1 / 1NASCAR Food City 500 Predictions, Odds & Picks — Bristol Motor Speedway1 / 1NASCAR Food City 500 Predictions, Odds & Picks — Bristol Motor SpeedwayRobert CriscolaSat, April 11, 2026 at 10:05 AM UTC·5 min readWant to get more Covers content? Add us as a preferred source on your Google account here.
Best pre-qualifying bet: Denny Hamlin (+550): did everything but win at Martinsville.
Best pre-qualifying value: Chase Briscoe (+1400): Consistently delivers speed here.
Best pre-qualifying prop bet: Ryan Blaney Top 5 (-110): Constantly overcomes pit issues to factor late.
Track: Tire management and fast pit stops help avoid loss of track position.
The Food City 500 runs at 3:00 p.m. ET on FS1. Below are the latest outright odds, followed by the picks and market-by-market best bets we like this week.
🔥 William Byron — NASCAR's "Mr. Consistent" rides a four-race Top 10 streak into Sunday.
🔥 Ty Gibbs — No worse than sixth in five straight races.
❄️ Ross Chastain — No better than 16th in his last five outings.
❄️ AJ Allmendinger — Just one Top 20 in his last four overall.
Bristol Motor Speedway chews up tires, so managing them is crucial. It's also imperative to maintain track position, and have a car that can manage dirty air with lapped traffic typically playing a role in the outcome.
The top part of the turns at Bristol tend to gather "marbles," or pieces of tire, as the race goes on. Avoiding the marbles and hugging the bottom lane is a must.
Pit road is tricky to navigate, so pay attention to who qualifies well and gets better pit road stall choices.
Back-to-back wins are not an uncommon sight at Bristol. Three active drivers have accomplished the feat; Kyle Busch (2009 and again in 2017-18), Brad Keselowski (2011-12), and Kyle Larson (2024-25).
More than half of the NASCAR Cup Series winners at Bristol Motor Speedway have started in the Top 5 (74 wins, 58.3%), and more than 75% have started in the Top 10.
Kyle Larson has burned a lot of money since his last win at Kansas in May 2025, but this is one of his better tracks.
Tyler Reddick leads the Cup Series in average starting position (7.4), with Ryan Blaney in second (8.7).
Carson Hocevar moved from +3000 to +2800 during the week, likely based on his solid results here a year ago.
Brad Keselowski has gotten some attention following an eye-catching run at Darlington, moving from +2500 to +2200.
It's hard to knock Hamlin's short-track form.