Tires were the name of the game in NASCAR Cup Series practice for Sunday's Food City 500 (3 p.m. ET, FS1) at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Like last year's Food City 500, practice indicated that drivers will have to manage tires again over the 500 laps, so it would behoove us to look at drivers' lap times later in their practice runs to see who looked solid as the tires started to get worn.
And based on NASCAR odds for Bristol, there's a hidden surprise among the field.
Despite one driver's massive upside, he's being overlooked in NASCAR odds thanks to some — interesting — track history here at Bristol.
Let's dive in.
NASCAR Odds, Best Bet Pick for Bristol
*Odds as of Sunday morning
Tyler Reddick Top Toyota (+800) — ESPN BET
Tyler Reddick has struggled for results at Bristol in his Cup Series career.
Aside from a fourth-place finish in the second Bristol race in his rookie year back in 2020, Reddick has finished no better than 12th on the concrete at the fastest half-mile track in the world.
While some of that can be attributed to adjusting to the Next Gen car, we can't forget Reddick is an XFINITY Series winner at Bristol after starting dead last and beating a field that included Kyle Busch, Joey Logano, Christopher Bell, Chase Briscoe and more.
Then, the aforementioned fourth-place finish came as Reddick was one of just six drivers to finish on the lead lap, behind only Kevin Harvick, Busch and Erik Jones.
Of course, those were a half-decade or more ago, so those of us in "what have you done for me lately" mode want to see more.
Enter, practice.
Reddick ranked fourth in my practice FLAGS metric among those drivers that went out in the second practice group, right alongside fellow Toyota driver, team owner and last year's Food City 500 winner Denny Hamlin as top Toyota in speed among that group of cars.
In fact, if we look at Reddick's time later in the practice run, it could be argued he had the best long-run car.
From laps 29-35 on each driver's tires, Reddick posted the single best average speed among the second practice group, and third overall behind only Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Carson Hocevar.
With fewer marbles and less rubber, Hocevar and Stenhouse may have benefitted from the conditions by going out in the first group, so Reddick potentially had the best long-run car solely based on practice speeds.
By comparison, Hamlin averaged a 16.29 second lap over those laps compared to Reddick's 16.05-second average lap time.
The Bet: Tyler Reddick Top Toyota (+800) — ESPN BET
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