The NASCAR Cup Series will be at Darlington Raceway this Mother’s Day weekend for the Goodyear 400 and the 2022 throw-back weekend, in which teams will have their vehicles adorned in old-school paint schemes.
At one of the country’s oldest racetracks, the NASCAR Cup Series picks celebrates the 68-year relationship with Goodyear and the history of stock car racing at The Lady In Black this weekend.
All three NASCAR series will be in action this weekend, starting with the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Dead On Tools 200 on Friday and the NASCAR Xfinity Series Mahindra Roxor 200 on Saturday.
The weekend’s main events are scheduled on Sunday as the 40-car field takes to the track for the 293- lap NASCAR Cup Goodyear 400 on Sunday afternoon.
This is the 12th event on the NASCAR 2022 schedule, as some of the more familiar names on the circuit have yet to make some noise. However, some of those names are at the top of the NASCAR odds this week as they look for their first win.
Race Information
- Date/Time: Sunday, May 8, 2022, 3:30 PM
- Location: Darlington, SC
- Track: Darlington Raceway
Goodyear 400 Betting Picks
Pick 1: Kyle Larson
As the favorite in this event, Larson finished 19th or lower in four of five races after getting victories in California and finishing second in Las Vegas. Since then, he has posted the same number of top-six finishes.
The defending NASCAR Cup Series champion now seems to be headed in the right direction. He’s currently eighth in the cup standings with 335 points and has five top-five finishes and three DNFs.
Pick 2: Chase Elliott
Elliott is now on a roll after finishing in the top ten in his last four events. He also got his first victory of the season at Dover last week. He has finished no worse than 14th only once this year and consistently puts himself in a position to win.
Elliot is the current Cup Series leader, with a 50-point cushion over Ryan Blaney. Looking at his last few seasons, he seems to like clustering his wins together, such as his breakout year of 2018 and his Cup Series championship season in 2020.
Pick 3: Denny Hamlin
Hamlin is one of the favorites in this event, even though he has struggled for most of the season in 2022. He has four victories at Darlington, including a win here last fall. He won this race in an altered racing format during the pandemic in 2020 and has just one top-ten finish this season.
That finish turned out to be a win at Richmond, but it looks like it stands apart from the rest of his results this season. Hamlin is still one of the best drivers in the series and had some bad luck at Dover last week. Being historically one of the best in the series on this track, he’s long overdue for his second season victory.
Goodyear 400 Betting Trends
- Ford leads all manufacturers with 18 total victories in this event.
- Of the 121 premier races held at Darlington, there have only been four surprise winners.
- Thirteen full-time drivers have yet to win in the NASCAR Cup Series this season.
- There has been no repeat winner in the NASCAR Cup Series since 2010.
- Chevrolet leads manufacturers with 52 top-10 finishes and seven wins this season.
Goodyear 400 Betting Predictions
Martin Truex Jr. won this event in 2021 and is one of the veteran drivers on the circuit. He is also one of the favorite choices for NASCAR betting this weekend. This year he’s had an up-and-down season, with only two finishes in the top five.
In recent races, he finished no higher than 12th in three of his past four starts. However, he will be the first repeat winner on the circuit in 12 years if he takes the checkered flag on Sunday, which is the only reason not to make him your betting choice this week.
Kyle Larson is the favorite as he has turned his season around after a rough start. Larson should be among anyone’s NASCAR picks for this race after finishing second in the event last year and building up a lot of momentum a third of the way through the season in 2022.
Larson still has the best odds of winning his second straight NASCAR Cup Series championship. He’s going to be the man to beat this coming weekend.
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