I was skeptical on how betting on NASCAR would be once the COVID-19 break ended. I mean, we had one day shows with no practice or qualifying and visiting some places twice in-a-row. How was this going to play out?

Instead, it’s actually making it wildly profitable for bettors.

In the past, you could usually narrow down the list of favorites to win any given weekend based off of past history at the tracks, a few good trends and who looked the best in long run practice speed. Now, all of that is thrown out of the window.

Typically, you’d get the same 3-5 drivers winning most races too.

Now, without any practice time to dial your cars in, you’re getting more parity. That in turn is helping the odds stay in our favor.

In the nine races back from the 70 day layoff between races, we’ve had six different winners, including all coming in consecutive races in fact.

In Darlington, Kevin Harvick won as he opened up a +500. Denny Hamlin won race No. 2 at +800. Brad Keselowski was +800 in the Coca-Cola 600 while Chase Elliott was +900 in his follow up win at Charlotte a few days later.

Keselowski, won again at Bristol but was +1300. Harvick won at Atlanta at +450. Martin Truex Jr. (+550) won at Martinsville while Hamlin (+1000) and Ryan Blaney (+1100)

Just look at those odds. Six of the nine winners had +800 or longer odds to win.

That’s because drivers that are good, but not necessarily good on those tracks are winning. Hamlin, had no business winning at Darlington or Homestead but he had a car capable of doing so instead. Keselowski, had no business winning in either of his trips to victory lane but there he was celebrating at Charlotte and Bristol.

The reason for this is, the top cars/driver combos aren’t getting to dial in their cars each week. If you give the best drivers in the best equipment a couple of hours of practice, they’ll find the right direction that it takes to win. Now, they don’t have that luxury. They’re basically guessing on what setup to run with and having to spend all race dialing their cars in.

Don’t believe me? Here’s what Toyota’s President said of Kyle Busch and the lack of practice hurting him.

“Joe (Gibbs) and I talked after Homestead and talked about Kyle and we’re scratching our head a little bit,” said David Wilson. “You know, I’ll ad that I think a factor with Kyle and with everybody to varying degrees the fact that we’re not practicing. Now that’s not an excuse because none of us are practicing, so a lot of this is a measure of how well the teams, the OEMs can prepare and be ready to go racing. But if you know Kyle like we’ve come to know him, he’s not a driver that just straps into the car and goes.”

Truex Jr agrees with that assessment.

“I think it’s been a little bit tough not having practice and things like that to hit it right,” said the 2017 champion. “I think our cars are close. I don’t think we’re dominant. I think there’s some really fast cars out there that we’re trying to catch up to. We really have to do all the little things right to be able to put ourselves in position to win races, and we’ve done that. We’ve been in position a few times this season, and things didn’t go the way we needed them to, and when you’re not a dominant car, you’re not just going to blow by through the field when you have issues. We definitely know we need to get better.”

Truex, says that it’s hard on them to prepare for the races even because in the Coca-Cola 600, they dominated then came back a few days later and struggled to stay in the top 25.

“That’s just where the practice thing comes in,” Truex continued. “You go back to the racetrack with your best guess of what you think is going to work, and it’s not always what you think it’s going to be. You give a great driver and crew chief and engineer and team an hour to work on a race car, they’re going to get it better.”

That’s opening up the door for different winners, ones with longer odds.

As we sit here today, it appears NASCAR isn’t going to have any practice through at least next month and maybe even into August. There won’t be any qualifying either.

So, this is a great time to jump in and make a splash. Someone like Kyle Busch hasn’t won all year but he’s +450 this weekend. His teammate in Hamlin has won three times in 2020 and has five Pocono wins to go along with three top five finishes in the last four races run and has double the odds. Blaney, won his first ever NASCAR race at Pocono and has four straight top four finishes on the year and six in the last seven races is +1000.

Kurt Busch, Kyle’s brother, has five times the odds of Kyle but has 10 top 10 finishes, seven of which being in the top five, in his last 17 Pocono starts including six top 10 finishes in his last seven starts in 2020 but is there for the taking at +2000.

What about William Byron? His last three Pocono finishes are sixth, ninth and fourth respectively. He has four top 11 finishes in his last five starts on the season. You can get him for a low retail price of +2000 too.

Erik Jones is the best value of all. He’s +1600, four times the odds of Busch, but has five top eight finishes in his six Pocono starts, including three straight top fives. He was third and second respectively in the two annual stops last year and is coming off of a fifth place result at Talladega on Monday.

The profit margins are there for the taking so long as Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick keep struggling.