Cole Custer Likely Needs Strategy To Contend At Kansas

Cole Custer qualified 31st at Kansas. Although the track is similar to the defunct Kentucky Speedway where he won in 2020 and he earned his best career finish there 11 days later when he finished 7th, all of Custer's remaining runs have been mediocre since as he usually starts and finishes in mid-pack and lately […]

Too Little Attrition For Cody Ware To Get A Decent Finish At Kansas

Cody Ware qualified 37th and next-to-last for Sunday's Kansas race. He was a half second slower than the next-slowest driver in Brad Keselowski (not counting Josh Berry, who hit the wall). Ware has not competed at Kansas since 2022 and he has never finished fewer than two laps down. At a track where there doesn't […]

Ross Chastain Picks Up Second-Place Finish

Ross Chastain's improved racecraft this year continued with yet another race where he turned a terrible qualifying result into a terrific finish. Chastain started 31st in yesterday's Wurth 400 and was a total nonfactor for the first two stages, but Trackhouse Racing has tended to have the best green flag pit strategy recently as Chastain […]

Bad Pit Strategy And Late-Race Crash Spoil Carson Hocevar's Top-10 Run

Although Carson Hocevar crashed out of Sunday's race at Texas, he actually had a good points day regardless and improved from 26 to 21 points behind the playoff cut line. After winning the pole, Hocevar led the first 22 laps until a caution came out for Noah Gragson's spin. Hocevar's team made the questionable move […]

Erik Jones Improbably Finishes Fifth Despite Speeding Penalty

One of the biggest surprises in Sunday's race at Texas was the speed of the Legacy Motor Club cars, which unexpectedly were the two highest-finishing Toyotas in the race. After a couple seasons of futility, Erik Jones earned his first top-five finish on a non-drafting oval since Kansas in the fall of 2023. Although he […]

Despite Crashing Out At Texas, Michael McDowell Surprisingly Fights For The Win

Michael McDowell is not particularly known for his prowess on intermediate tracks, as he has never finished better than sixth on a non-drafting intermediate, but he improbably had a strong chance to win Sunday's Texas race. Despite qualifying fifth, McDowell did not attract much notice since he was overshadowed by his teammate Carson Hocevar, but […]

Brilliant Pit Strategy Lifts John Hunter Nemechek To Eighth Place

Although the Legacy Motor Club cars have not had much speed in recent years at all, both Erik Jones and John Hunter Nemechek ended up scoring top-10 finishes by weaving their way through the carnage of numerous wrecks. Nemechek actually had a terrible start to the race, starting 28th and sitting outside the top 30 […]

Carson Hocevar Wins First Pole, But Pit Crew Might Hold Him Back

Carson Hocevar earned his first pole position for Sunday's Würth 400 at Texas in his 56th career start. Given the speed he has shown and Spire Motorsports' improved qualifying performance, a pole was probably inevitable at some point, but how will he do in the race? Hocevar earned his first top-10 finish in the Cup […]

DFS Players Should Stay Away From Christopher Bell

Christopher Bell has had a fairly puzzling season to date, as he has won the most races with three (matching his career-best seasonal total) and also became the only driver to win three in a row in a year he's arguably lost some speed. While his average finish of 12.3 is the best of his […]

Ross Chastain's A Must-Start At Texas

Ross Chastain qualifies poorly and gets a good finish. Rise, rinse, repeat. Trackhouse Racing qualifying has been generally terrible this season and yesterday was no exception as Chastain qualified 31st for today's race at Texas. However, he's toned down his aggression and has now developed a plodding, methodical style more reminiscent of Chris Buescher, which […]

Chase Briscoe A Sneaky Option That Could Pay Great DFS Dividends

Chase Briscoe's Joe Gibbs Racing debut has been very anonymous so far as he currently sits 12th in points in a year when his teammates have won five races. It feels by the eye test like he is running substantially worse than he actually has on paper, which may cause him to be overlooked. Despite […]

Ty Gibbs Qualifies Too Well For DFS Consideration Despite Improved Performance

After a disastrous start to the season, Ty Gibbs has now had four consecutive good runs and he even led the most laps at Talladega after not leading any other race this season, even though all the Toyota teams botched the strategy in the end. That has propelled him from 34th to 22nd in points […]

Kyle Busch Should Run Better Than Recent Texas Record

Kyle Busch has won at Texas four times in the past, but his record here with the Next Gen chassis has not been inspiring as he has led no laps and crashed out of two of his three races here with this car. As a result, he is probably going to be a bit undervalued. […]

Chris Buescher Snakebitten In Home State

Chris Buescher, the methodical driver from Prosper, Texas, has seldom prospered at Texas. In 15 previous Texas starts, he has shockingly never finished better than 14th, making this the only track that has been on the schedule his entire Cup Series career where he has never earned a top ten. The only time he had […]

