Shane van Gisbergen has won the past two road-course races — last month in Mexico City and last week in Chicago, where he also won the Xfinity Series race.
Naturally, no one questions his road dominance. He won a bunch of races and three championships racing big-bodied cars on road courses in Australia, and he brought those skills with him to North America.
But here’s where the other racers are hanging their officially licensed caps this week: Mexico City was brand new to the longtime regulars, and Chicago still relatively new. They had no institutional knowledge to lean upon and use to their advantage over the newcomer.
Sonoma, however, is another animal — it’s been on the schedule since 1989 and most of the frontrunning Cup regulars know where every pothole sits (yes, figuratively speaking), and how to get in and out of every turn at max speed. SVG’s natural advantage will be reduced quite a bit, right?
Right?
Well …
Turns out, SVG has raced at Sonoma before. Just once, last year during his one full-time year in the Xfinity Series.
And guess what. He won. Led the first 21 laps and the last 11.
The Man to Beat when NASCAR visits Sonoma
+145: Shane van Gisbergen
We’ll say it again. This harkens back to Tiger Woods at his peak. To be this heavily favored in a big-group environment is a head-turner. Enough to give SVG his own category here.
The other Sonoma favorites, including Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott
+600: Kyle Larson
+1100: Michael McDowell
+1200: Ty Gibbs
+1400: Chase Elliott, Chris Buescher, Tyler Reddick
+1500: William Byron
+1600: Christopher Bell
It’s sort of refreshing to see McDowell getting this much respect. Finally. He’s a super road-course racer. It’s how he grew up racing. If the car stays clean, he’ll be in the chase at the end. And by the way, Gibbs has rather quickly become a quality roadster.
Denny Hamlin in a rare spot for him
+2000: AJ Allmendinger
+2500: Kyle Busch, Ross Chastain
+3000: Ryan Blaney, Alex Bowman, Chase Briscoe
+5000: Joey Logano, Daniel Suarez
+6000: Carson Hocevar, Denny Hamlin
Denny’s fourth-place in Chicago was a rarity — a good road-course finish for him. A few guys from this group are worth a look, especially AJ and … and … well, OK, mainly AJ.
No chance? Probably not for these NASCAR drivers
+7500: Ryan Preece, Austin Cindric
+15000: Brad Keselowski, Bubba Wallace
+20000: John Hunter Nemechek, Todd Gilliland
+25000: Zane Smith, Erik Jones, Cole Custer, Noah Gragson, Justin Haley
Kez never cared for road courses, even when he was winning races somewhat regularly. Give credit to Bubba, though. He’s worked on it. And it’ll be interesting to see what happens when he and Bowman inevitably get close to each other Sunday.
Long(est) shots, including Katherine Legge
+50000: Riley Herbst, Josh Berry, Austin Dillon, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Ty Dillon
+100000: Katherine Legge, Cody Ware
Ware got some unfortunate TV air time last week when brake failure sent him very hard into a tire barrier just before the white-flag lap. You wonder how it’ll feel the first time he approaches a sharp turn at speed. Then again, these guys are built different.
— Email Ken Willis at ken.willis@news-jrnl.com
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: NASCAR betting odds for Sonoma: Yet again, guess who’s a HUGE favorite on a road course
Reporting by Ken Willis, Daytona Beach News-Journal / The Daytona Beach News-Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
