NASCAR best bets for the Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 400 featuring strong day for Bubba Wallace

After a month of short track and road course racing, NASCAR returns to its bread and butter of 1.5 mile tracks for just the second time this season Sunday with the running of the Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 400 from Texas Motor Speedway.

William Byron won last year’s lone Texas race, but Bubba Wallace was the most impressive driver with 111 laps led and a third place finish.

Below are my best bets for Sunday’s race from FanDuel Sportsbook including a head to head matchup involving Wallace and one driver to back from each manufacturer.

I already mentioned Wallace’s excellent run at Texas last year. As for Tyler Reddick, he won at Texas two races ago and won stage one last year. While there’s no question Reddick is a more consistent driver than Wallace overall, I was shocked to see Wallace’s odds at +134.

Wallace notched his first top five finish since Atlanta last week at Martinsville. He’s ran up front in most of the last two races and was a top five car all of last week. While Reddick has three straight top tens, he hasn’t been as strong as Wallace the last two weeks.

This might sound risky on first glance, but Chase Briscoe has sneakily been impressing me. Stewart-Haas Racing continues to be a shell of its former self, but Briscoe has been the flagbearer for the team with finishes of ninth, 13th, 13th, 18th, and tenth in his last five races.

Briscoe’s finishes could be better if it weren’t for issues on pit road, which have been weekly occurrences by his crew. Briscoe finished tenth last year at Texas and has finishes of fifth, 18th, 15th, and fourth in his other four races at this track.

After a couple of underdog picks, I’m switching to a safer pick of Chase Elliot recording a top ten finish. Although NASCAR’s most popular driver is still amidst a long losing streak, he’s finished worse than 16th just once this season and has qualified well in all but one race.

Elliot finished third, fifth, and eighth in the three short track races ran over the last month. He led 64 laps at Martinsville. While his car hasn’t had the speed of teammates William Byron and Kyle Larson, he’s been consistent. He finished sixth in stages one and two last year.

Chevrolet: I feel like a broken record for putting Kyle Larson (+400) and William Byron (+700) in this position every week but it’s hard not to. Byron is the best driver of the next gen car era in my opinion, while Larson is the most talented driver overall in the sport.

Ford: Ford is still looking for their first win of the campaign, and Joey Logano at +2000 is the driver best suited to end that drought in my mind. His best two races of the season came in the last two weeks and he’s finally showing speed.

Toyota: While Chevrolet have dominated the season, Toyota have been running a close race. Denny Hamlin (+650) has been fabulous in the last six races with two wins and no finish below 14th. Similarly to Chevrolet, I feel like a broken record picking him.

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