championship?

Where’s the Value?

Due to the fact this race is at a superspeedway, it provides much more drama, therefore is more unpredictable. That’s why the odds are starting this high. In terms of outrights, Blaney is arguably the best bet on the board.

If we’re talking about props, Cindric might be the way to go. The driver does well on superspeedways and will likely be in contention down the stretch yet again. He’s currently +200 to finish in the top five. Chastain can also be had at that number.

The last pick for the value section is on Keselowski. He’s proven that, despite the down year, he still performs at superspeedways. The next race on the NASCAR schedule 2022 is the Charlotte Roval.

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September 29, 2022

317 5 minutes read