NASCAR Cup Series Bets: Cook Out 400 Odds, Picks & Predictions for Martinsville (2024)

NASCAR Martinsville Odds

Cook Out 400 Race Preview

The Cook Out 400 at Martinsville Speedway marks the third event on a short, flat oval using the modified short-track package. While the comparator events at Phoenix and Richmond aren’t perfect for our purposes, a strong showing at one (or both) of the events is a good predictor of success at Martinsville.

In the last two seasons, the Martinsville winner had either won or led 100-plus laps at Richmond or Phoenix a few weeks early. In 2023, Kyle Larson won at Richmond and followed it up with a win at Martinsville, albeit a close one. In 2022, William Byron led 12 laps at Phoenix and 122 at Richmond before winning at Martinsville.

As a result, we’ll be looking for strong green-flag speed, laps led and results at Phoenix and Richmond when handicapping this event. If that’s the case, we need to turn our attention to the Toyota camp — the manufacturer is a +110 favorite to win this race at DraftKings, after all.

At Phoenix, the top-five drivers by laps led were all behind the wheel of Toyotas. At Richmond, three of the top-six drivers by laps led were behind the wheel of Toyotas. The winners of both races drove Toyotas, and the drivers who recorded the highest driver ratings in each event drove Toyotas. The drivers who recorded the fastest average green-flag speeds, were, you guessed it, driving Toyotas.

Unsurprisingly, many of the best Toyota drivers find themselves atop the odds board, with Denny Hamlin (+500), Christopher Bell (+800) and Martin Truex Jr. (+600) all clocking in at shorter than +1000. Ty Gibbs (+1100) isn’t far behind, but Bubba Wallace (+3000) and Tyler Reddick (+2200) are pretty far down.

But the Toyota stable is very deep this year, especially when it comes to high-quality performances on these tracks. Joe Gibbs Racing boasts Hamlin, the winningest active full-time driver at this track with five victories; Truex, the second-winningest active full-time driver here with three; Christopher Bell, who won here in 2022 and has been dominant at New Hampshire, the only other paperclip-shaped track on the circuit; and Ty Gibbs, who dominated both Xfinity Series events here in 2022.

But it’s not just JGR that can win this race — the 23XI duo of Tyler Reddick and Bubba Wallace are threats as well. Reddick doesn’t have an impressive resume here, but he started up front and stayed there most of the day in last spring’s Martinsville race. Wallace has finished no worse than 11th in his last three starts at this track, and he qualified inside the top 10 both times last year.

Ultimately, I’m betting on Toyota as a manufacturer because of their deep roster (and because we’re getting it at +130 — way off the market price of +100 or +110 — at Hard Rock); Gibbs on the outright markets (because every book except FanDuel has dropped him from +1300 to +1100 or so); and Reddick on both the outright and top-10 markets (because he should never be longer than +100 to score one at a track like this one).