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Sportsbooks don’t seem to know how to deal with Chase Briscoe this week. His odds to win are fairly consistent at +6000 to +6500. However, his positional odds vary wildly.
At BetRivers Briscoe is +165 (37.74% implied) to finish in the Top 10. At Bet365 on the other hand he is +333 (23.09% implied) to have the same finish. I think both books are wrong and that gives us an opportunity.
In fairness to the books, the confusion makes some sense. Over the past seven races at short flat tracks, dating back to last year, Briscoe’s finishes are 7, 12, 10, 11, 24, and 9. His 12.17 average finish across those races is tried with Tyler Reddick for 8th best in the Cup Series across that time span. That said, Briscoe has finished better than he has run.
Looking at Win the Race’s Front Runners, Briscoe’s true average running position over those seven races is 15.46, 16th among this week’s drivers.
We also see this gives Briscoe an average finish over three spots better than his average running position. Only two drivers who have run in all seven races, Austin Dillon and Michael McDowell, have a larger positive differential between their average running position and their average finish.
Looking at Front Runners again we see Briscoe has completed 24.09% of his laps inside the Top 10. Like his average running position this is middle of the pack. This makes him just 17th best of the entries in this week’s race. Notwithstanding these middle of the road stats, I think there is value in Briscoe’s Top 10 odds at books where he is priced longer.
First, as noted, Briscoe has found ways to finish ahead of where he has run. This dates back to 2022 across all Gen 7 short flat races. From 2022 to 2024 Briscoe’s average finish is 2.03 spots better than his average running position. Across two years this suggests it’s more than pure coincidence. Briscoe simply stays out of trouble and finds ways to finish at these tracks. He has run over 60 laps inside the Top 10 in five of the seven short flat tracks in 2023-24. Plus, don’t forget, Briscoe got his first Cup Series win at Phoenix in 2022. This is all we need when we are getting odds of longer than +300 which has an implied probability of just 25%.
Briscoe hasn’t been great at qualifying on these tracks. In 2023-34 He only has one start inside the Top 20 (he did start 19th at Richmond last spring, but that was set by metric due to rain. However that Top 20 qualifying position was 8th and came earlier this year at Phoenix. In addition, in 2022 he had three top 10 starts at this track type. So if you want to wait on Briscoe to see if he has speed in practice and hope that he doesn’t qualify well I understand that position. Personally though I’m willing to take the shot now assuming that if he has practice speed he will qualify well and on Saturday afternoon when odds reopen the +300 and longer numbers will be gone.
I have a full unit on this at +333 courtesy of Bet365 and would take it down to +300.
