The Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway goes green at 6:30 pm ET on Sunday with live coverage on USA Network
Chase Elliott is circled in a head-to-head matchup; he’s starting deeper in the field, but the numbers say he’s holding the upper hand
Read below for my Southern 500 picks and the latest odds
The Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway gets underway tonight (Sunday, August 31) at 6:30 pm ET with live coverage on USA Network. Denny Hamlin will lead the field to green after winning the pole, while teammate Chase Briscoe starts alongside him on the front row.
On the playoff front, Josh Berry, Tyler Reddick, Austin Dillon, and Alex Bowman enter the Round of 16 already in trouble, starting the postseason below the elimination cutline at “The Track Too Tough to Tame.”
Cook Out Southern 500 Odds
Denny Hamlin is the favorite with an implied win probability of 18.18%, while Hendrick Motorsports teammates Kyle Larson and William Byron are close behind at 16.67%.
Odds as of 9:06 am ET, August 31, at DraftKings. See SBD’s rankings of the best online sportsbook for payouts.
Darlington Raceway isn’t nicknamed “Too Tough to Tame” because it sounded cool on a t-shirt. This 1.366-mile oval is shaped like an accident in an architect’s notebook, with turns one and two banked differently from turns three and four. Drivers basically have to choose which end they’d like their car to behave on, because getting both is about as likely as finding a clean bathroom at a truck stop.
Then there’s the pavement: it’s abrasive enough to make tires beg for mercy after just a handful of laps. Around here, pit strategy isn’t about “if” you’ll take four tires, it’s about how quickly your crew can bolt them on before the next caution.
Cook Out Southern 500 Predictions & Picks
Chase Elliott over Brad Keselowski (-130, Caesar’s) – 1.30 Units
Chase Elliott is rolling off 21st, Brad Keselowski from a lonely 32nd. Our model has Elliott penciled in for a 16.2 finish, while Keselowski’s forecast is a bleak 22.2. At Darlington, track position isn’t everything…but it’s not nothing either. With tire wear and lap-time falloff turning every long run into a survival test, starting 11 spots ahead is a luxury.
Looking at our five-race dataset (2024–2025) from Darlington and its cousin Homestead, (another abrasive, high-banked oval), Elliott clears Keselowski in just about every meaningful speed metric. It’s less of a “tight matchup” and more of a “don’t overthink this one.”
Chase Elliott vs Brad Keselowski
These numbers even account for the 2024 Darlington spring race where Keselowski went full Superman. He started second, led 37 laps, and cranked out 26 fastest laps on his way to the win. Without that outlier, this matchup wouldn’t even sniff the sportsbook menu.
Then there’s the desperation factor we stir into the stew. Keselowski has always been the type to gamble on high-wear tracks – stretching runs, flipping strategies, and praying it sticks. The problem is, Darlington punishes wishful thinking with brutal lap-time falloff. If Brad zigs when everyone else zags, he might just be zipping straight to irrelevance.
Elliott, meanwhile, is more likely to stick with the standard playbook, which gives us a cleaner, more predictable finishing window.
And let’s not ignore the teammate bump. Keselowski’s RFK stablemate Chris Buescher was on our radar early, but his 15th-place starting spot makes him the team’s best hope. Compare that to Elliott’s Hendrick arsenal: Kyle Larson starts fifth, William Byron 11th. Fast friends matter, and Elliott’s got the better company.
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