Updated August 19, 2026
The NASCAR Cup Series heads to New Hampshire Motor Speedway on Sunday, August 23, for the Dollar Tree 301, the penultimate race of the regular season. The 301-lap event comes at an important point in the Chase race, with several drivers still fighting for the final positions in the 16-driver championship field. Ryan Blaney enters as the defending winner and the current DraftKings favorite at +450, but the strongest case may come from the driver who has repeatedly made New Hampshire his personal showcase: Christopher Bell.
DraftKings lists Blaney as the early favorite at +450. Christopher Bell is next on the board, followed by Joey Logano, Denny Hamlin, and Chase Briscoe.
Blaney's +450 price carries an 18.2% implied probability before accounting for sportsbook margin. My projection puts his chance of winning at 23%, creating a 4.8% edge. That is large enough to make the outright worthwhile, but the +450 number is important: my model's playable threshold is +350, so there is still some room before the value disappears.
The favorite's main competition is formidable. Bell has won 2 of the last 4 Cup races at New Hampshire, while Logano owns 2 Cup wins at the track and has been one of the fastest drivers in the series over the past month. Hamlin also has 3 New Hampshire victories and enters with 11 straight top-5 finishes on non-drafting ovals.
Blaney's case starts with a combination of track history and current speed. He dominated substantial portions of last year's New Hampshire race, leading 116 laps on the way to victory, while Logano finished fourth. The Penske organization also arrives after a strong showing at Richmond, where Logano won, Blaney led 88 laps, and Austin Cindric finished third. That is useful information because New Hampshire and Richmond both reward cars capable of maintaining pace on relatively flat layouts.
The biggest threat to Blaney is Bell. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver has produced an extraordinary New Hampshire record since the introduction of the Next Gen car, winning in 2022 and 2024. Bell has 2 Cup wins, 3 top-5 finishes, and 4 top-10s in 6 Cup starts at the track. He also has 7 wins across NASCAR's top 3 series at the facility.
Bell has finished second 7 times without winning, tying Harry Gant's record for runner-up finishes in a Cup season without a victory. NASCAR also ranks him fourth in season-long speed, and he has one of the strongest pit crews in the series. His seventh-place Richmond finish ended a run of near-misses but did little to diminish his overall performance level.
There is also a meaningful Chase angle. Blaney, Hamlin, Ty Gibbs, Tyler Reddick, Chase Briscoe, Chase Elliott and Bell have already secured their championship positions. Shane van Gisbergen currently occupies 16th, with Ryan Preece 50 points behind him and Ross Chastain 63 points back. Preece is particularly interesting at a longer price because New Hampshire is one of his strongest opportunities to close the gap, although his 17th-place Richmond finish did little to help his position.
New Hampshire Motor Speedway is a 1.058-mile oval in Loudon, New Hampshire. The track has an asphalt and granite racing surface, variable banking from 2 to 7 degrees in the turns and just 1 degree of banking on both the frontstretch and backstretch. The Dollar Tree 301 covers 301 laps and 318.46 miles.
The track's low banking places an unusually high premium on braking, corner exit speed, and the ability to maintain pace. For bettors, that combination makes this a race where historical track performance deserves significant weight.
Bell has the strongest pure New Hampshire case, Logano enters with the best recent results, and Hamlin brings the most consistent non-drafting form. Blaney, however, combines a recent short-track speed resume with the most important result of all at this specific event: he already knows what it takes to win the Dollar Tree 301. At +450, that is enough to make the defending winner my preferred betting play.
