Darlington Raceway: The Real Heroes 400 Predictions & Odds (Cup Series)

• Joe Gibbs Racing boasts five victories in the last seven races at the Track Too Tough to Tame—will that dominance continue on Sunday?
• Where the Goodyear rubber meets the asphalt may go a long way toward determining the Darlington winner.
• As NASCAR returns to action, so do veteran drivers Ryan Newman and Matt Kenseth—Newman from injury and Kenseth from retirement.

With a compressed schedule, NASCAR will resume its 2020 season, on hiatus for more than two months because of the coronavirus pandemic, with The Real Heroes 400 on Sunday at Darlington Raceway—without fans in the grandstands.

The first of two Cup events in four days at the 1.366-mile track, the race will be the first contested in the spring at Darlington since 2014, after which the Southern 500 shifted from Mother’s Day weekend back to its traditional Labor Day weekend date.

There will be no practice or qualifying for the 293-lap event; hence, the starting order for the race will be set by three random draws involving the 36 chartered teams—first, among the top 12 in owner points through the first four races of the season, then from positions 13-24 in owner points, and finally from positions 25-36.

The final four spots in the 40-car field, featuring non-chartered teams, will be filled in owner points order.

The Real Heroes 400 Odds

The odds for The Real Heroes 400 are provided by BetMGM. For more betting opportunities in NJ check out our “Best NJ Sportsbook Bonuses & Promos” page.

Odds taken from BetMGM, May 15.

Drivers of Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas have won five of the last seven NASCAR Cup Series events at Darlington Raceway: defending Southern 500 winner Erik Jones, Denny Hamlin, Martin Truex Jr., Carl Edwards (retired) and Matt Kenseth (coming out of retirement in The Real Heroes 400).

Surprisingly absent from the recent group of winners is Kyle Busch, Sunday’s favorite at +500.

Busch hasn’t won The Lady in Black since his debut year with Joe Gibbs Racing in 2008, but Hamlin, in particular, has a knack for the challenging egg-shaped track.

In addition to his two Southern 500 victories (2010 and 2017), Hamlin (+700) has five poles and five wins in 12 NASCAR Xfinity Series starts, including a remarkable stretch of eight races in which he finished either first or second.

The 39-year-old veteran is particularly effective at speedways that place a premium on tire management. Darlington certainly falls into that category.

Tire Mastery Is an Excellent Predictor of Success on Sunday

Drivers in Sunday’s The Real Heroes 400 will race on the tires intended for this year’s event at Homestead-Miami Speedway, postponed from March 22 to a date still to be determined.

That shouldn’t present a hardship, however, as Goodyear provided those same tire codes for last year’s races at Darlington, Homestead, and Chicagoland.

The winners of those three races?

Erik Jones (Darlington), Kyle Busch (Homestead), and Alex Bowman (Chicagoland). A deeper dive reveals that six drivers—Truex, Hamlin, Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick, Brad Keselowski, and Kenseth—have combined to win 16 of the 21 races held at those three speedways over the past seven years.

Each driver on that list is a master at conserving equipment and providing feedback to his crew chief about changes that will help the car’s performance. It’s highly likely that Sunday’s race winner will come from that group.

Newman, Kenseth Return to Racing at Darlington

After sustaining a head injury during a vicious crash in the Daytona 500, Ryan Newman recently received medical clearance from NASCAR and will return to action at Darlington.

So will Matt Kenseth, who hasn’t raced in 18 months after retiring from NASCAR’s top series.

The surprise choice to replace Kyle Larson in the No. 42 car at Chip Ganassi Racing (after Larson was dismissed April 14 for using a racial slur during an iRacing competition), Kenseth will face an extraordinarily difficult task in getting up to speed with a new team, with a new make of car (Chevrolet), with a generation of race car he hasn’t driven—and all without the opportunity to practice.

Even at long odds, those factors make Kenseth (+2000) a bad bet in his debut with Ganassi, despite his past success at one of NASCAR’s most challenging tracks.

Though he has scored 12 top-10 finishes in 25 starts at The Lady in Black, Kenseth is unlikely to run better than 15th to 20th on Sunday.

Our Pick

Denny Hamlin (+700) — Based on his affinity for the track, his tire management skills, the notes he and crew chief Chris Gabehart have accumulated, and the history of Joe Gibbs Racing’s success at the track, we expect to see Hamlin take the checkered flag on Sunday.