Grant Park 200 Favorites:

Martin Truex Jr. (+700)

He has to land here as a co-favorite. May be the hottest driver in the series right now with Truex not only having won in Sonoma two races ago, but he was also runner-up last Sunday too in Nashville giving him four consecutive Top-5 finishes on the season and the points lead. It seems like the cream always rises to the top in inaugural events.

Chase Elliott (+700)

Why not here either? While he’s winless this season, Elliott has won three inaugural races since 2020 and all three were on road courses (Daytona, COTA, Road America) at that. Elliott was also just fifth at Sonoma last month and enters Sunday’s race on the heels of two consecutive Top-5 finishes overall including four Top-7 results in the last five races that he’s contested in.

Kyle Larson (+700)

Larson has won two first time trips to tracks since 2021. He won the race two years ago in Nashville in dominating fashion and while North Wilkesboro wasn’t an inaugural race last month, it was the first time that NASCAR came there since 1996 and without any experience, Larson won again. On road courses this season, he’s finished 14th (COTA) and eighth (Sonoma) respectively and comes into Chicago with three consecutive Top-8 finishes.

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Grant Park 200 Sleepers

AJ Allmendinger (+1100)

Won in Indy in 2021. 12 of his 18 career NASCAR victories came on road courses. He also has street racing experience in open wheels. Great odds for this driver needing a win and coming off of a sixth place finish in Sonoma and 10th in Nashville.

William Byron (+1600)

Hendrick Motorsports has won half of the last 10 inaugural or first time races at tracks in a while and it seems like each were won by champions. Chase Elliott won the 2020 Daytona ROVAL and later won the title. Kyle Larson won the 2021 Nashville race and later won the championship. Joey Logano won the LA Coliseum and Gateway last year and would go on to win the title. Byron has three wins this season alone and looks like a title contender. With all these trends, I say watch out. He was fifth in COTA and 14th in Sonoma with that Sonoma result being the only finish worse than eighth since April.

Kyle Busch (+1400)

This car won two road course races last year. Busch in it now, was runner-up this spring in COTA and again last month in Sonoma. He won the 2011 inaugural race at Kentucky and for the Byron stat above, Busch also has three wins in 2023 and is a title contender. He has five straight Top-10 finishes.

Michael McDowell (+2000)

He’s run on street courses before in coming through the open wheel ranks. McDowell had arguably the second best car in Sonoma and has a pair of Top-10 finishes in the last three races on the season.

Christopher Bell (+2000)

Now that Toyota is surging again and Bell not only won the ROVAL last Fall, but was ninth in Sonoma, I think he could be a threat on Sunday. He’s improved his finish the last four races going from 24th to 11th to ninth to seventh respectively.

Denny Hamlin (+2500)

Great value here for a driver who’s getting hot again. Hamlin has four Top-5 finishes in the last seven races including two in the last three after having just one total Top-5 finish in the first 10 events to the season. While he was only 16th in COTA and 36th in Sonoma, the latest was due to a crash while running up front. Hamlin won the pole in Sonoma and had a Top-5 caliber car in the race.

Joey Logano (+3000)

The Team Penske driver has been terrible on road courses lately, however, Logano has won an inaugural event in each of the last two seasons too. He won the first trip to Bristol Dirt in 2021, he won the first trip to the LA Coliseum as well as World Wide Technology Raceway in 2022. Can he win the first street race in 2023?

Austin Cindric (+3000)

He finished eighth, fifth, seventh, second, 13th and 21st on road courses in 2022. He was sixth in COTA this past March too but 25th in Sonoma last month. Cindric knows how to street race, so he’s a very valuable pick here despite not having finished better than 13th since his COTA Top-10.

Grant Park 200 Fades

Tyler Reddick (+700)

Seems weird fading a driver that’s been so good on road courses, but Toyota hasn’t won an inaugural race since 2011 in Kentucky and Reddick’s last three finishes on the season are 35th, 33rd and 30th respectively.

Daniel Suarez (+2800)

Was only 27th and 22nd respectively on road courses this season.

Ryan Blaney (+3000)

He used to be hot on the season but has since lost it. While Blaney won the first ever race on the Charlotte ROVAL, he was 21st and 31st respectively on road courses this season and has finished 31st and 36th respectively the last two races.

Kevin Harvick (+3000)

He hasn’t finished in the Top-10 in either road course this season and has just one Top-5 finish since Easter.

Chicago Street Course Trends

This is probably one of the most difficult races to handicap in recent years. At least when NASCAR has gone to a new track, there’s somewhat of a slew of comparisons to use in regards to like tracks. While the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum was the last difficult one to pick, one could compare the track to at least short tracks on the schedule in general.

A street race in Chicago however?

Never been done in the 75 year history of NASCAR. There’s not once been a stage street course event. While some may say to compare to other road courses, which is arguably the only thing that you can try to compare this to, a street event and road course are entirely different disciplines.

Natural road courses are free flowing terrain venues which some space for run off. Street courses are a hybrid short track elbows out mentality vs. A wall starting you in the face as there’s not much room for error. These single groove tracks don’t provide much room nor areas for passing and in the ones that they’re in, it could cause chaos and crashing.

Which is why there’s no real trends, no real comps and nothing to base Sunday’s race off of other than a gut feeling and momentum.

In saying that, we’ve had 10 new events added to the Cup Series schedule since 2018 and nine of the 10 were won by either Hendrick Motorsports (5) or Team Penske (4). The lone event that they didn’t win was the 2021 Verizon 200 on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course for which AJ Allmendinger and Kaulig Racing won.

Toyota has won three consecutive road courses now. Coming into the season, Chevy had won 15 of the last 17 road course events including five of the six a year ago. However, Toyota’s since turned the tide in winning the final road course event in 2022 on the Charlotte ROVAL and now this year in COTA and Sonoma.

Ford is probably the team to fade with leading just four laps in COTA and one in Sonoma. In fact, the entire Ford camp has led nine or fewer laps in six of the last seven races in general on the season too.

Top Trend
· Starting spots have come in handy on road courses and with a race on a street course, I have a feeling like it will again. Last year, the winner on road courses started 16th (COTA), eighth (Sonoma), fourth (Road America), pole (Indy), second (Watkins Glen) and eighth (Charlotte ROVAL). This year, they came from the pole (COTA) and (Sonoma.
Maybe a race you want to live bet. In 11 of the 16 races run, the eventual winner finished in the Top-5 11 times including four of the last six points paying races. On road courses, they were first (COTA) and (Sonoma).