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Tonight the NASCAR Cup Series will take to Iowa Speedway for the first time in Cup Series history. Iowa is a 7/8-mile D-shaped oval. The track features progressive banking from 12-14 degrees in the turns. The front stretch D portion of the track is banked at 10 degrees. Finally, the back stretch is banked at just 4 degrees. In terms of banking and length this makes Iowa most similar to Phoenix.
Although this will be the first visit to Iowa Speedway for the Cup Series, the Xfinity and Truck Series have both made a number of visits to Iowa from 2009 through 2019. The track was partially repaved over the off-season with the bottom lanes in the corner have being repaved. Historically Iowa was a single lane track and the repave doesn’t appear to have changed that. Although the repave has moved the preferred line to the bottom of the track from the top.
Passing on short flat tracks has been quite difficult in the Gen 7 car. Although yesterday Brad Keselowski said he he thinks passing will be possible, most drivers expected the repave to exacerbate these issues.
On Thursday when I talked to Eric Estepp about how I was handicapping the race one key issue we discussed was pit road performance.
At the top of the Win The Race Pit Road rankings is Chase Elliott. With the exception of COTA and Darlington, Elliott has been inside the Top 5 in every race that Win The Race has scored pit stops in 2024.
Elliott was also fast in practice on Friday afternoon. Elliott was the fifth best car in the Speed Geeks practice model.
Elliott’s results from 2024 at short flat tracks are also promising. He scored stage points in both stages at Phoenix (5th and 7th). He also finished seventh in Stage 1 at Richmond and finished fifth there. Martinsville is less predictive of other short tracks than Phoenix and Richmond, but Elliott was also strong there, finishing third in Stage 1, fifth in Stage 2, and third in the race.
Finally, Elliott has track position, he qualified eighth yesterday. He will just have to maintain that position to cash the first portion of the ladder.
Given Elliott’s starting position, pit crew, and potential speed I want to do a small ladder on his Top 10 and Top 5 odds. The best odds available right now are at Kambi books (BetRivers and Bally Bet are the two primary books using Kambi odds now) but several other books have odds that are still value for these bets so shop around.
The Speed Geeks Sim Center at Win the Race has fair odds on Elliott Top 10 at -140 and fair odds on him finishing Top 5 at +194. To build in a little bit of margin of error I don’t want to play all the way down to those numbers, but there is still value out there.
1.25u Chase Elliott Top 10 -125, play to -135
.5u Chase Elliott Top 5 +245, play to +200
