Pearce Dietrich gives his top NASCAR bets on DraftKings Sportsbook for the NASCAR Cup Series Straight Talk Wireless 500 at Phoenix Raceway.
NASCAR’s annual West Coast tour hits the desert this weekend. Phoenix isn’t a traditional oval. It’s flat, short, but not that short, and it’s not really an oval. Nonetheless, the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series begins in earnest on Sunday with the series returning to traditional racing at a traditional track.
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Race Winner — Straight Talk Wireless 500
Five top-two finishes in his last seven Phoenix races. Two wins. A 5.4 average running position across seven starts here. A 0.9523 POMS. A long-run rating of 1.3 — meaning he’s almost always running inside the top two on old tires. This isn’t a trend. It’s ownership. Kevin Harvick told you before the Saturday practice session started: Blaney is the favorite. Then the data backed it up. His practice composite ranked 16th, which doesn’t jump off the page until you realize his car ran 38 laps — the most of anyone in the field — with a clean average of 28.135 and a long-run average of 28.167. That gap between clean and long-run is 0.032 seconds. For context, the next-closest among contenders was Joey Logano at 0.110. Blaney’s car doesn’t fall off. It stabilizes.
The broadcast told the rest of the story. Harvick said Penske cars keep the balance of the car better throughout the whole run, and that Blaney’s car stays lower at the end of the first third of the corner — which keeps him lower through the center, which lets him get to partial throttle earlier, which keeps mid-corner speed up. Chase Elliott’s crew was raving about Blaney’s rotation last week at COTA. This week, Clint Bowyer said Blaney drives a looser race car than anyone, which makes him versatile in traffic — and at Phoenix, you will get stuck in traffic. The man won here in November. He’s +285. That’s not value, that’s a fair price for the best Phoenix driver in the Cup Series.Â
Here’s a number the books don’t want you to see: best consecutive 10, 15 and 20-lap averages in Group 1 practice. Not Suarez. Not Hocevar. Not Chastain. Cindric. His practice data shows a 27.00-second best lap (tied for third-fastest), a 27.840 clean average (second overall), and a long-run average of 27.979. That clean average was only 0.069 seconds off Buescher’s best-in-field mark — and Buescher blew a right front 16 laps in. Cindric ran 26 clean laps. Regan Smith pulled him aside after Group 1 and asked how fine the line was. Cindric said the Mustang had really good speed for all three phases of the run. Three phases. Short run, medium run, long run. He was the best car in all of them.
His Phoenix history is ugly — 22.2 average finish, zero top 10s in four Gen 7 starts. That’s why he’s +850. But the 2025 Cindric and the 2022-2024 Cindric are different drivers on different teams. He’s 31st in points and Penske’s 60th anniversary celebration is this weekend. Harvick specifically pointed to Penske’s ability to keep corner balance through the run as a team-wide strength. Blaney’s the headliner, but Logano won here twice in the Gen 7 car and Cindric just posted the best long-run practice of anyone on the property. At +850, the books are pricing in the old Cindric. The practice data says you’re getting the new one. DFS players won’t touch him. That’s the point.
Back-to-back spring Phoenix winner. Won here in 2024 from 13th. Won here in 2025 from 11th. His profile at Phoenix is surgical: 8.7 average running position, 0.9501 POMS, 1.3 long-run rating. In those two spring wins, his average running position was 2.65 and 7.34. He led 50 laps in the first and 105 in the second. This is his track in March. The November championship races have bitten him — a 36th and an 11th — but in the spring configuration with the spring setup window, Bell is a different animal. He has 298 laps led at Phoenix in the Gen 7 car, second only to Blaney’s 379.
Practice was quiet, 24th on the board in Group 2 with a 27.06 best lap, 41 total laps and a composite that ranked 22nd. But you heard this story last week at COTA. The Toyotas looked terrible in practice. Reddick got the pole. Harvick reminded you on the broadcast: don’t overreact to practice speed when these teams have tools to adjust for qualifying and the race. Bell’s had speed all season without the finishes — the broadcast called it out explicitly. His car ran a 1.713-second falloff over 41 laps, which is middle of the pack, but his late-run average of 28.773 was competitive with cars that showed better on the single-lap sheet. At +650, you’re getting a two-time defending spring Phoenix winner at a discount because his practice group ran on a hotter, slower track. The spring Bell shows up in March. He’s shown up the last two Marches. Bet the pattern.