A wild and unpredictable NASCAR season rolls on this weekend with a stop in Atlanta for the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500. And with a new track in place there, this race could yield even more surprise results.
Get the NASCAR betting low-down with our Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 picks and predictions, getting underway at 3:00 p.m. ET, Sunday, March 20.
You can also check out the full Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 odds breakdown.
Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 best bets
Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 favorites
Ryan Blaney (+1,000) *BEST BET
He was fourth in 2020, won this race in 2021 and fifth in the July race last year. Also, Blaney is as good as anyone now on superspeedways, so if this race runs like Daytona/Talladega, you’ll be happy to snatch him up at 10-1.
Kyle Larson (+1,000)
Hard to bet against him. He should have won this race last year in sweeping both stages as well as leading 269 of 325 laps. With two Top 2s in his last three starts on the season too, this is a solid pick.
Denny Hamlin (+1,200)
He has three Top 5s in his last five in Atlanta as well as arguably being the top superspeedway racer in the game today. Combine all together and you get a potential race winner for these odds.
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Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 long-shot picks
Ross Chastain (+2,400) *BEST BET
Kurt Busch won in this car last year while Chastain has finished third and second the last two weeks. Third, second…First?
Tyler Reddick (+1,700)
He was 26th last March but sixth in the summer race and comes in after leading the most laps in Fontana, while finishing seventh in Vegas and third in Phoenix.
Kurt Busch (+2,200)
He is a former winner (2009, 2010, 2021) and despite crashing and finishing last back in March 2021, he rebounded to win in July. Busch has six Top-8 finishes in his last seven starts on the track and 10 in his last 13 starts. Other than March of last year, his worst finish since 2010 in Atlanta is 13th. He was third in 2019, sixth in 2020, and had a win in 2021.
Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 fades
Joey Logano (+1,200)
His last four Atlanta starts have seen him finish 23rd, 10th, 15th, and 19th, respectively.
Martin Truex Jr. (+1,700)
He’s 0-for-24 in Atlanta and while he does have 10 Top-10 finishes since 2012 (11 starts) to go along with four Top 5s in his last five, this race will run like a superspeedway and those are arguably Truex’s worst tracks.
Aric Almirola (+2,800)
Only two Top 10s in 12 tries including, eight finishes of 15th or worse.
Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 matchup pick
Chase Elliott (-115) vs. Denny Hamlin (-115)
Elliott has never won on his home track, and while he does have five Top 10s in seven tries, only one of them was in the Top 5. Meanwhile, Hamlin is getting the same odds and has three Top 5s in his last four. Also, if this race runs like a superspeedway, no one is better on them than Hamlin himself.
PICK: Hamlin (-115)
Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 preview
NASCAR is off to another wild start. 28-1 Austin Cindric won the Daytona 500. 18-1 Alex Bowman won in Vegas, while 50-1 Chase Briscoe was victorious last Sunday in Phoenix. Only Kyle Larson (4-1 in Fontana) has won as any sort of favorite.
I mean, for the ones that have won this season, why pick them in general? That’s why this year has been so unpredictable.
Cindric, was a rookie in the Daytona 500. Of the previous 63 Daytona 500 races, only eight times has a driver posted his first career NASCAR Cup Series victory with a win in the event. Also, only two drivers have ever won the Daytona 500 in their first appearance: Lee Petty (1959 inaugural race) and Trevor Bayne (2011).
Same for Bowman in Vegas. He had one Top 5 in 8 prior starts there, including 27th and 22nd, respectively, last year.
Ditto for Briscoe last weekend. He said Phoenix used to be his worst track and his results last year as a rookie in Cup there were 22nd and 35th, respectively.
Now, NASCAR will embark back east again for Sunday’s race in Atlanta. This time though, while it may be the 116th time we’ve been to the Georgia race track, this race will likely not look like the previous 115.
That’s because Atlanta not only went through a repave since the series has been here last, but a part reconfiguration too, which will have a racing package this weekend like the ones you see annually at Daytona and Talladega.
Will it race that way though? No one truly knows. It’s strictly a guess between a race that looks like Daytona/Talladega or one that resembles a 1.5-mile one. That’s why we’re getting Daytona/Talladega-like odds this weekend.
It’s thus tougher to label any true favorites, because we don’t know. If you base things off past Atlanta trends, then the Fords (won all but one since 2017) are the favorites. You could exclude the Toyotas too then (0-for-last-9). But does that now change?
In saying that, the Ford camp was the most dominant manufacturer in Daytona though, so maybe there’s more to this than we thought. They went 1-2-3-4-5 in all four practices, 1-2-3 and 1-2-3-4 in the two Duels, as well as putting three cars in the Top 5 of the Daytona 500 itself.
That’s why the odds are greatly in our favor this week and more wide open.
Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 key stat
Starting spots matter — five of the last six winners started inside of the Top 10 (Ryan Blaney started 10th back in the spring, Kurt Busch eighth last summer).
Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 live betting trend to watch
Since stages began, the race winner scored stage points in every stage, except for one race (2019). Last year, the eventual race winner finished in the Top 3 in each stage.
In fact, since 2017, the winner finished in the Top 5 in five of the six Stage 1s, including four in the Top 3, to go along with the Top 7 in five of the six Stage 2s.
