The green flag drops for the 2019 TicketGuardian 500 in ISM Raceway in suburban Phoenix on Sunday at 3:30 p.m. ET. Following an electric start to the season at Daytona and two fast 1.5-mile tracks in Atlanta and Las Vegas, Phoenix is the Monster Energy NASCAR cup series’ first race at the tighter quarters of this one-mile loop in ISM Raceway. Kevin Harvick has won four of the previous five March races at this track and will be the 9-4 favorite to accumulate another win in the most current 2019 TicketGuardian 500 odds. Fellow veteran and Daytona 500 champion Denny Hamlin is getting 16-1, while Kurt Busch is at 30-1 NASCAR at Phoenix odds after a solid start to his period that has him eighth in the NASCAR standings. Before you make your own 2019 TicketGuardian 500 picks, make sure you check at the NASCAR at Phoenix projected leaderboard from the SportsLine Projection Model.
Produced by DFS expert and SportsLine predictive data scientist Mike McClure, this proprietary NASCAR prediction computer model simulates every race 10,000 occasions, taking factors like track history and current results into consideration.
It made some enormous calls in NASCAR last year, such as properly casting wins for Kyle Busch in Chicago and Martin Truex Jr. at Sonoma. Plus it is off to a powerful start in NASCAR this season, calling Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin a top-four competition and nailing eight of the top 10 drivers at last week’s Pennzoil 400, which included placing winner Joey Logano in its own projected top five. Anyone who has followed its picks is way up.
McClure, who has a mechanical engineering degree, grew up around race tracks. Big events in iconic venues like ISM Raceway are in his blood. His model has simulated Sunday’s 2019 NASCAR in Phoenix race 10,000 times and the results were surprising.
For your 2019 TicketGuardian 500, we could tell you that the model is top on Clint Bowyer, making a strong run in the checkered flag despite heading off as a long shot 25-1 NASCAR odds. He’s a goal for anybody looking for a payday.
Bowyer struck a five-season drought without a win and went on to grab a pair of victories at Martinsville and Michigan on the road to a 12th-place end in the NASCAR Playoffs. This season, he’s added a top-five finish at Atlanta and has revealed remarkable speed at times. Bowyer has seven career top-10s at Phoenix and won a truck series race at this track in 2010.
Bowyer, who pushes for Stewart-Haas Racing, was second in one of the year’s Daytona Duels and shut out a year’s NASCAR schedule using an eight-place ending at Homestead. He’ll also come equipped into the 2019 TicketGuardian 500 with a similar car set up to teammates Harvick and Aric Almirola.
One of the shocking 2019 NASCAR in Phoenix picks from the model: Kevin Harvick, a nine-time winner at ISM Raceway along with the very best Vegas favorite, makes a strong run but falls short of winning everything.
Harvick has made a career from getting to the front of the pack consistently at this track. In Reality, He’s finished in the top 10 at 11 consecutive starts at ISM Raceway