NOCO 400: Martinsville Picks, Odds & Race Preview

NASCAR cleans up its act this week, shifting from Bistol's dirt-covered track to Martinsville's paperclip for the NOCO 400. This storied track has been home to plenty of memorable Cup Series moments, and the NOCO 400 odds suggest another hotly-contested race.

Kyle Larson's overtaken the top spot on the NASCAR Cup Series odds, and he finds himself among the favorites again this weekend. But can he topple defending champ William Byron?

Let's check out the odds to win the NOCO 400 on Sunday, April 16, and get the inside track on Martinsville analysis and betting picks from our Auto Racing Advisor.

Odds to win 2023 NOCO 400

Odds courtesy of DraftKings as of April 11, 2023.

NOCO 400 field

The first thing that jumps out about this field is the tightly-packed and clearly-defined top tier of favorites. It's not on every track we'll see six drivers priced below +1,000, or three priced so closely as favorites. 

Atop that cluster is William Byron, defending champion of Martinsville's spring race. He also finished seventh here in the fall last year, and has taken the checkered flag twice in 2023 already. This will be a perfect get-right spot for him after finishes of 24th and 13th the past two weeks. 

Tied just behind him are Kyle Larson and Christopher Bell at +650. Larson bit the dirt (pun intended) last weekend with a 35th-place finish, but was runner-up here last fall and has scored Top-4 finishes — including a win — in half of the last six races. 

Bell's credentials as a favorite are fairly bulletproof. He's the overall points leader this season and has scored Top-6 finishes in six of eight races this season, including a win last weekend at Bristol. He also happens to have won the last Martinsville race.

NOCO 400 picks and predictions

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NOCO 400 favorites

William Byron (+600)

Byron picked up where Elliott left off in last year's spring race. He finished second in both stages and led the final 212 laps for the win in the end. Byron also has six Top 8s in his last seven Martinsville starts including a runner-up in the playoff race in 2019, fourth and fifth, respectively, in 2021, and a win in the spring race last year.

He's won twice already this season too, including at Phoenix, and enters with some motivation. Watch out here. He’s arguably the top Hendrick Motorsports play this weekend on the Virginia paperclip. 

Christopher Bell (+650)

He was a fade last year until his playoff win. Bell had three Top 8s — two of which were Top 5s — in four Truck Series starts at Martinsville. However, in five Cup Series starts entering last October's race, he finished 28th, 15th, seventh, 17th, and 20th with just nine career laps led…

Then he went out and led 150 laps to take a clutch victory. He led over 100 more laps last Sunday in taking the win on Bristol Dirt. Bell has had a Top-6 finish in all but two races this season and should be a heavy favorite for good measure. 

Martin Truex Jr. (+850)

This has all the makings to scare me. No points paying wins in the last 52 races. Two Top-10 finishes all season. However, this also has the makings to be a big win too. Truex Jr. has won three of the last seven Martinsville races. The only ones that he didn’t win were the last three fall races, where he led 129 laps in 2020 and was fourth in 2021.

Truex has seven Top 5s in his last 11 tries on the Virginia paperclip, and he won the season-opening exhibition on a track with a tight turning radius similar to Martinsville (L.A. Coliseum). If not for a late caution in Richmond, he was on a path to winning there too. I like him for these odds. 

NOCO 400 sleepers

Ryan Blaney (+1,100)

Maybe a better fantasy play this weekend instead of an outright win bet, but for these odds, might as well play both. See if you also can get him on a Top-5 finish bet too for a hedge. Yes, Blaney was fourth in the spring race, and third in last year's fall race, while also coming home runner-up in both races in 2020. He was fourth and fifth respectively in 2019.

Blaney has seven Top 5s in his last 10 tries on the Virginia paperclip overall. While he was 11th in both races in 2021, he did sweep both stages in the spring race. That’s the good. However, Blaney is winless this year. He was winless all of last year. He was winless in the 2021 playoffs. Can he end his winless drought?

Alex Bowman (+2,000)

He has three Top-6 finishes in his last five Martinsville starts, including a win in the 2021 playoff race. Bowman also has a Top-10 finish in all but two races run this season. 

Ty Gibbs (+6,000)

Won last year's fall race in the Xfinity Series after being eighth in the spring. He was also fourth in the 2021 Xfinity Series spring race and is driving a JGR car now in Cup, too. Gibbs was 19th here with 23XI Racing last Fall. On the season, he’s had four consecutive Top-10 finishes. 

NOCO 400 fades

Kyle Larson (+600)

Larson has two Top 5s (fifth place in 2021, second last fall) in his last 11 Martinsville tries, with 11 of his 16 starts there seeing him finish outside the Top-15. I think his runner-up was more of an anomaly than the standard. 

Denny Hamlin (+700)

Four of his last six Martinsville finishes have seen him come home 11th or worse. However, he's also won here five times, swept both stages last year in the Fall race and led 203 laps in the process. Last year's test here between the spring and fall races could have put him back on the right path. The thing is, he’s cold on the season again with four of the last five being outside the Top- 15. 

Kevin Harvick (+2,200)

He’s had just two Top 5s in his last 21 Martinsville starts, including 15th and 17th in 2020, ninth and 12th in 2021, and 14th and 16th last year. 

NOCO 400 prop pick: Group D Winner (DraftKings)

Daniel Suarez (+210), Bubba Wallace (+280), Austin Dillon (+280), and Ryan Preece (+280)

Suarez has finished outside the Top 20 in each of the last five weeks now. He’s also finished 27th or worse in six of his last seven Martinsville starts. Preece has one Top-15 finish all season, with six of his eight finishes on the year being 23rd or worse. Wallace has one Top-10 result this year, and four finishes of 20th or worse. Dillon, meanwhile, was third here last year and comes off of a third-place finish last weekend. 

Pick: Dillon (+280 at DraftKings)

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Martinsville Speedway track analysis

Martinsville is the same this year as it was last. The only difference is a lower downforce package on short tracks this season. However, I don’t know if that necessarily makes much of a difference here, since the speeds are so slow. 

Martinsville is a track to where the big teams thrive. Joe Gibbs Racing, Team Penske, and Hendrick Motorsports have won 16 of the last 17 Martinsville races, with three of the last five belonging to HMS.

They’ll once again run 400 laps at the Martinsville Speedway this weekend, but shift back to a daytime event. That’s a big change from a few years ago, when Martinsville didn’t have lights ready for NASCAR as well as the distance always being 500 laps.

How much of a factor will that play?

I mean you’re truly only talking about a 53-mile differential in mileage still between the 500-lap and 400-lap events. We’ve shortened races at other tracks by 100 miles. This is basically half of that. So, will it truly change the outcome?

It may.

Since the stage era began in 2017, we’ve had 12 Martinsville races. In them, the leader at Lap 400 failed to win the race five times, but all seven of those wins have been in the last 10 events. 

NOCO 400 trends

• Spring race starting spots for eventual winners: 10 of the last 12 races were won by a Top-10 starter (ninth, fifth, first, 22nd, 15th, seventh, fourth, ninth, third, fifth, seventh, fifth).
  
  
• The front row starters have failed to win each of the last 19 Martinsville races overall.
  
  
• The last six Martinsville races were won by a driver coming from fifth on back.

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