Last season, Christopher Bell followed his 16th place Daytona 500 finish with a win on the track’s road course. Two weeks later, he took seventh at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and finished with 16 top-10 finishes during the 2021 season. This year, he’s taken 34th and 36th in his first two races and comes in with 30-1 odds at Caesars Sportsbook to turn his season around and win Sunday’s 2022 Pennzoil 400.
Bell rallied at the end of last year’s NASCAR Las Vegas race after not finishing in the top 10 in either stage and took 39 points. Can he shake off the rough start he’s had and rebound in his return to NASCAR in Las Vegas 2022? The green flag drops at 3:30 p.m. ET. Before scouring the 2022 Pennzoil 400 starting lineup and making any 2022 NASCAR at Las Vegas predictions, be sure to see the latest 2022 Pennzoil 400 picks from SportsLine’s proven projection model.
Developed by daily Fantasy pro and SportsLine predictive data engineer Mike McClure, this proprietary NASCAR prediction model simulates every race 10,000 times, taking into account factors such as track history and recent results.
In the 2021 season, McClure nailed Martin Truex Jr. to win at Martinsville for a strong 3-1 payout. The model also nailed Kyle Larson winning the NASCAR All-Star Race at 5-2 in Texas and hit Larson again at the Ally 400 for another 5-2 payout. Then, it called Chase Elliott to win at Road America for a 5-2 payout.
It also called Larson’s win at Texas for an 11-4 payout and his win at Kansas for a 9-4 payout in back-to-back weeks before nailing Larson to win the season-finale in Phoenix to claim the NASCAR Cup Championship. In total, it called five of Larson’s wins during a historic season and has nailed all four of its head-to-head matchup predictions to start the 2022 NASCAR season. Anyone who followed its lead on those plays saw huge returns on its NASCAR picks.
Now, the model simulated the 2022 NASCAR at Las Vegas race 10,000 times. Head to SportsLine to see the complete projected 2022 Pennzoil 400 leaderboard.
Top 2022 Pennzoil 400 predictions
One surprise: the model is high on Kevin Harvick, even though he’s a 15-1 long shot in the latest 2022 NASCAR at Las Vegas odds. He’s a target for anyone looking for a huge payday. Harvick won the 2018 Pennzoil 400 after he started second in the NASCAR Las Vegas grid and has a career average finish of 13.8 at the track. Over the last three seasons, he has been one of the most reliable drivers on intermediate tracks with four wins, but his most recent was in September 2020 at Darlington.
This season, Harvick ended the Daytona 500 under the damaged vehicle policy and had his qualifying bid in last weekend’s Wise Power 400 ruined due to a practice crash. He rebounded to finish seventh last weekend after starting 32nd, however, which should encourage him heading into Sunday’s race.
And a massive shocker: Chase Elliott, one of the Vegas favorites at 7-1, stumbles big-time and barely cracks the top five. There are far better values in this open 2022 Pennzoil 400 starting grid. The son of NASCAR legend Bill Elliott, Chase has finished in the top 10 of the NASCAR standings in his first six full-time seasons and won the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series championship.
However, Elliott’s only two Cup victories in 2021 came on road courses and he’s coming off a disappointing 26th-place finish at Fontana last weekend. Elliott has been outside the top 10 in six of his 10 career starts at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and has finished 20th or worse five times, so he’s a fade at his current price point.
How to make 2022 NASCAR Las Vegas picks
The model is also targeting two other drivers with 2022 NASCAR Las Vegas odds of 14-1 or longer to make a serious run at the checkered flag. Anyone who backs these drivers could hit it big. You can see all of the model’s NASCAR picks over at SportsLine.
So who wins the 2022 Pennzoil 400? And which triple-digit long shot makes a run at the checkered flag? Check out the latest 2022 NASCAR in Las Vegas odds below, then visit SportsLine now to see the full projected 2022 Pennzoil 400 leaderboard, all from the model that correctly predicted five of Kyle Larson’s wins last season.
2022 Pennzoil 400 odds
Kyle Larson 7-2
Chase Elliott 7-1
Joey Logano 8-1
Denny Hamlin 8-1
Ryan Blaney 17-2
Kyle Busch 10-1
William Byron 12-1
Martin Truex Jr. 14-1
Tyler Reddick 15-1
Kevin Harvick 15-1
Alex Bowman 20-1
Brad Keselowski 25-1
Erik Jones 25-1
Kurt Busch 28-1
Christopher Bell 30-1
Austin Cindric 30-1
Austin Dillon 35-1
Daniel Suarez 40-1
Chase Briscoe 50-1
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. 60-1
Cole Custer 60-1
Aric Almirola 75-1
Ross Chastain 100-1
Bubba Wallace 125-1
Chris Buescher 150-1
Ty Dillon 150-1
Greg Biffle 250-1
Daniel Hemric 250-1
Harrison Burton 250-1
Justin Haley 500-1
Michael McDowell 500-1
Todd Gilliland 1000-1
Corey Lajoie 1000-1
BJ McLeod 5000-1
Josh Bilicki 5000-1
Cody Ware 5000-1
Garrett Smithley 5000-1
