Cook Out Southern 500 Picks, Odds & Predictions 9/3/2023

by Tony Sink - 9/1/2023

Cook Out Southern 500

Sunday, September 3, 2023

6:00 PM EST

Darlington Raceway

Darlington, SC

And the Chase for the Cup begins and the next location on the docket is the Track Too Tough to Tame. This is a 1.366-mile oval is shaped like an egg and really unlike any other race track on the circuit. It's not a superspeedway and it's not an intermediate oval but comes in as somewhere between the two styles of track. There are two unique sets of turns on this track with Turns 1 and 2 being much wider than the following Turns 3 and 4. While this might not seem like a big deal, it becomes a challenge for race teams to tune the car to these turns. There has to be a "happy medium" in terms of setting up the handling for this car. When you combine this with wide racing grooves and variable banking between 23 and 25 degrees, it makes for extremely exciting racing. This is compounded by the fact that we are in the meat of the schedule and drivers trying to win a championship.

nascar picks Chris Buescher predictions best bet odds

One thing that fans might notice about this race is how high the cars run through the turns of this track. When racing on most ovals, the route of choice would be low and tight to the inside lines, however, Darlington is a special place where drivers prefer to drive high to carry the momentum into the straightaways. The configuration of this historic oval always makes drivers take the high groove because it's the fastest way around the track. All that said, there will be big changes this week as we're coming from a three wide racing track last weekend to this.

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The regular season finale in Daytona is the location where Chris Buescher earned his third win and allowed Bubba Wallace to sneak into the playoffs. Driver/owner Brand Keselowski helped Buescher notch the win by pushing his RFK teammate to victory. It was a move that put Wallace in and left Chase Elliott on the outside looking in. Elliott was looking good and after the restart, Elliott was blocked by a group of Fords. Kevin Harvick, Aric Almirola and Joey Logano blocked Elliott from making a move and it ended up costing him. It will be the first time that Elliott has missed the playoffs.

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NASCAR Playoff Standings

As we start the playoffs, William Byron and Martin Truex Jr. are both starting with 2036 points. Denny Hamlin finished the regular season with two wins and 2025 points while Chris Buescher earned his third win of the regular season last weekend and has 2021 points. In fifth place heading into the playoffs is Kyle Busch with three wins and 2019 points. It should be an exciting Chase for the Cup.

Cook Out Southern 500 Odds

Martin Truex Jr. - +500
Kyle Larson - +500
William Byron - +750
Denny Hamlin - +800
Ross Chastain - +1000
Kyle Busch - +1100
Christopher Bell - +1200
Tyler Reddick - +1300
Brad Keselowski - +1600
Chase Elliott - +1600
Kevin Harvick - +1800
Joey Logano - +1800
Ryan Blaney - +2200
Chris Buescher - +2800
Bubba Wallace - +3000
Ty Gibbs - +4500
Erik Jones - +5500
Daniel Suarez - +5500
Alex Bowman - +5500
Michael McDowell - +8000

Martin Truex Jr. rides into Darlington as the points and standings leader. He's a two-time winner at Darlington. It's a great place for him to start off the playoffs as he performs well here. He led for 145 laps here in May and looked like he was going to win, but a late race accident prevented that from happening. In his career at Darlington, Truex has led over 900 laps and most of that has come since 2020. He's primed to have another solid finish.

Tony's Pick: Take Martin Truex Jr. (+500)

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Pick:	CHICAGO BEARS +3
Start:	November 24, 2024 @ 1:00 PM
Expert:	Doc's Sports

Analysis:

Free Play from Doc’s Sports. Take #256 Chicago Bears +3 over Minnesota Vikings (1p.m., Sunday, November 24 FOX) We used the Bears as a free play winner last Sunday and easily covered the spread and should have been an underdog outright winner. Now we will ride them for a second straight week against another NFC North rival, the Minnesota Vikings. The Vikings are 8-2 on the season, yet are only around a field goal favorite. I still do not trust Sam Donald to win consistently over the course of a 17 game regular season. Minnesota is not as good as their 8-2 record would indicate and playing outdoors in Chicago on Sunday will cause issues for them on both sides of the ball. Chicago has been hit or miss this season, but they will be up to play another divisional rival and we expect them to take this down to the wire as well. Do not miss out on Doc’s Sports Weekend Card featuring top plays in college and NFL football. Read More Read Less

Cook Out Southern 500 Picks, Odds & Predictions 9/3/2023

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