It’s been a long winter and a long NASCAR offseason. Holidays were celebrated, drivers traded places, and snow fell from the sky even in places where it hadn’t in decades.
But wait…is that the sound of engines firing I hear?
The 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season kicks off with its yearly preseason event, the Clash. It’s known this year as the Cook Out Clash, and is taking place at Bowman Gray Stadium for the first time.
After three years at the Los Angeles Coliseum, NASCAR kept the feel of racing in a football stadium but brought it back home to the south. Winston-Salem, North Carolina’s historic track known as the Madhouse sets up as the perfect kickoff to stock car racing in 2025.
With similarities between the Coliseum and the Madhouse expected, there’s a lot to take away from the last trio of years when looking to find how to win our first bets of the new season.
(Odds courtesy of DraftKings Sportsbook)
Joey Logano Looks to Stay Out Front | 2025 Cook Out Clash Picks
Building Our Betting Model
Our model for the 2025 Cook Out Clash, a collaboration with ifantasyrace.com, weighs heavily on the past Coliseum races, taking away the following statistics:
- Coliseum Clash Next-Gen Average Finish
- 2024 Clash Green Flag Speed Ranking
- 2024 Clash Average Running Position
- 2024 Clash Driver Rating
- 2024 Clash Fastest Late in a Run Speed Ranking
The model also weighs in both the Next-Gen Total Speed Ranking and 2024 average finish from the pair of races at Martinsville Speedway, the regular-season track most similar to Bowman Gray.
Here are our top 10 drivers in the model:
Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin rank at the top of our model. Being the two active drivers to win a Clash at the Coliseum, this gives them a massive advantage in the rankings. Most of the rest of the top 10 had multiple strong finishes during the Coliseum years as well.
Missing out on the main event will obviously skew results downward; drivers such as Christopher Bell and Chris Buescher, who you may have expected to see here, are both mired further back in the pack as a result.
The model has an obvious top pick but clear value down the board as well.
2025 Cook Out Clash Picks & Predictions
Joey Logano (+850)
The easy pick here is the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Champion, Joey Logano. The three-time champ tops our model, earning its only “A” IBT Grade at 90%.
Logano won the 2022 Clash At The Coliseum and finished P4 last year. His Martinsville stats have also been impressive, with a pair of T10s in 2024. The Connecticut native won last year’s All-Star Race at another slightly comparable track, North Wilkesboro Speedway.
If none of that convinced you, consider that this year’s Clash will be the first time in a long time that the Cup Series has gone to Bowman Gray Stadium. Logano won each of the inaugural events at the Coliseum, Gateway and Bristol Dirt. Maybe it’s not just the even-year superstition you can apply to the No. 22.
Kyle Busch (+1100)
Perhaps no one raced at The Coliseum more consistently than Kyle Busch. Though he didn’t claim a victory in LA, Busch finished runner-up twice and P3 in the other race there.
It’s a surprise Busch isn’t higher than seventh in our model based on those top-tier finishes. Martinsville wasn’t the best for No. 8 in 2024, with finishes of P11 and P23 bringing down his ranking. Over his career, Busch has a pair of Martinsville wins and 17 T5 finishes.
“Rowdy” may be more motivated to get back to victory lane than anyone in the Cup garage after breaking a 19-year winning streak in 2024, and he’ll hope the strong finishes start quickly in 2025.
Ryan Preece (+2800)
Ryan Preece is a longshot pick for sure at +2800, but the model is much more favorable for him. Though it’s still just a 58% IBT Grade, Preece ranks P11 in our model after some mixed results in previous Clash races.
Preece ran well in a Rick Ware Racing (RWR) car in 2022’s Clash before mechanical issues knocked him out. He followed up that performance by leading 43 laps and finishing P7 in the 2023 Clash. He was also P11 last year. At Martinsville, the newest Roush Fenway Keselowski (RFK) Racing driver finished P9 and P14 in 2024 with Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR).
The other advantage that Preece could have is that he’s the only full-time Cup driver running the “Madhouse Classic” modified race before any Cup activity starts on Saturday afternoon. Perhaps that could teach him a thing or two about how the track races that could translate well to his No. 60.
Check out all of our 2025 Cook Out Clash NASCAR betting content:
- Video: 2025 Cook Out Clash Picks & Predictions | NASCAR Betting Odds
- Joey Logano Looks to Stay Out Front | 2025 Cook Out Clash Picks
- 2025 Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium | NASCAR Betting Model
Thanks for reading my 2025 Cook Out Clash picks & predictions. 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: Gary A. Vasquez – USA TODAY Sports*