Photos for Headline Surfer / Bubba Wallace declared winner of red-flag rain-shortened NASCAR Cup 2021 series YellaWood 500 race at Talladega.
By HENRY FREDERICK / Headline Surfer
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- The odds-on favorites to win Sunday’s YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway are a ’Who’s Who’ among NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs contenders.
In fact, the top six are drivers chasing the coveted crown of ‘2022 NASCAR Cup Series Champion.’
A victory by any playoffs driver in the event, set for a 1:00 p.m. CDT start on the mammoth 2.66-mile unpredictable venue during the second race in the Round of 12, will automatically put that driver into the Round of 8.
Leading the way at +1200 are four former Talladega winners representing eight victories.
They include three-time TSS victor Joey Logano, two-time winners Denny Hamlin and Ryan Blaney, along with 2019 GEICO 500 winner Chase Elliott.
William Byron, who was runner-up in the spring of 2021, and reigning premier series champion Kyle Larson, whose best finish at ’DEGA came earlier this year when he was fourth, join the group at +1200.
Playoffs drivers Ross Chastain, who took home the GEICO 500 trophy at Talladega earlier this year, along with DAYTONA 500 Champion Austin Cindric, are at +1500. Longshot of drivers in the Playoffs? Chase Briscoe at +3000.
Twelve times in the history of Talladega has a driver won his first NASCAR Cup Series career victory, the last by defending YellaWood 500 Champion Bubba Wallace.
If looking for a driver to pull off the feat again this year, all you have to do is look at drivers who have won in the Cup Series at the 33-degree banked track, but also in other series.
2017 GEICO 500 victor Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., is at +4000 while Justin Haley and Noah Gragson are at +5000.
Haley is a two-time winner in the NASCAR Xfinity Series at Talladega while Gragson took the checkered flag earlier this year in the Ag-Pro 300 Xfinity Series race.
At +15000 are Todd Gilliland (2019) and Ty Dillon (2011), who both have triumphed at Talladega in the ARCA Menards Series.
A list of the top 22 odds-on-favorites by DraftKings is below. NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs contenders are in bold (along with specific Talladega results):
- Chase Elliott +1200 – Won 2019 GEICO 500 at Talladega;
- Ryan Blaney +1200 – Two-time Winner at Talladega, both by .007 seconds;
- Denny Hamlin +1200 – Two-time Winner at Talladega;
- Joey Logano +1200 – Been to TSS’s Ruoff Mortgage Victory Lane three times;
- William Byron +1200 – Runner-up in 2021 GEICO 500;
- Kyle Larson +1200 – Career best finish of fourth earlier this year in GEICO 500;
- Ross Chastain +1500 – Won earlier this year at Talladega in GEICO 500;
- Austin Cindric +1500 – DAYTONA 500 Champion looking for first Talladega win;
- Tyler Reddick +1500 – Won 2019 NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Talladega;
- Bubba Wallace +1800 – Defending YellaWood 500 Champion;
- Kyle Busch +1800 – 2011 winner at Talladega;
- Christopher Bell +1800 – Fifth in last year’s YellaWood 500;
- Kevin Harvick +2000 – Tasted victory at Talladega in 2010;
- Brad Keselowski +2000 – Leads all active winners with six TSS triumphs;
- Martin Truex, Jr. +2000 – Won three straight NASCAR Xfinity Series races (2004-06);
- Alex Bowman +2000 – Second to teammate Chase Elliott in spring 2019;
- Austin Dillon +2500 – Hoping to get the No. 3 back in TSS winner’s circle (last in 2000);
- Daniel Suarez +2500 – Best finish of 10th in 2018;
- Aric Almirola +3000 – Winner of the 2018 YellaWood 500;
- Chris Buescher +3000 – Has a pair of sixth-place results at Talladega;
- Erik Jones +3000 – A DAYTONA winner looking for first Talladega triumph;
- Chase Briscoe +3000 – Three starts with 11th best result in the spring of 2021.
Multimedia:
YouTube embedding / NASCAR video / Relive the full 2021 YellaWood 500 from Talladega Superspeedway.
About the Byline Writer: Henry Frederick is a member of the working press and publisher of Headline Surfer, the award-winning 24/7 internet news outlet launched in 2008 along the I-4 tourism corridor in greater Daytona Beach to Orlando from Lake Mary, Florida via HeadlineSurfer.com. Frederick has amassed 115 award-winning bylines in print & online. He earned his Master of Arts in New Media Journalism from Full Sail University in 2019. He was a breaking news reporter (metro cops & courts beat) for the Daytona Beach News-Journal for nearly a decade. And Before that worked the same beat for The Journal-News/Gannett Suburban Newspapers in Rockland/Westchester counties, NY, dating back to 1989. Having witnessed the execution of serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Florida's death chamber and covering other high-profile cases such as the George Zimmerman murder trial, Frederick has appeared on national crime shows on Discovery ID, Reelz, and the Oxygen Network series "Snapped" for his analysis.