NASCAR Sprint Cup Series
Bojangles’ Southern 500

Odds to Win Race

The Sprint Cup series heads to Darlington for a race on “The Track Too Tough to Tame” on Sunday. Darlington Raceway, which is also referred to as “The Lady in Black”, features a rather distinct egg-shaped design and runs 1.366 miles with four turns. Turns 1 and 2 on this track feature 25-degree banking and turns 3 and 4 feature 23-degree banking. It’s a track that was built in 1949 and has hosted the Bojangles’ Southern 500 (with its current name) for the past two years now. With only two events to go until the Chase for the Sprint Cup Challenger Round, this race is absolutely crucial. Last year, Kevin Harvick emerged as the winner in this race. His average speed was 131.211 and he was able to take full advantage of earning the top pole position. Gordon has earned seven wins at this track in his career (1995, 1996 twice, 1997, 1998, 2002, 2007) and Denny Hamlin has one Sprint Cup victory (2010) and a record 5.9 average finish here. Let’s now take a look at who might come away victorious in South Carolina on Sunday:

Denny Hamlin (8-to-1) - Denny Hamlin has just one Sprint Cup victory at Darlington Raceway, but he has won numerous other races here before and holds a track record for average finish at 5.9. Hamlin enters this race in fantastic form, coming in fifth at the Pure Michigan 400 and third at the Irwin Tools Night Race. He has one victory on the year and another eight top-five finishes to his name. He may be one of the favorites to win this race, but he is still getting favorable enough odds to warrant putting some units on him.

Jimmie Johnson (10-to-1) - Jimmie Johnson had a poor outing at the Pure Michigan 400 two races ago, but he followed it up with a fourth place finish at the Irwin Tools Night Race on Aug. 22. Johnson has had success at Darlington before, winning a Sprint Cup race here in 2012. While he hasn’t been as dominant this season as in years past, Johnson still has four victories and 11 top-five finishes on the season. He is consistently at the top of the leaderboard and would be a great value play at the odds he is currently receiving.

Jeff Gordon (20-to-1) - Jeff Gordon only has a few races left as a full-time Sprint Cup driver and he’ll be looking to go out with a bang over the next few weeks. Gordon will be visiting a track that he has had a lot of success at in his career and should be feeling confident that he’ll get his first victory of the season. Gordon has three-top five finishes this season and 12 top-10s, but he has not been able to enter victory lane just yet. At 20-to-1, it’s definitely worth putting a unit or two on him to get that done at a track he is very familiar with.

Greg Biffle (100-to-1) - Greg Biffle has not won a Sprint Cup race since 2013, but he is getting some extremely favorable odds and has been doing quite well as of late. Biffle has finished in the top-25 at five straight races and that includes a fifth place finish at the Windows 10 400. Biffle has also had some success at Darlington, winning this race in back-to-back years (2005, 2006) earlier in his career. It wouldn’t be a bad decision to put a unit or two on a guy that can make you look pretty smart once Monday rolls around.

A.J. Allmendinger (500-to-1) - Allmendinger may not have any victories in the Sprint Cup Series this season, but he does have three top-10 finishes and one of them was a seventh at the Windows 10 400 just a few weeks ago. He is receiving some insane odds for this race and isn’t poor enough of a driver to be counted out completely. He won a race in 2014 and is more than capable of surprising people and doing so again. If he did then it’d be tough to swallow not taking him.