The madness of the Daytona 500 is behind us, as NASCAR Cup Series bettors can now strap in for the rest of the 2023 season, starting with the Pala Casino 400 this weekend in Fontana.
Overall favorite Kyle Larson scored a win here last year, and he'll look to reassert himself in search of his dominant 2021 form.
Get the scoop on the field and favorites with our Pala Casino 400 odds, full analysis, and betting picks.
Odds to win 2023 Pala Casino 400
| Driver | Odds to win |
|---|---|
| Kyle Larson | +650 |
| Denny Hamlin | +800 |
| Chase Elliott | +800 |
| Ryan Blaney | +1,000 |
| Kyle Busch | +1,000 |
| Christopher Bell | +1,000 |
| Tyler Reddick | +1,200 |
| Ross Chastain | +1,200 |
| Martin Truex Jr. | +1,200 |
| Joey Logano | +1,200 |
| William Byron | +1,800 |
| Kevin Harvick | +2,000 |
| Alex Bowman | +2,000 |
| Erik Jones | +3,000 |
| Bubba Wallace | +3,000 |
| Daniel Suarez | +4,000 |
| Chase Briscoe | +4,000 |
| Austin Dillon | +4,000 |
Odds courtesy of DraftKings as of February 22, 2023.
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Pala Casino 400 field
Kyle Larson (+650) is looking to recapture the magic of 2021 this season, and gets to follow up last week's middling Daytona result (18th) by defending his Fontana title, having also won here in 2017.
Closely trailing him at +800 are Denny Hamlin and Chase Elliott, who are looking to rebound from subpar results, both in this race last season and in Daytona.
A glut of drivers at +1,000 and +1,200 suggest not much definition amongst the board's upper tier, with a clear dropoff — just one driver (William Byron, +1,800) is priced between +1,200 and +2,000.
Rounding out the top half of the field odds-wise is Austin Dillon (+4,000), who just happened to finish runner-up to Larson last season.
Pala Casino 400 picks and predictions
Pala Casino 400 favorites
Kyle Larson (+650)
Larson's the defending race winner at Fontana and has also earned four Top-2 finishes in seven career Fontana tries, including another win in 2017 and a runner-up a year later. Fontana’s sister track is Michigan, and Larson has thrived there too, scoring three wins in a two-year span between 2016 and 2017. In NXS competition at Fontana, Larson also has two wins in four tries.
He has three consecutive Top-7 finishes at Michigan too, including a pair of third-place results. Where superspeedways are his kryptonite, fast 2-mile ovals like Fontana and Michigan are where he thrives.
Kyle Busch (+1,000)
He's scored six Top-3 finishes in his last nine Cup Series starts in Fontana, and inherited a car that led 90 of the 200 laps last year after starting on the pole. The only reason Tyler Reddick didn’t win at Fontana after sweeping both stages is due to a cut tire while battling for the lead early on in the final stage.
Busch, who’s always strong here, is now in that ride. Also, in Xfinity Series competition at Fontana, Busch has nine straight Top-8 finishes and 13 Top-3 results in his last 14 tries. He’s a six-time winner (2008, 2009, 2010, 2010, 2011, 2013) at that.
Joey Logano (+1,200)
The defending series champion, Logano, has five Top-5 finishes in his last six starts at Fontana and six Top 7s in his last seven there overall. He just led 14 laps and finished fifth last season. While Ford has one win in its last 12 Fontana tries, multiple drivers have mentioned this past offseason that the Ford camp should be even stronger this year than last on high-speed tracks like this one.
NASCAR allowed all three manufacturers to revamp the bodies of their cars between the debut season of the Next Gen in 2022 and the second year in 2023. From the sounds of things, Ford’s homework paid off and it should have the fastest cars early on for these tracks. I like Logano to capitalize because of that. Also because the defending series champion has shown up to Fontana the next year and scored four straight Top-2 finishes, including a pair of wins (2018, 2022).
Tyler Reddick (+1,200)
He swept both stages and led a race-high 90 of 200 laps a year ago. If not for that cut tire, he likely would have won. Now, he gets the car that finished eighth. Watch out.
