Ally 400 Race Insight & Value Picks
Race: Ally 400
Date: Sunday June 25th, 2023
Track: Nashville Superspeedway
Time: 7pm ET
Channel: NBC
What Did We Learn From Last Weekend?
What a dominating performance on the road course for Martin Truex Jr.! Sonoma was good to this team, but it’s no secret that he and his team tend to excel on these types of tracks. In fact, this is Truex’s 4th career Sonoma victory. He managed to pass Chase Elliott for the lead on a final restart and even somehow managed to hold off Kyle Busch, which is no easy feat in and of itself. Truex is having a much better 2023 than 2022. He was actually winless in 2022. This is his second win this year, after winning at Dover a few weeks ago. What was noticeable across the board in 2022, though, were the struggles in the Toyota garages. It seems like the Toyota teams are in a much better position and poised to be more competitive this year. For Truex, it’s obviously a welcomed scenario after struggling for an entire season. Fresher tires were clearly the strategy that won this race. Elliott was very quickly overtaken with 15 laps to go by Truex even though he held the lead twice in the final stage. All it takes on these road courses are fresher tires. It’s hard to hold anyone off on better tires when there are so many times the field bunches up into the turns.
For Elliott, it wasn’t a bad finish. He came home fifth, but he really needs a win. After missing 7 races total this season due to his broken leg and then a mandatory suspension for “purposefully” wrecking Denny Hamlin, he’s having a hard time trying to find his way into the playoffs. Although the summer is just starting, his opportunities are limited, so he will have to step up to the plate and drive hard to secure his spot. Kyle Busch finished 2nd, but he already has his spot safely secured for the playoffs. Logano finished 3rd followed by Chris Buescher and Chase Elliott to round out your top 5 spots. AJ Allmendinger, Michael McDowell, Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell, and Ross Chastain were the remaining top 10 finishers. For Chastain, this was a little bit of a reprieve. He’s had a few struggles here recently, so we’ll have to see how well the team performs this week. Hopefully, this top 10 at Sonoma will give them some confidence, as he’s fallen off the top of the leaderboard lately.
Where Are We Headed This Weekend?
There are just 10 races left until the playoffs. This weekend, the drivers are headed to Nashville after a week off to enjoy Father’s Day with their families. Let’s hope the downtime refreshed them because now it’s crunch time! This 1.333 mile concrete tri-oval is a pretty cool track. This is the longest concrete oval on the circuit. Dover is another concrete track but much shorter and different in terms of configuration. Although monikered “superspeedway” this is simply to differentiate it from other nearby tracks. It’s basically an intermediate track in comparison to other NASCAR circuits. The track shutdown after 2011 because of no Cup Series races. It reopened in 2021, hosting the Ally 400 where Kyle Larson took home the checkered flag. This track is known for its rough surface. Although it hasn’t been raced in the Cup Series with the exception for the last couple of years, there have been many many years of Xfinity and truck series races. The cars tend to get loose, and track position is everything. Qualifying is going to be very important as will pit box position. The field will likely spread out, with the leader able to pull away from the field. Pit strategy is going to be important. If you remember last year, it was pit strategy that set Elliott up for the win in the end.
Odds and Value Picks
That’s right. Chase Elliott is your defending winner. It’s no surprise that Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott are the two most recent winners here. They are class of the field on intermediate tracks. Those guys are going to be hard to beat this weekend as well. While Sonoma gave some of them some struggles, that is definitely not an accurate representation of how they are going to perform this weekend. We’ve had a reset of 2 weeks now, so they are ready to go heading into Nashville. When it comes to picking the winner, aside from Larson and Elliott, we’ve seen strong showings on the intermediates this year from Kyle Busch and William Byron. Some other ones to keep on your radar are Ryan Blaney and Denny Hamlin. I’m not so sure they will outrun Elliott or Busch or even Byron. They’ve also won on the intermediates this year, but they were victors of their circumstances in some cases. Let’s take a look at your potential winners heading into Nashville this weekend with their odds from Bovada:
- Winner: Chase Elliott +800
- Mid-Range Pick: Kevin Harvick +1600
- Dark Horse: AJ Allmendinger +20000
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Allmendinger only has one start here with a 19th place finish. That being said, his finishes over the last several weeks have gotten better and better. He struggled for the first half of the year, but it looks like this second part is going a little better so far. His finishes at Charlotte and Illinois were both 14th place, and his Sonoma finish was a solid 6th place. I think that he’s getting more competitive and confident as the year goes on, so look for a solid performance from this team this weekend. Harvick is a good driver here. With his year going pretty solid so far, Nashville should prove to be another strong result for this team. Harvick has an average finish of 7.5, with one top five and one top 10. This year should result in an even better result based on how competitive he’s been. He will be chasing down Elliott along with everyone else, though. As the defending champion, Elliott is coming into this race with a title to defend and a solid top 5 run at Sonoma a couple of weeks ago. With a playoff berth on the line, Elliott knows what it’s going to take, and that’s a win. This might be one of his best shots at the playoffs, so he is certainly going to come into this race with a fire lit trying to get to victory lane. He’s struggled in the points with missing so many races, and has a lot of ground to make up. Let’s see where everyone is standing after Sonoma as we head into a new weekend of racing at Nashville:
- Martin Truex Jr.
- William Byron
- Ryan Blaney
- Ross Chastain
- Kevin Harvick
- Kyle Busch
- Christopher Bell
- Denny Hamlin
- Joey Logano
- Kyle Larson
- Chris Buescher
- Brad Keselowski
- Tyler Reddick
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
- Bubba Wallace
- Alex Bowman
Bowman bumped Suarez out of the top 16 after Suarez surprisingly struggled on what should’ve resulted in a strong finish at Sonoma. Unfortunately, it wasn’t his weekend. Suarez will be looking to make up ground here at Nashville as well. Truex is sitting at the top of the lead board after winning at Sonoma, leaving Byron and Blaney sitting in 2nd and 3rd. This weekend should be a weekend of redemption for several drivers that’ve struggled here in the last few weeks. Keep your eyes on guys like Suarez and Chastain. There’s no telling how they’ll do coming back from a few weeks off. This weekend is sure to be a good race. Nashville is a fun race to watch. A lot of loose cars and drivers looking for a win will definitely keep us on our toes. Tune in this Sunday for a great afternoon of Cup Series racing!
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