NASCAR goes to Chicago this week for the Lifelock 400 with Jimmie Johnson the 3-1 favorite at the sportsbook. The race to get into the Chase has tightened so the action should be intense this week. Johnson is the favorite at the offshore sportsbook but four other drivers have odds of less than 10-1.
Sportsbook odds list Denny Hamlin as the 5-1 second choice to win Saturday night’s race that can be seen on TNT. Kyle Busch and Jeff Gordon are the co-third choices at 7-1 while Kurt Busch is 9-1. When you look at the starting spots for this week’s race don’t get too excited by the positions. Six of the last nine winners of this race have started outside the top 10 including last year’s winner Mark Martin who started 14th. This is a big week for Martin since he has fallen out of the top 12 in points. There are only eight races left before the Chase begins so Martin and other drivers outside the top 12 need to have a good week.
Kevin Harvick was the winner last week at Daytona and he leads the point’s race. He has won at the track in Chicago twice and has never finished outside the top 20. Harvick is still not getting a ton of respect at the offshore sportsbook as he has odds of 10.5 to 1. Tony Stewart has won at Chicago land twice and he has appealing odds of 18-1. He has finished in the top five in six of his last seven starts at the track, including three in a row.
Jimmie Johnson is the favorite at the offshore sportsbook but he has never won at Chicago in the Cup Series. He still has the best finishing average in track history though. A good long shot this week is Ryan Newman who has won at Chicago in the past and has finished in the top 10 in his last three starts at the track. A driver to avoid this week is Carl Edwards. He has a 21.2 finishing average at the track and has finished 20th or worse in three of his five starts at Chicago.
Six different drivers have won at Chicago led by Kevin Harvick and Tony Stewart with two wins each. Kyle Busch won the 2008 race from the pole, the only pole winner to win the race in the 9-year history at Chicago.