The 2018 NASCAR season rolls on Sunday at 2 p.m. ET with the O'Reilly Auto Parts 500 at Texas Motor Speedway. Kevin Harvick is going off as a 3/1 favorite on this 1.5-mile track, while Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr. are right behind him at 4/1.
Before you make any kind of bet on NASCAR at Texas, you need to see what Micah Roberts has to say.
As a Vegas bookmaker, Roberts was the first to offer expanded NASCAR betting. Now he hands out NASCAR winners to his followers.
In the 2017 NASCAR playoffs, Roberts picked nine of 10 winners. That wasn't a fluke, either. In 2016, he told readers to back Denny Hamlin at 15/1 in the Daytona 500. The result: Hamlin edged Martin Truex Jr. for the checkered flag. Roberts also nailed Hamlin at 40/1 to win at Watkins Glen later that year.
This season, Roberts was all-in on Kevin Harvick at the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 despite two other drivers having the same field-leading odds. The result: Harvick dominated, leading for 181 of 325 laps and cruising to victory by 2.69 seconds.
And two weeks ago at Martinsville, McClure was extremely high on Clint Bowyer, who snapped his 190-race winless streak in the STP 500.
Now, he has analyzed the O'Reilly Auto Parts 500 from every possible angle and locked in his picks. You can see his entire projected leaderboard at SportsLine.
One driver that Roberts has high expectations for on Sunday: Ryan Blaney, who is going off at 12/1 odds and just won the My Bariatric Solutions 300. Roberts projects Blaney to finish in the top five and calls him one of the best value picks in the entire field.
That's because Blaney was impressive two weeks back at Martinsville, finishing third. And although he finished 12th in this event last year, that was a bit deceiving because he led almost 150 laps. Lock in Blaney as one of your picks and expect him to make a serious run at the title.
One shocker: Roberts says Kyle Larson, one of the Vegas favorites at 8/1, barely cracks the top 10. Larson has never won on a 1.5-mile track and finished 37th in this race last year after an accident.
Larson has finished outside of the top 15 in two of his last three starts. There are far better values for NASCAR at Texas than the 8/1 odds Larson is getting.
Roberts also loves a major sleeper with a strong track record at Texas Motor Speedway. Anyone who backs this long shot could hit it big.
So who wins the 2018 O'Reilly Auto Parts 500? And which sleeper stuns the racing world? Visit SportsLine now see the full projected leaderboard from the nation's premier NASCAR handicapper, and find out.
