Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 400 Picks, Predictions and Race Preview

Another week, another new winner for the NASCAR Cup Series. 

Last weekend, it was Denny Hamlin getting back to his winning ways after a rough start to the season — will we see more parity this weekend at Martinsville?

Get the NASCAR betting low-down with our Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 400 picks and predictions, getting underway at 7:30 p.m. ET, Saturday, April 9.

You can also check out the full Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 400 odds breakdown.      

Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 400 best bets

• Martin Truex Jr. (+550)
• Christopher Bell (+1400)

Picks made on 4/6/22 at 3:25 p.m. ET.
Click on each pick above to jump to the full analysis.

Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 400 favorites

Martin Truex Jr. (+550) *BEST BET

He’s won three of the last five Martinsville races. The ones he didn’t win were the last two fall races, where he led 129 laps in 2020 and was fourth this past year. Truex has seven Top 5s in his last nine tries on the Virginia paperclip, as well as four Top-8 finishes in the last five weeks on the season.

Kyle Busch (+1,000)

Busch has 12 Top-10 finishes in his last 13 at Martinsville, including a runner-up last Halloween. 

Joey Logano (+1,000)

A pair of Top-5 finishes came at Martinsville in 2020 to go along with seven Top 10s in his last eight tries.

Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 400 long-shot picks

Christopher Bell (+1,400) *BEST BET

He has three Top 8s, two of which are Top 5s, in four Truck Series starts at Martinsville and was seventh last April in the Cup Series. He has three Top 10s in his last five starts on the season including third in COTA and sixth last week.

William Byron (+1,200)

Worth a play here, too. Byron has four Top 8s in his last five Martinsville starts including a runner-up in the playoff race in 2019, and fourth and fifth, respectively, last year. He was third last week for his third Top 5 in the last five weeks at that.

Brad Keselowski (+2,500)

Keselowski has six Top-5 finishes in his last seven starts in Martinsville, including 10 in his last 12 overall. He has four Top 3s in his last six there.

Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 400 fades

Denny Hamlin (+1,000)

Odd to have a driver coming off of a win on the fade list, but truth be told, out of Hamlin’s 47 career Cup wins, he’s only had back-to-back trips to Victory Lane twice, the last one coming back in 2012. Also, three of his last four Martinsville finishes have seen him come home 11th or worse. On top of that, six of his seven starts in 2022 have seen him finish outside the Top 10. 

Kyle Larson (+1,000)

Four of his seven finishes this year have been 29th or worse. He led no laps and kind of stole a fifth-place finish last weekend. This week, however, isn’t one of his better tracks. Larson has one Top 5 (fifth place last year) in his last nine Martinsville tries, with 10 of his 14 tries there seeing him finish outside the Top 15. 

Kevin Harvick (+2,000)

He’s had just two Top 5s in his last 19 Martinsville starts, finishing 15th and 17th in 2020 and ninth and 12th last year.

Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 400 matchup pick

Kyle Larson (-115) vs. Kyle Busch (-115)

Larson has one Top 5 in his last nine Martinsville starts while Busch was runner-up just last October at the same track. Busch has racked up 12 Top 10s in his last 13 there, compared to 10 of Larson’s last 14 finishes at Martinsville being 15th or worse. 

PICK: Busch (-115)

Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 400 preview

So far, this new car has proven to be just what we expected it to be. Seven races down,  seven different winners from five different organizations. Will Martinsville be a place to keep this going?

To find the winner, you can’t really look past the “Big 3” on Saturday night -- JGR, Penske and Hendrick Motorsports. This trio has combined to reach victory lane in each of the last seven races on the Virginia paperclip, and 14 out of the last 15 overall there. 

Last week in Richmond, another short track, they took eight of the Top 9 finishing positions too. 

Combined, you also get eight of the Top 10 finishers from the 2020 June race between these three organizations. They also took five of the Top 6 spots in the playoff race that year, then went 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 last April and 1-2-3-4-5 in the fall race.

Vegas noticed, and drivers from these teams populate the entire Top 10 for Blue-Emu odds.

Does the new car alter their dominance? I don’t honestly see how it does since it’s such a short track and aero is thrown out the window. 

So, how do you break it down between them then?

JGR and Penske would be the ones to beat normally, as they’ve put four cars in the Top 5 of the finishing order in three of the last six Martinsville races, and have won six of the last eight there among themselves. JGR came out of its funk last weekend too and has the drivers to shine under the lights this weekend.

HMS though has won two of the last three here, but both were in the fall race. However, the fall race has ended under the lights too, which could be an advantage in its own right. They’ve not won a spring race here since 2013 though. 

So how do you eliminate some of them?

I’d start with Austin Cindric. In his case, the last time we’ve seen a “rookie” win here was Morgan Shepherd in 1981. He did make some starts prior to ’81, but that Martinsville race was just his 12th career Cup start. The last one prior to that was Earl Ross, who was making his 21st start in his 1974 win. Numbers aren’t on Cindric’s side.

For Denny Hamlin, he’s only gone back-to-back twice in his Cup career. The last time occurred a decade ago (2012). Kyle Larson has one Top 5 (fifth place last year) in his last nine Martinsville tries, including 10 of his 14 tries there seeing him finish outside the Top 15. You also have Chase Elliott with one Top 5 all year and no wins on an oval since November 2020.

Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 400 key stat

The first night race of the season is here as we’ll run 400 laps under the lights at the Martinsville (VA) Speedway this weekend. That’s a big change from a few years ago, where Martinsville didn’t have lights ready for NASCAR, as well as the distance always being 500 laps.  

How much of a factor will that play?

I mean, you’re truly only talking about a 53-mile differential in distance. We’ve shortened races at other tracks by 100 miles — this is basically half of that. So, will it drastically change the outcome?

It may.

Since the stage era began in 2017, we’ve had 10 Martinsville races. In them, the leader at Lap 400 failed to win the race five times. And while the Lap 400 leader has won 5 of the last 8 overall, they’ve failed to win the race outright in each of the last three tries.

Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 400 betting trend to watch

If you want to win, you better find yourself in the Top 2 or 3 by the end of the second stage. Since we began stage racing in 2017, the eventual winner has finished either first (4 times), second (3 times) or third (twice) in nine of the 10 second stages. 

Also, the eventual race winner had a Top-5 finish in the first stage every year minus last fall.

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