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Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano opened as co-favorites at +1100 for Sunday’s YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, where dry weather is forecast and Goodyear is bringing a new left-side tire for the Cup Series.
The race starts at 2 p.m. ET Sunday, October 25, on NBC. It is the eighth race of the 10-race Chase, and Kyle Larson leads Christopher Bell by five points.
Opening odds
Fanatics was the first sportsbook to post odds for the race on Wednesday, October 21, according to RG. Its opening board:
- Joey Logano: +1100
- Ryan Blaney: +1100
- Tyler Reddick: +1400
- Austin Cindric: +1500
- Brad Keselowski, Chase Briscoe, Bubba Wallace, Chase Elliott, William Byron and Christopher Bell: +1600
- Chris Buescher and Carson Hocevar: +1800
- Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson: +2000
- Ross Chastain: +2200
- Ty Gibbs: +2500
- Ryan Preece: +2800
Prices move through the weekend and differ between sportsbooks. Fanatics listed Larson as the championship favorite at +175, ahead of Bell at +250.
Historical favorites
The Team Penske Fords at the top of the board have the strongest recent Talladega records. Blaney won at Talladega in 2019, 2020 and 2023, and Logano won in 2015, 2016 and 2018, according to Ford Racing. Their teammate Cindric won the spring race in 2025.
Brad Keselowski has six Talladega Cup wins, the most among active drivers and tied for second all time behind Dale Earnhardt’s 10. Sunday is his last Talladega start in the No. 6 RFK Racing Ford before he leaves the team after the season.
The last two winners have come from outside the Penske group. Chase Briscoe won this race in 2025, and Carson Hocevar won the spring race in April by 0.114 seconds over Chris Buescher for his first career Cup win. That April race also included a 27-car crash, which brought out a red flag on Lap 116 and took out Larson, Logano and Blaney.
Tire allocation
Cup teams get seven sets of Goodyear tires: one set for qualifying that carries over to the start of the race, plus six new sets for the race, according to NASCAR.com. The left-side tire has a new construction with the same compound. The right-side tire is unchanged from the superspeedway races run since the start of last season.
O’Reilly Auto Parts Series and Truck Series teams get four sets each, one for qualifying and three new sets for the race. Both series have an updated right-side tire construction and the same left-side tire as before, and both run inner liners.
The Cup spoiler drops to 3.5 inches this weekend, down from the 4-inch setup used at Daytona in August.
Weather forecast
The weekend forecast at Talladega is dry. As of Wednesday, it called for mainly sunny skies all three days, MotorBiscuit reported, with a high near 80 degrees Friday, 76 Saturday and 74 Sunday, and about a 5% chance of rain on race day. Winds are expected at 5 to 10 mph.
The spring race went off without qualifying, which was canceled by weather, and the field was set by NASCAR’s metric.
Race details
The YellaWood 500 is 188 laps (500.08 miles) on the 2.66-mile track. Stage 1 runs 98 laps, followed by two 45-lap stages. Cup qualifying is Saturday at 1 p.m. ET on truTV.
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