Pala Casino 400 sleepers
Kevin Harvick (+2,000)
While he's led just one lap (last year) in his last five Fontana starts, he does have three Top-4 finishes in his last seven starts there though too including a seventh-place run last February. Harvick was fourth in 2019 and runner-up in back-to-back years (2015, 2016). Worth a gamble.
Erik Jones (+3,000)
Ran strong last year and finished third after scoring a front-row starting spot. He was second in both stages as well.
Pala Casino 400 fades
Chase Elliott (+700)
While he does have four Top-11 finishes in six Fontana tries, only one has resulted in a Top-5. He was 26th last year.
Denny Hamlin (+800)
He’s scored just one Top-5 finish at Fontana since 2009. That was a third-place effort in 2016. Last year, he was only 15th and enters 0-for-20 on this track.
Christopher Bell (+1,000)
Not sure why these odds are where they are for a driver with finishes of 38th and 36th here.
Pala Casino 400 prop pick: Bubba Wallace (-120) vs. Daniel Suarez (+100)
I like getting plus money on a driver that finished fourth just last year and is coming off of a Top-10 finish in Daytona. Wallace’s best Fontana finish was 19th while Suarez has finished ahead of him in two of the last three years on this 2-mile track.
Pick: Suarez (+100 at DraftKings)
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Auto Club Speedway track analysis
This quite possibly is the final year that the Auto Club Speedway will look like this. The current 2-mile, D-shaped oval layout will be demolished and revamped as a short track that’s not expected to open until 2025 at the earliest.
This track now however hasn’t changed since it was completed in 1997. The track surface is the same this day as it was then. As a result, this is the most aged surface on the schedule, and a byproduct is that this track causes a lot of tire wear.
The only strategy plays are when to pit during your final pit sequence. Pit too early, and your tires are shot by time you get to the end. Pit too late and those who pit before you could have already passed you and left you with little time to play catch up.
That’s why when to pit is a deciding factor of this race: three of the last four years have seen this event go from green to checkered with 31 or more laps of green flag action.
Even with a late race caution, you still want to pit for tires.
Now, last year bucked almost every trend we’ve seen at Fontana, but that was due to this new race car. This was the second-ever race with the Next Gen, but first away from a drafting track. Teams didn’t know what they had and drivers didn’t know how to race it. As a result, you saw way more cautions than normal, a closer margin of victory, and a shorter distance to the end under green flag conditions.
Prior to last year's race, where it was a learning process with the tires and Next Gen, Fontana only had 12 combined caution flags fly in each of the previous three years. There were five in 2018, four in 2019, and three in 2020. Take out the six combined stage breaks and you only get six yellows in three years. Out of those six, two of which were for debris and four were for single-car incidents. Does the Next Gen create more havoc in 2023 or does it look like it did in 2020 and prior?
Pala Casino 400 trends
- While Team Penske and Kevin Harvick (Stewart-Haas Racing) have been good in Fontana, they have also struggled to win outright. Since 2010, a Ford has gone to victory lane just once (2015) in 12 races.
- Toyota has won two of the last four in dominating fashion, with Chevrolet winning each of the last two.
- The last seven races in Fontana have been won by six different drivers from five different teams: Brad Keselowski (2015), Jimmie Johnson (2016), Kyle Larson (2017, 2022), Martin Truex Jr. (2018), Kyle Busch (2019) and Alex Bowman (2020).
- Fontana allows dominance: Truex and Busch combined to lead 187 of the 200 laps in the 2018 edition. Busch and Brad Keselowski combined to lead 176 of 200 laps in 2019. Bowman led 110 of 200 laps in 2020. Blaney led 54 of the other 90.
Reddick didn't win but led 90 laps last year before a tire went down. Truex won by 11.685 seconds in 2018. Busch, won by 2.354 seconds in 2019 and Bowman by 8.904 seconds in 2020. The only reason the margin was tighter last year was due to a late race caution to set up a four-lap shootout to the finish. Will this race tighten up?
