“Between Bets” is an article series revealing our staff’s best wagers across the NFL, NASCAR and PGA Tour. This edition’s bets feature our favorite wagers for the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
(Odds courtesy of DraftKings Sportsbook)
2024 Brickyard 400 Betting Picks: Outrights
Kyle Larson (+600)
This is a tough week to handicap, as the Cup Series hasn’t raced on the Indianapolis oval in the Next-Gen car. So why not start with someone with very recent experience on this layout?
Kyle Larson ended up missing out on the Coca-Cola 600 in favor of May’s Indianapolis 500, leading laps and running competitively en route to a P18.
Larson, at a relatively normal +600 DraftKings outright, has run strong in the past in Cup here. He’s finished in the top nine three times, although the most recent of those finishes came in 2016. Larson was involved in incidents in two of the three Indy oval races he participated in after that, and he missed the 2020 race.
But that “inexperience” will be no different than the rest of the field’s, and in most weeks, Larson is closer to being the class of said field than not.
Ryan Blaney (+750)
One of the tracks most similar to the Indianapolis oval is Pocono; turn two of “The Tricky Triangle” is modeled after Indianapolis itself. That makes last week’s Pocono winner Ryan Blaney a high favorite for the week at +750.
Blaney has been the hottest driver in the series of late. In the six races following his last-lap fuel snafu at Gateway, Blaney has a pair of wins and an additional trio of T10s. The only outlier was a P25 on the rain tires at New Hampshire.
Blaney earned a P7 at Indy in 2019 and has led laps in three of six starts at the track. Ford also has won each of the last trio of races here. Before that streak, however, Ford hadn’t won at the Brickyard since 1999.
William Byron (+1000)
He may have started the season as the series’ hottest driver, but William Byron has cooled off a bit during the summer stretch. The No. 24 won three of the first eight races but has been absent from victory lane since. The team is still putting together some consistent finishes, though, finishing eighth or better in three of the last five races.
The series’ eyes turning away from Byron could prove dangerous heading into the Brickyard 400, where he sits at a +1000 outright on DraftKings. He’s led laps in each of his three Brickyard starts and has a best finish of P4 in 2019.
He’s also got a knack for winning big races, especially this year, winning the Daytona 500 at Circuit of the Americas (COTA) – the road course race with perhaps the most eyes on it each year – and the 40th-anniversary race for Hendrick Motorsports (HMS) at Martinsville.
Check out all of our content for the 2024 Brickyard 400:
- NASCAR DFS Picks, Tiers & Rankings: Brickyard 400
- Between Bets: 2024 Brickyard 400 Outrights
- PropKings: 2024 Brickyard 400
Thanks for reading my best bets for the 2024 Brickyard 400. Be sure to catch us live every Thursday night at 8:30 p.m. EST on The Backroad! Also, follow me on Twitter/X @ehicks39 for more NASCAR takes and betting advice.
*Photo Credit: Jim Dedmon– USA TODAY Sports*
