The bread and butter of the NASCAR Cup Series schedule, banked intermediate-length tracks, begins on Sunday. Las Vegas Motor Speedway is a 1.5-mile-long tri-oval. Banking in the turns is 20 degrees. The front and back stretch have nine degrees of banking. In recent years, tire wear in Las Vegas has moved into the medium-high, trending to high wear.
The most comparable track to Las Vegas is Kansas. Kansas is another high tire wear 1.5-mile long tri-oval. The tracks are often referred to as “sister tracks.” The primary difference between the two is that Kansas has progressive banking from 17-20 degrees in the turns.
In addition to Kansas, driver performance at Darlington and Homestead-Miami Speedway are quite helpful in projecting Las Vegas. Darlington is slightly shorter, at 1.366-miles long and Homestead is a true oval. In addition, both tracks have not just high, but extreme tire wear.
The two other 1.5-mile tracks, Charlotte Motor Speedway and Texas Motor Speedway, are secondary comps for Las Vegas. While these tracks are the same length and feature similar banking, the tracks have a lower correlation with Las Vegas. For Texas, some of this may be the unique banking/layout of turns 1 and 2. In recent years, the only race run at Charlotte on the 1.5-mile oval has been the Coke 600, which is significantly longer and may contribute to a lower correlation. In addition, both tracks have historically had lower tire wear, which also changes the racing.
This week, I’m focused on a driver who has shown great promise at this track type. However, he hasn’t managed to get a win just yet. As he is coming up on his 100th Cup Series race, it’s time for this driver to put up, given the “hype” around him when he entered the series.
When Ty Gibbs made his Cup Series debut, it was as a fill-in driver for Kurt Busch, who had suffered a concussion in practice. Despite the emergency nature of the start, there was immediate hype around Gibbs. Others and I took some shorts at Gibbs’ Top 10 odds. He qualified 10th, and while he didn’t finish in the top 10, he managed to reach a respectable 16th.
The grandson of Joe Gibbs Racing owner Joe Gibbs, at the time of his debut Ty was tearing through the Xfinity Series. Even before his emergency start there were already questions of when he would get his full time shot in a JGR car. Gibbs didn’t have to wait long, at the end of the 2022 season Kyle Busch, Kurt’s brother, left JGR and Ty took over his ride.
Despite the hype and clear talent, Gibbs hasn’t had the same success in the Cup Series that he did in the Xfinity Series. After racking up 11 wins in 51 starts (along with 33 Top 10s and 25 Top 5s), he has been held out of the win column in the Cup Series. In fact, in 91 starts, he had just 23 top-10 finishes and 12 top-5 finishes. That said, last year, he did have some strong intermediate track runs.
Ty hasn’t won yet, so I can’t say he is truly “checkers or wreckers.” However he absolutely has that feel to him. In the spring Las Vegas race, Gibbs finished fifth and had the fifth best average running position at 8.42. In Kansas, he also finished fifth in the fall. In that race, he had the second-best average running position at 5.22. In the first race at Darlington, he finished second and had an average running position of 3.99, which was the third-best in the race. He also won the pole at Charlotte and finished sixth.
Ty was boom or bust at intermediate tracks, though. In the spring race at Kansas he qualified sixth but finished 32nd, one lap down. In the Southern 500 at Darlington, he qualified 13th and was never a factor, finishing 20th. During the fall race at Las Vegas, he qualified eighth and led 23 laps. However, he ultimately went for a spin on lap 194 and finished in 30th, three laps down.
Since that fifth at Kansas last fall, Ty hasn’t finished better than 16th. In fact, outside of the 16th place finish in the Daytona 500, in the other seven races, he has finished 30th or worse. The good news for us is that books have reacted to this, and Ty’s odds have gotten long. Despite this bad run, we know he has the potential to boom and so we can take advantage of these long odds.
In the seven races at Las Vegas, Kansas, Darlington, and Homestead in 2024, along with the two races at Las Vegas in 2023, Gibbs has run 54% of his laps inside the Top 10. That’s 6th best in the Cup Series. He has also run 30.23% of his laps inside the Top 5 over those nine races. While he only has 3 Top 10 finishes in that time, all 3 were Top 5 finishes. What’s more, over that time, only two drivers, Tyler Reddick and Carson Hocevar, have a bigger negative gap between their average finishing position and average running position. Gibbs is finishing around 7.6 spots behind where he runs in these races. This means he is putting himself in a position to get better finishes if he just has a bit more luck.
At Win The Race, our SIM FMV runs 20,000 simulations of the race. These simulations provide fair market value on a driver’s odds to win the race, as well as finish Top 3, Top 5, and Top 10. The simulations recognize Gibbs’s upside. Our simulations have Gibbs finishing Top 10 in nearly half the races. That means there is plenty of value when compared to the +220 (31.25% implied) being offered by Bet365 and Hard Rock. The simulations also have Gibbs finishing Top 5 in around 1/4 of the races. That is easily better than the +650 (13.33% implied) being offered. At +3000, we are technically showing value on his odds to win, but given the margin of error inherent in the simulations, I’m not interested in his odds to win at this time.
Ultimately, given Ty’s upside, I’m willing to put a total of a unit on him this weekend. I’m placing .7u on him to finish Top 10 at +220. I’m also putting .3u on him to finish Top 5 at +650. I would bet these down to +135 and +400 respectively. If you want to splash on his Top 3 odds at +1400 I don’t hate that either, but I’m content with the Top 5 and Top 10 odds.
