FlurrySports shares NASCAR betting picks and props for the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway this weekend.
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After a week off, the NASCAR Cup Series returns to action at one of its most demanding venues — Bristol Motor Speedway. With tight quarters, high speeds and limited room for error, “The Last Great Coliseum” has a way of rewarding drivers who can manage chaos while maintaining track position.
From a betting perspective, that makes Bristol an ideal track to target race props. Whether it’s head-to-head matchups, group betting or finishing position markets, there are opportunities to find value beyond the outright winner board.
Let’s take a look at the top NASCAR betting picks and props to target for Sunday’s Food City 500.
Food City 500 NASCAR Race Info
Food City 500
Date: Sunday, April 12, 2026
Start Time: 3 p.m. EST
Coverage: FS1
Distance: 266.5 miles (500 laps)
Stages: Three (125 laps, 125 laps, 250 laps)
Pole Sitter: TBD
Defending Champion: Kyle Larson
NASCAR Betting Picks and Predictions | Food City 500
The NASCAR betting odds and props discussed below are taken from BetUS Sportsbook.
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Head-to-Head Matchup: Michael McDowell (+115) vs. Connor Zilisch
Our featured race prop this week comes from further down the board of driver head-to-head offerings. Cup Series rookie Connor Zilisch is pegged as a -145 favorite over veteran Michael McDowell. This price is a head-scratcher — and that may be putting it lightly.
What makes the odds for this matchup so mind-boggling is that the Food City 500 will be Zilisch’s first-ever Cup Series race at Bristol. While he has had some success here at the lower levels of the sport, including a top-five finish in the O’Reilly Series a year ago, Sunday will be an entirely different challenge.
In addition, McDowell hasn’t exactly been a pushover at Bristol over the years. Although last year’s results with Spire Motorsports weren’t exceptional, he still has five finishes of 11th or better in his last eight starts here. That sample size includes three 11th-place showings and one sixth-place run in the Gen-7 car.
At plus money, McDowell is the clear side to back in this matchup.
Group A Matchup: Christopher Bell (+325)
For the most part, we steer away from the Group A matchup, which typically features the race favorites. This week is an exception due to the fact that Christopher Bell is priced as a long shot. Outright favorite Kyle Larson is also the group frontrunner, with Denny Hamlin next in line. Ryan Blaney joins Bell at a +325 price point.
Since the 2024 season when NASCAR reverted to running two races annually on the concrete surface, Bell leads all drivers with an average finish of 6.0. The results include an outright win and a top-10 showing in all four starts. To put it simply, he’s been one of the best at this track recently.
Although Bell is pitted against other heavyweights in this group, the odds for other NASCAR betting picks make this our preferred way to back him. He is only priced at +180 to be among the top three finishers on Sunday. Sure, he could realistically finish runner-up to Larson or Hamlin, but we’ll take a swing at nearly double the return.
Top 10 Finish: Chris Buescher (+140)
There are several head-to-head matchups offering plus-money on Chris Buescher this week, but none offer a particularly strong edge given the competition. As a result, we’ll remove individual opponents from the equation and bet him to score a top-10 finish.
Recall that Buescher won the fall night race at Bristol back in 2022. He went on to finish fourth and seventh in the next two races on the concrete surface. While he has yet to crack the top-10 finishers in any of the three races since, he was 14th and 11th in two of those.
Note that +140 odds imply a 41.67% chance of the No. 17 Ford finishing in the top ten. With the team-wide momentum that the RFK Racing cars have shown and Buescher’s individual pedigree of success at Bristol, this is a fair price worth backing.
Group E Matchup: Ryan Preece (+225)
Like any group matchup, four drivers are listed in Group E. However, a quick glance at the odds makes it clear this is effectively a three-man race. Zane Smith sits as a distant long shot at +850 and can be ruled out immediately.
Among the remaining contenders, Carson Hocevar is the group favorite, while Ross Chastain and Ryan Preece share the same price. There’s been plenty of support for Hocevar this week following his seventh-place finish at Bristol last fall, but he still has just five Cup Series starts here. Meanwhile, Chastain is a stay-away from a NASCAR betting picks standpoint given his struggles this season.
That leaves Preece, a driver with a strong short-track background. His overall results last season weren’t great, but he did finish seventh here in the fall of 2024. He has also finished between 11th and 13th in each of the last four races entering the weekend. A similar result on Sunday should be enough to put him in a position to win this group.
Head-to-Head Matchup: Joey Logano (-105) vs. Carson Hocevar
After weighing several options to round out this week’s NASCAR betting picks, we’re landing on another head-to-head. Fresh off a third-place finish at Martinsville, Joey Logano is a slight underdog against Carson Hocevar.
The pricing in this matchup appears to be placing too much weight on historical finishing results. Hocevar finished a career-best seventh at Bristol last fall and has placed 11th or better in three of his five Cup Series starts here. Meanwhile, Logano’s Bristol results have dipped in the Gen-7 era, but he did finish fifth here last fall.
The same factors that make Logano an appealing value pick to win the Food City 500 apply here as well. After Martinsville, the three-time Cup Series champion expressed strong confidence in Team Penske’s short-track program heading into Bristol. With that in mind, we’ll take the veteran in this matchup over a driver in Hocevar who is still prone to on-track mistakes.
