After heading to Bristol for the Food City Dirt Race the NASCAR Cup series had a weekend off for Easter. They are back this week and head to Martinsville for the Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 500. The cars will be off the dirt and back on the pavement for 500 laps on the .526 of a mile short track.
Martinsville provides some excellent racing with its unique paper clip track. The tight turns make for some close-quarter racing and under the lights, you can definitely expect some driver’s feelings to get hurt and tempers to flare. Without further ado let’s jump right into the top bets for the Saturday Nights race.
All Odds Provided By DraftKings Sportsbook
Outright Winner
Martin Truex Jr +500
Outside of the Penske cars, Truex has been as good as you can get at Martinsville. Truex has to do good at the track after all he does share a name with the track. In the last six races at the track, he has won twice and led 747 laps in those races. He already has one win on the season and will look to be the first driver to win two races in 2021.
Race Props
Team of Race Winner Team Penske +215
Penske has been very good at Martinsville of late. In their last six races at Martinsville, they have won two and all three drivers have an average finish of 6.83 or better. Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano have each won one race and Ryan Blaney finished second in both races in 2020. With Blaney and Logano already having one win on the season and the Penske cars proving to be a strong look for them to pick up another win Saturday night at Martinsville.
Better Finishing Position Elliott or Blaney +100
Blaney has been really strong this year and also at Martinsville in his career. With those back-to-back second-place finishes he definitely has the track figured out. Elliott the 2020 Champion has struggled with only three top-ten finishes on the season. He did win at Martinsville last year but was running much more consistently heading into that race. With these head-to-head matchups, it is very rare to get positive odds especially with someone running as good as Blaney has this season. Look for Blaney to get himself another top five at Martinsville and finish ahead of Elliott.
Any driver to win both stage 1 and 2 and win the race +650
In the last four races at Martinsville, one driver has won both stages and won the race two different times. Martinsville is a track that if a driver gets the setup right they can go out and dominate most of the race. Keselowski did it once back in the 2019 spring race. He also won both stages in 2017 but was unable to win the race. Truex has also done it once back in the 2019 fall race. At these odds for something that has happened twice in the last four races, it is definitely worth throwing some money on.
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Main Image Credit: Embed from Getty Images
