{"id":131208,"date":"2025-09-09T12:41:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T12:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/131208\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T12:41:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T12:41:08","slug":"theres-a-new-favorite-to-win-the-nascar-championship-and-its-not-kyle-larson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/131208\/","title":{"rendered":"There’s a new favorite to win the NASCAR championship, and it’s not Kyle Larson"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Denny Hamlin continues to climb the all-time NASCAR Cup Series wins list<\/a>, he continues to extend his record as the winningest non-champion in the history of the series.<\/p>\n

It’s a record he hopes to be rid of one day, not because he wants some other non-champion to pass him in race wins, but because he wants to hand that title back to the late Junior Johnson,<\/a> who never actually competed full-time, by finally capturing his first title.<\/p>\n

Hamlin is the only full-time driver who missed a race during the regular season, but he still managed to tie for the series lead in wins with four. He is now the outright leader after his playoff win at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway on Sunday afternoon, giving him five for the year and 59 for his career.<\/p>\n

And for the first time this year, Hamlin is the outright favorite to win the championship.<\/p>\n

Denny Hamlin overtakes Kyle Larson as NASCAR title favorite<\/p>\n

At FanDuel Sportsbook<\/a>, Larson was listed as the outright favorite pretty much since the season began, including throughout the entire summer, even as his summer performance was nowhere near what we’re used to seeing from Larson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Before the playoffs started, Hamlin and Larson were listed as co-favorites at +400. But while Hamlin is still listed at +400 after punching his ticket to the round of 12, Larson’s odds have moved to +450, making the driver of the No. 11 Toyota the outright favorite to capture that elusive crown.<\/p>\n

Of course, the volatility of three-race playoff rounds make it highly challenging to truly call a driver the favorite with eight races remaining in the postseason. Just look at last year, when Team Penske’s Joey Logano, who finished 15th in the regular season standings, won the title after he was initially eliminated following the round of 12.<\/p>\n

NASCAR championship odds<\/p>\n

Several others are listed closely behind Hamlin and Larson, starting with Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney at +550. Hendrick Motorsports’ William Byron and Joe Gibbs Racing’s Christopher Bell are both listed at +650.<\/p>\n

Joe Gibbs Racing’s Chase Briscoe, who punched his round of 12 ticket by winning the Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway to open up the playoffs, is listed at +850. Hendrick Motorsports’ Chase Elliott is listed at +1000.<\/p>\n

Full NASCAR Cup Series championship odds can be found here<\/a>. Odds and availability are subject to change.<\/p>\n

The round of 16 is set to conclude this Saturday, September 13 with the Bass Pro Shops Night Race, with live coverage set to be provided by USA Network from Bristol Motor Speedway starting at 7:30 p.m. ET. Start a free trial of FuboTV<\/a> and don’t miss any of the action!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Denny Hamlin continues to climb the all-time NASCAR Cup Series wins list, he continues to extend his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131209,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-131208","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nascar","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}