- Alex Palou is +300 to win Saturday’s Race 1, but he has never finished better than second at the Milwaukee Mile.
- Scott McLaughlin, priced at +1000, topped the July 8 Milwaukee test at 161.189 mph and won the 2024 Race 2 here.
- No Milwaukee Mile winner has started from the pole since IndyCar’s 2024 return, with winners starting sixth, second and ninth.
- Palou leads Kyle Kirkwood by 91 points and can clinch his fifth championship with a strong points weekend.
WEST ALLIS, Wis. – Scott McLaughlin, priced at +1000, is the best bet to win Saturday’s Snap-on Makers and Fixers 250 at the Milwaukee Mile, where he ran the fastest lap of the July open test and already has a win, while +300 co-favorite Alex Palou has never finished better than second at the track in three tries.
The Value Is Penske’s Other Two Cars
Team Penske fields three cars Saturday, and the value is the two priced behind their teammate Josef Newgarden, who shares the top of the board with Alex Palou at +300. McLaughlin ran the fastest lap of the July 8 open test, a 161.189 mph tour of the Mile nearly a full mph clear of second-fastest Rinus VeeKay, real separation on a spec chassis where lap times rarely spread that wide.
He backed the speed with a result, winning the 2024 Race 2 here after working from the outside of the front row to the lead on Lap 164. At +1000 Wisconsin sports betting odds, the market is pricing a driver with both the fastest recent lap and a prior win at the track behind four names with neither.
The drought is doing the rest of that pricing work. McLaughlin has not won since that Milwaukee victory in September 2024, the longest dry spell of his IndyCar career, and a drought that long stretches a price further than the underlying speed argues for.
Newgarden carries the stronger current form. Wins at Phoenix and Gateway, the latter a record sixth at that track, and a runner-up finish at Nashville make him 2026’s most productive short-oval driver.
His Milwaukee record argues the other way. He has finished no better than seventh at the Mile since the event returned in 2024, and that recent history is the more relevant data point for a Milwaukee price than his form everywhere else.
Christian Rasmussen, the defending winner, is +900 with a real 2026 short-oval résumé. He led 69 laps at Phoenix before contact dropped him to 14th, and he podiumed at Gateway. His 2025 win here came from ninth on a late tire call, not a fluke on a slow car, and the same team returns with the same oval program a year later.
Why Palou Is Priced To Win A Race He Has Never Finished Better Than Second
Palou has led at Milwaukee before. He led 199 of 250 laps in 2025, only to lose it in the final 15 laps when a caution let Rasmussen make a tire change he did not. In 2024 he finished fifth in Race 1 and 19th in Race 2 after an electrical failure. Three tries at the Mile, no win, no finish better than second – that is the track history sitting behind a short-priced favorite.
The track has not rewarded whoever leads it, either. All three races since IndyCar’s 2024 return were won by a driver who did not start on pole, and the winners started sixth, second and ninth. Last year’s was decided by a late tire call rather than raw pace, and that works against a favorite whose Milwaukee record is built on leading laps, not on winning the last one.
Palou also has a reason to drive differently than a normal leader would. He arrives 91 points clear of Kirkwood with three races left and can clinch his fourth straight championship, tying Sébastien Bourdais’ 2004-07 run, with a strong finish rather than a win. That 91-point cushion is down from 133 entering last week’s Freedom 250 in Washington, D.C., where a drive-through penalty and a Lap 123 crash dropped Palou to 20th while Kirkwood led 128 of 147 laps for the win.
A driver who only needs to finish to lock a title has less reason to gamble on a late tire strategy than one racing outright for the win. That is the exact swing that decided last year’s race, and it favors a top-three ticket on Palou over the outright number.
The Board
The odds below price Saturday’s race to win, from Bovada.
| Driver | Odds |
|---|---|
| Alex Palou | +300 |
| Josef Newgarden | +300 |
| David Malukas | +550 |
| Kyle Kirkwood | +800 |
| Pato O’Ward | +900 |
| Christian Rasmussen | +900 |
| Scott McLaughlin | +1000 |
| Will Power | +1200 |
| Christian Lundgaard | +1800 |
| Felix Rosenqvist | +1800 |
David Malukas, +550, is the other Penske car on the board and still hunting his first career win. He was the Indy 500 runner-up by 0.0233 seconds, the closest finish in race history, and drove from the back of the field to a podium at Nashville. He fits the same team argument as McLaughlin and Newgarden without either of their specific Milwaukee data points.
What Comes Next
A single qualifying session Saturday morning sets both races at once. Each driver’s first timed lap decides the Race 1 grid, and the second decides Sunday’s Race 2 grid, IndyCar’s only doubleheader of the season. Whoever leaves Milwaukee with the points lead intact carries it into the legal sports betting markets for the season finale at Laguna Seca on Sept. 6, IndyCar’s last race of 2026.
