NASCAR Picks, Odds, and Playoff Picture: Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol

It’s Saturday night under the lights of the Last Great Colosseum to decide who the first four playoff drivers to go home will be. It’ll all go down on Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. ET on USA Network. 500 laps around the .533-mile oval track. Joey Logano is the only driver safe from elimination. Let’s take a look at the NASCAR picks, odds, and playoff picture for Bristol Motor Speedway.

After Bristol, four drivers will be eliminated while the other 12 will reset to their playoff points and battle it out starting next week at Kansas Speedway. The playoff picture looks like this: Joey Logano is locked in and headed to the next round no matter what, thanks to his win at Atlanta. For these drivers, here’s what they need if they don’t score any stage points and regardless of what other drivers do. (scoring stage points or other drivers finishing worse means they could finish worse than these positions, this is just how they guarantee themselves in). Bell advances with a 23rd-place finish or better. Cindric needs 20th or better. Bowman 18th, Suarez 14th. Tyler Reddick and Chase Elliott seventh or better, and Ryan Blaney sixth or better. Kyle Larson third, and William Byron second or better.

For the remaining drivers, they’ll need help from those in front of them, and behind them. They enter Bristol like this. Chase Briscoe and Ty Gibbs +6. Denny Hamlin -6, Brad Keselowski-12. Martin Truex Jr -14 and Harrison Burton -20. Remember, win and you are in. Winning at Bristol takes all the math out of it, you’ll advance to the round of 12 and carry those five bonus points forward with you.

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NASCAR Picks, Odds, and Playoff Picture: Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol

Denny Hamlin +500
Kyle Larson +700
Christopher Bell +750
Ty Gibbs +1000
Brad Keselowski +1200
Chris Buescher +1600
Martin Truex Jr +1600
Ryan Blaney +1800
Joey Logano +1800
Chase Elliott +1900
William Byron +2100
Tyler Reddick +2200
Kyle Busch +2200
Josh Berry +3300
Chase Briscoe +4100
Ross Chastain +4400
Alex Bowman +4800
Bubba Wallace +5500
Michael McDowell +8000
AJ Allmendinger +10000
Carson Hocevar +10000
John Hunter Nemechek +11000
Corey Lajoie +12000
Noah Gragson +12000
Erik Jones +12000
Austin Cindric +12000
Austin Dillion +12000
Ryan Preece +14000
Daniel Suarez +14000
Ricky Stenhouse Jr +14000
Justin Haley +28000
Todd Gilliland +28000
Harrison Burton +28000
Daniel Hemric +50000
Josh Bilicki +50000
Zane Smith +50000
Kaz Grala +50000

NASCAR Picks, Odds, and Playoff Picture: Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol

Chase Elliott Top 10 Finish (+100)

This one seems like a bit of a steal, and I imagine the number will get worse as the week goes on. Chase Elliott loves Bristol Motor Speedway. In the three concrete races here in the NextGen car Elliott is 3/3 scoring a top 10. In the last five races here, Elliott has four top 10’s with the other race being the fall of 2021 race where he led 129 laps before the famous tangle with Kevin Harvick. He also won the All-Star race of 2020 at Bristol.

Elliott hasn’t been a knock-your-sock-off and led many laps driver in 2024, but he’s used consistency to score a third-place finish in the regular season point standings. In 2024 Elliott has had 13 top 10 finishes and he’s been inside the top 15 on 22 occasions in 28 races. His outright is worth a small bet at 19/1.

Chris Buscher Top 10 Finish (-125)

Going to stay in the top 10 market for this one. Hopefully, you read last week’s article when we called out Buescher at +220, that was an easy cash as he won the race. I also love his outright this week at +1600 to go back-to-back.

As far as his top 10 goes, Buescher has been great at Bristol. Same as Elliott, he’s 3/3 in the top 10 in all his NextGen starts here. He won the 2022 fall race leading 169 laps. Expanding a little farther back, he’s scored the top 10 in four of the last five here. He also finished fourth in the All-Star race of 2020. Buescher is also a streaky driver who is on a current run of finishing in the top five in four of the last five races.

NASCAR Picks, Odds, and Playoff Picture: Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol

Kyle Busch Top 5 finish (+350)

Kyle Busch loves Bristol Motor Speedway. The driver of the Richard Childress Racing #8 car has won at the track Eight times in his Cup Series Career and backed it up with four second-place finishes as well. Times have been tough for the 2-time champion of the sport as he hasn’t finished better than 20th in the last four races here.

That all changes this weekend. Before that four-race skid here, Busch had six top fives in seven races, three of which were wins. Busch has had a rough season, but he and his RCR teammate Austin Dillon have found speed down the stretch. Busch has finished in the top seven in four of the last five races. Since the All-Star break, he’s finished top 15 eight times. That 19-year streak of winning at least one race has an opportunity to stay alive this week. Busch will be near the top five at the end of the day, and maybe even pull off the upset victory at +2200.

Kyle Larson to Win (+700)

I like all three of the drivers mentioned above to win this week at their longer-shot numbers. If you want to bet on one of the favorites, it’s hard to look past Kyle Larson’s track record at Bristol Motor Speedway. In his four starts here in a Hendrick car, it’s four for four in the top five including a win in 2021.

Prior to being at Hendrick, Larson was also really good here. He led 200 laps in 2018 in the Chip Ganassi #42 car on his way to a second-place finish. In 16 starts he has 11 top 10’s and six top fives in his last eight starts here. At 7/1 Larson’s too good to pass up here.

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