NASCAR outlook, odds: Who will take the checkers at Martinsville?

OddsChecker odds for Martinsville

How will your favorite drivers fare this weekend at Martinsville. Check out the odds at OddsChecker, for Sunday's big race, plus season championship futures, and more!

Bell, driver of the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, returns to Martinsville for Sunday's NOCO 400 (3 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) as the most recent winner at the famous half-mile track. He claimed the victory in the playoff race there last October that put him into the Championship 4 round for the first time in his career.

One driver Bell can expect to contend with on Sunday is perennial fan favorite and 2020 NASCAR Cup Series champion Chase Elliott. He returns to competition this week after missing six races while healing from a broken leg, suffered in a snowboarding accident.

Elliott's medical clearance comes at a promising time in the schedule -- Martinsville has been a fine track for him, historically speaking. The driver of the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet has nine top-10 finishes in 15 starts there, including the 2020 playoff victory and back-to-back runner-up finishes in this spring race in 2020 and 2021.

Elliott received a playoff waiver from NASCAR, which means he can still earn a position in the 2023 playoffs if he wins a race and is high enough in the points standings. Even after missing 1½ months, he is only 42 points behind Legacy Motor Club rookie Noah Gragson in the standings.

Elliott will be contending for his first win of the season alongside a pair of equally motivated veterans -- Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr. - who are also hoping to earn their first wins. And these two are the winningest active drivers at Martinsville.

Hamlin leads all drivers with five Martinsville wins. He has 23 top-10 finishes in 34 starts -- an impressive 67.6 percent -- and his 2,190 career laps led is easily tops among the competition.

But Hamlin's last win at the track was in 2015. And the driver of the No. 11 JGR Toyota has had only a pair of top-10 finishes this season, however, sixth-place efforts at California's Auto Club Speedway and Atlanta.

Truex, who drives the No. 19 JGR Toyota, started the season with a win in the non-points paying Busch Light Clash at the Coliseum. But, like his teammate Hamlin, has only two top-10 finishes since; seventh-place efforts at Las Vegas and last week's Bristol dirt race.

Martinsville could be a reasonable place to expect a better outing. His three wins makes him second only to Hamlin in the current trophy haul. He's got 15 top-10 finishes in 34 starts and led more than a thousand laps (1,016) in his career. He won in the 2020 and 2021 spring races but was 22nd and 20th in the two 2022 races at Martinsville.

Ross Chastain's dramatic "Hail Melon" move on the final lap of last year's Martinsville event launched him into NASCAR legendary status and also into the Championship 4 Round for the first time in his career. He essentially slammed his No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet against the outside wall and "floored it," driving around so quickly he set a track record speed and passed enough cars to earn a position in the Championship 4.

Although NASCAR has since set rules in place that would disallow such a move now, Chastain enjoyed international celebrity status in the sport for his effort.

Both of his career top-10 finishes at the track came in 2023 -- fifth place in the spring race and fourth in the Fall race.

Practice for the NOCO 400 is Saturday at 4:30 p.m. ET followed by Busch Light Pole Qualifying at 5:20 -- both will be televised on FS2.