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On Sunday the NASCAR Cup Series makes it first trip of the year to an “intermediate” track. Las Vegas is a 1.5-mile tri-oval track with 20 degrees of banking in the turns. Of the other tracks on the schedule Las Vegas is most similar to Kansas and the two tracks are often referred to as sisters. In addition to Kansas driver history at the two other 1.5-mile oval tracks of Charlotte and Texas is also relevant.
The big unknown this weekend though is how the new bodies on the Fords and Toyotas will perform. For the 2024 season both Ford and Toyota have redesigned the front of their cars. Toyota’s redesign was primarily aimed at helping those cars with drafting. The Ford redesign on the other hand was focused on intermediate track performance. Last season Ford had redesigned the body and the result was reduced downforce at the intermediate tracks. As a result in 2023 the performance of the Fords was noticeably worse at intermediate tracks. So for 2024 Ford redesigned its body again in the hopes of improving downforce.
As this will be the first time we see the new bodies outside of a drafting race, its hard to know how well the Fords and Toyotas will perform this week. The Cup Series will have practice on Saturday which will be our first opportunity to see the new bodies in action on this track type. Until we see the cars practice there is a good deal of uncertainty. This uncertainty means that seeing how the Ford and Toyota camps perform in practice will be particularly important.
Despite the uncertainty there is some value on the board pre-practice and there is one bet that I’m ready to make right now before we see cars on track at all.
This bet doesn’t feel sexy, but no matter how I look at it I’m seeing value. Ty Gibbs is an immensely talented young driver. But right now I have him well behind Bubba.
Bubba was consistently ahead of Ty in 2023. Bubba won this matchup three of the four races at Las Vegas and Kansas in 2023. If we expand to all 1.5-mile intermediate tracks Bubba’s record vs Ty improves to 5-1.
Looking at Front Runners at Win the Race, we can see it wasn’t just finishing position where Bubba was ahead of Ty. Bubba completed 57.9% of his laps inside the Top 10 at Las Vegas and Kansas. Ty completed just 24.87% of his laps inside the Top 10. Bubba had a True Average Running Position of 12.24 compared to Ty’s 17.73.
Looking at incident adjusted speed, which takes out segments of a race where a driver’s speed is below average due to incidents, Bubba was also well ahead of Ty in 2023. In the four races at Las Vegas and Kansas Bubba’s average speed rank was 6.75. Gibbs was 7.5 spots behind Bubba at 14.25.
If we turn to the Sim Center at Win the Race this advantage for Bubba plays out in the 10,000 simulations for the Pennzoil 400. The Sim Center has Bubba winning this matchup 59.52% of the time. That wining rate is well clear of the 54.95% implied probability of -122.
Even if the model is off and Ty has made improvements, I don’t see him having closed the gap to where he is winning this matchup even 45% of the time. That means that we are getting value at -122, even if it isn’t flashy. At -122 I bet 1.22 units to win 1. I would bet this down to -130.
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