NASCAR betting: Kurt Busch getting nearly 20% of money to win at Nashville

Bettors like Kurt Busch’s long odds to win the Ally 400 at Nashville Superspeedway on Sunday.

The 2004 Cup Series champion is getting nearly 20% of the handle at BetMGM ahead of Sunday’s race. He’s is now at +2000 to win the race after opening at +2800 to win earlier in the week.

Busch opened with the same odds as drivers like Chase Briscoe and Daniel Suarez to win the race. Both Briscoe and Suarez have also scored Cup Series wins this season, but Briscoe won at Phoenix, a 1-mile oval, and Suarez got a road course win two weeks ago at Sonoma. Busch’s win in 2022 came at Kansas Speedway, an intermediate track like Nashville.

That’s about where the similarities end, however. Nashville is slightly shorter than Kansas and concrete, not asphalt like Kansas. But Busch and 23XI Racing have been fast at intermediate tracks this season and intermediate-track dominator Kyle Larson won at Nashville a season ago while the top 10 was filled with other drivers who had consistent speed at tracks of a similar length.

Busch is still just the 13th favorite among the 36 drivers in the field for Sunday’s race after his odds got shorter. Larson is the favorite at +500 while Kyle Busch is at +700 and Ross Chastain is at +800 to win.

William Byron finished third a season ago and he’s getting the most bets to win the race at just under 7%. Byron is at +1400 to win and the No. 9 favorite on the board. Larson is getting 6.4% of bets while Kyle Busch is getting 5.2% of bets.

The bets on Larson make up 11.9% of the handle while the bets on Busch make up 11.8%. Overall, bets on the Busch brothers, Larson and Byron make up half of the total money wagered at BetMGM on the winner of the race.