NASCAR Betting – Who’s the Best at Pocono?

NASCAR betting fans know full well that when evaluating who the best at Pocono Raceway will be this weekend, familiarity with a track often leads to an advantage. Because of its unusual nature, some guys just don’t take to it. However, some, like Denny Hamlin, seem to have adapted right from the start.  The Gillette Fusion ProGlide 500 begins on Sunday at 1 PM ET on Sunday and will be televised live on TNT, which takes over live race coverage from Fox beginning with this race. Jimmie Johnson and Hamlin are the betting co-favorites, both listed at +500 to win.

Gillette Fusion ProGlide 500
June 6 – 1 PM ET
Pocono Raceway – Long Pond, PA

Nascar Betting Odds to Win
(Top 10)

• Jimmie Johnson  +500
• Denny Hamlin  +500
• Jeff Gordon  +800
• Kurt Busch  +800
• Kyle Busch  +800
• Jeff Burton  +1500
• Juan Pablo Montoya  +1500
• Carl Edwards  +1800
• Clint Bowyer  +1800
• Kevin Harvick  +1800

The two drivers who have probably done the best over the last ten races at Pocono are Tony Stewart, who won this race in 2003 and 2009 when it was known as the Pocono 500, and Jeff Gordon, who has won four times at Pocono.

Stewart, in fact, has had eight top ten efforts in his last nine Pocono races. he also grabbed the pole at both the Pocono 500 and the Pennsylvania 500 last year. the problem is that Stewart, at +3000 betting odds to win the Sprint Cup title, hasn’t finished higher than ninth in his last eight races, so he’s not bringing a lot of momentum into this race. That’s also why he is not among the top betting favorites for Sunday’s event, and is priced at +600 in the betting to reach the top three.

In addition to Gordon’s win in the 1996, 1997 and 2007 Pocono 500′s, as well as the 1998 Pennsylvania 500, he’s been in the top ten in six of his last seven races at Pocono and has been the runner-up five times. That’s why there is heavy support for Gordon, who is +225 to crack a top three spot Sunday. Some are expecting that because of the relatively close quarters in some of these turns, there might be a bit of a flare-up with teammate Jimmie Johnson (+500 to win Sunday’s race), who swept both Pocono races in 2004 and has posted top-ten results in seven of the nine races there since. Johnson is still the +300 betting favorite to make it five straight Sprint Cup titles, even though he is back to seventh place in the points standings.

Veteran driver Mark Martin, who is listed at +600 in the betting odds to finish in the top three on Sunday, has never won at Pocono, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t done well there. Martin, the 51-year-old who’s still driving in the Sprint Cup series, has finished in the top ten 32 times there, and has been the runner-up no less than SIX times, so you wouldn’t want to count him out of your top three, for sure.

In terms of sheer accomplishment over a short period of time, it would be almost impossible to match the record of Denny Hamlin, who, along with Johnson, is the co-favorite in the betting for Sunday (+500). Hamlin, who is in fifth place in the Sprint Cup standings (and a +500 bet to win it) came right out of the box as a rookie in 2006 and not only captured the pole for both Pocono races, he won them both as well. He has since won the 2009 Pennsylvania 500, and all told, he had finished in the top six on six occasions in eight races. He had some mechanical difficulties last year and didn’t finish in the June race, but that hardly means anything to bettors, who know exactly what he can do on this flat track.

At +500, he’s got to be the value.