2025 Shriners Children’s 500 Odds | Hunter’s Picks
This weekend it’ll be warm and in the 70s at Phoenix Raceway, where NASCAR comes back for its first of two stops on the season for the Shriners Children’s 500. The Xfinity Series races on Saturday, where last year’s race was won by Chandler Smith, and the NASCAR Cup Series races on Sunday, where Christopher Bell led the final 41 laps en route to his first of three wins on the 2024 season.
Xfinity Series
GOVX 200 | Mar 8 5:00 pm ET | The CW
+350 | Justin Allgaier | Top 5 -200
Justin Allgaier enters this weekend as the favorite to win the GOVX 200. Last year was mixed case of emotions for Allgaier, he was five laps away from winning in March when he wrecked out due to a flat tire. In November, he had a fast car that was caught up in a crash in practice, went to a backup car, and proceeded to drive through the field until he cut a tire after making contact with Riley Herbst in the closing moments of Stage 2. In the final Stage, Allgaier got a restart violation, then a speeding penalty while serving his restart violation. With 45 laps to go, a caution saved Allgaier’s season, as he would then go on to recover and become the 2024 NASCAR Xfinity Series champion. Pretty valid reason to why he’s the favorite.
+400 | Aric Almirola | Top 5 -175
Aric Almirola makes his second start of the season at Phoenix. Last year he ran both races, finishing 31st in the race last March due to a crash, and finishing 3rd in November. Two of the three wins Almirola earned were on tracks less than a mile in length, proving to be a contender on tracks like Phoenix.
+800 | Jesse Love | Top 5 +110
Jesse Love is off to a stellar start for 2025, having won at Daytona and coming off a 6th place finish at COTA. Heading into Phoenix, Love has two Top 10 finishes in his two starts last year, 2nd in March and 6th in November. RCR has their Xfinity program dialed in, expect another Top 5 performance from Jesse on Saturday.
+1000 | Sheldon Creed | Top 5 +130
Sheldon Creed heads into the desert where he has six Top 10’s in seven Xfinity starts at Phoenix. He finished 3rd last March and 7th last November. This will be the first task on ovals for HAAS Factory Team since the shakeup in the 2024 offseason. Dating back to 2021, Creed has raced under BJ McLeod Motorsports, RCR, and JGR, earning Top 10 finishes for each team at Phoenix. Should be a fun race to watch the #00.
+1200 | Connor Zilisch | Top 5 +150
After crashing out in the first two weeks of the season, Connor Zilisch got his first win of 2025 last weekend at COTA. Now it wasn’t the cleanest of wins but nonetheless it was still a much needed win. He heads back to Phoenix, where he finished 4th in November. That same weekend, he won the ARCA Menard’s West season finale. Zilisch has momentum heading back to the short ovals this Saturday.
+1400 | Carson Kvapil | Top 5 +170
Carson Kvapil isn’t really a longshot for this weekend, but he nearly won as a longshot last weekend at COTA. For someone who had +3500 odds heading into his first road course start, he did a damn good job. If his tire never went flat within the final five laps, he would’ve scored a Top 5 finish, which he looks to be in line for that this Saturday. In his three career Xfinity starts on tracks one mile or less in length, Kvapil finished 4th at Martinsville in his first Xfinity start, 2nd at Dover in his second Xfinity start, and 5th at Loudon in his fourth Xfinity start.
Cup Series
Shriners Children’s 500 | Mar 9 3:30 pm ET | FOX
+500 | Christopher Bell | Top 5 -140 | Top 10 -450
Christopher Bell shockingly enters this weekend as the favorite to win the Shriners Children’s 500. In the NextGen era, Bell has four Top 10 finishes and won this race last March. In November, he finished 5th while leading the most laps with 141. He’s already been to victory lane twice in 2025 in Atlanta and last week at COTA, he’ll have a chance to make it three in a row on Sunday.
+550 | Ryan Blaney | Top 5 -125 | Top 10 -400
I said that Bell was shockingly the favorite because of the numbers that Ryan Blaney’s put up in the NextGen, that being Blaney finishing every race inside the Top 5…EVERY SINGLE NEXTGEN RACE!!!!! Not to mention, he has a Top 5 streak dating back to November 2021 AND a Top 10 streak dating back to November 2020. Blaney should be the driver to watch on Sunday.
+700 | Kyle Larson | Top 5 -105 | Top 10 -340
It’s been a rough start to the season for Kyle Larson. Finished 20th in the Daytona 500 after getting caught up in a late race crash, finished 3rd in Atlanta with the chance of winning stripped from him with a last lap caution, and an abysmal 31st at COTA highlighted by a loose wheel coming off during the race. But Phoenix could turn his luck around. He’s finished inside the Top 10 four times since 2022, and has a win in 2021 where he became Cup champion.
+850 | William Byron | Top 5 +110 | Top 10 -275
William Byron is off to a great start for 2025, now a two-time Daytona 500 champion and finished 2nd last week at COTA. Phoenix is a great track for Byron, having gone to victory lane at Phoenix two years ago in the March race. Overall, he has four Top 10 finishes since 2022, three of those being inside the Top 5 as well.
+1200 | Tyler Reddick | Top 5 +160 | Top 10 -200
Been a good start so far for Tyler Reddick, 2nd at the Daytona 500 and 3rd last week at COTA. Short tracks have been an issue for Reddick in the past, but things seem to be coming around for him at Phoenix. He’s gathered four Top 10’s and two Top 5’s since 2022 and in the March race itself, Reddick has finished 3rd twice and 10th last year.
+1500 | Chris Buescher | Top 5 +285 | Top 10 -120
Last week at COTA, Chris Buescher scored his second Top 10 of the season, finishing 7th. He heads into Phoenix with good head space and similar stats to Reddick, with four Top 10’s and two Top 5’s at Phoenix since the NextGen came in 2022. Buescher has a streak of three straight Top 10’s at Phoenix, where he finished 2nd in last March’s race and 9th in November.
+4500 | Carson Hocevar | Top 5 +550 | Top 10 +170
In his two Cup starts this year where he’s finished, Carson Hocevar has a 2nd in Atlanta and 13th last week at COTA. He has an average finish of 15th on the season due to fuel pressure issues at Daytona, which is where he finished in last March’s race. It’s his career best for Cup at Phoenix, but with the way Hocevar and Spire Motorsports have come out of the gate swinging, that’s bound to change this weekend.