Shane Van Gisbergen's Oval Speed Has Not Improved

Shane van Gisbergen's learning curve has been more severe than most people expected. Despite driving a full-time chartered entry for Trackhouse Racing, he qualified 37th behind both Cody Ware and Jesse Love in a rare non-drafting track Beard Motorsports entry. It doesn't help that Trackhouse seems to have slower cars especially in qualifying than they […]

Drew Blickensderfer's Mediocrity At Texas Will Likely Hold Noah Gragson Back

Noah Gragson's top five at Talladega last week may have seemed surprising on the surface but it probably shouldn't have been since he finished third in the previous year's spring Talladega race and his crew chief Drew Blickensderfer had given three different drivers (Matt Kenseth, David Ragan, and Michael McDowell) Daytona wins. However, Texas is […]

Despite Winning In 2020, Austin Dillon Isn't Good At Texas

Austin Dillon qualified 19th at Texas on Saturday, outqualifying his teammate Kyle Busch. He did win here on a strategy play in 2020 in a race where his average running position was almost 14th, but that was with crew chief Justin Alexander, and he's always been worse without him than with him. Despite the win, […]

Despite 23XI Racing's Texas Speed, Riley Herbst Probably Isn't Worth Considering

It might initially seem tempting to look at Riley Herbst for DFS play since he costs only $5,300 and is driving for a 23XI Racing team that led the most laps with Bubba Wallace two years ago at Texas, especially since he only starts 21st. However, he is still a rookie and there was no […]

Beard Motorsports Makes Rare Non-Drafting Oval Appearance At Texas With Jesse Love

Jesse Love qualified 35th on Saturday at Texas in a rare non-drafting oval appearance for Beard Motorsports' No. 62 car. The team has a loose affiliation with Richard Childress Racing, and its last appearance outside the drafting ovals came at the Charlotte roval with Love's Xfinity Series teammate Austin Hill. The team is likely going […]

Chad Finchum Making First Cup Series Start of 2025

Chad Finchum makes his first start of the season in Sunday's race at Texas Motor Speedway. However, unsurprisingly since he is driving for Carl Long's Garage 66 team, Finchum qualified last place in 38th, and the gap in lap time between him and the second-slowest driver Shane van Gisbergen was greater than the gap between […]

Chase Elliott Recovers from Speeding Penalty to Finish Fifth

Chase Elliott had another typically quiet finish at Talladega yesterday, finishing 7th on track but being promoted to 5th after Ryan Preece and Joey Logano's disqualifications. Although his pass differential of 52 was the second-highest in the race behind only his teammate Kyle Larson, Elliott only factored for the lead a couple times and only […]

Joey Logano Finishes Last at Talladega After Disqualification for Missing Spoiler Brace

Arguable pre-race favorite Joey Logano had arguably the best run at Talladega, leading 24 laps, posting the race's best average running position of 7, and finishing fifth on track before being disqualified for a missing spoiler brace. Although Logano ran in the top ten for most of Stage 1, he burned more fuel while running […]

Ryan Preece Loses Talladega Race First in Photo Finish Then in Post-Race Inspection

In a race where Ryan Preece's two RFK Racing teammates Brad Keselowski and Chris Buescher both crashed early, it was left to Preece to carry the mantle for the organization, Preece took the lead four times and lost to Austin Cindric by a mere .022 second on track before being disqualified for a rear spoiler […]

Poor Toyota Strategy Arguably Cost Bubba Wallace Winning Chances at Talladega

Although Bubba Wallace only finished eighth at Talladega and led only five laps, he had one of the best drives in a lowkey way. After finishing fourth in Stage 1, Wallace then outdueled Joey Logano's illegal car on the last lap to win Stage 2, but he was let down by bad Toyota strategy rather […]

Christopher Bell Unhurt After Hard Contact with Inside Retaining Wall

After winning the previous drafting track race at Atlanta, Christopher Bell was unable to repeat the feat at Talladega after a hard crash on lap 52. Bell had driven from his 11th starting position to second behind Chase Briscoe for most of the first stage when the Toyotas worked together to drive from the field. […]

Denny Hamlin Probably Qualified Too Well for DFS Consideration

While Denny Hamlin was arguably the best drafting track driver in the Gen-6 era of NASCAR, he hasn't seemed to have the same speed with the Next Gen chassis on these tracks. Since 2020, he's had an odd streak where he has finished outside the top ten in each of the last four spring races […]

Kyle Larson Increasingly Undervalued Due to His Crashing, but Still a Great DFS Option

Kyle Larson has become something of an agent of chaos in NASCAR as he can either dominate a race or crash anywhere and no one is surprised by either. Whenever he crashes (as he did two days ago in Indy 500 practice) there's always a lot of social media hubbub mocking people who call him […]

Kyle Busch Nearly Always Leads at Talladega, but Rarely Leads Much

Although Kyle Busch seems to have faded from regular contention recently, he earned a somewhat surprising second-place qualifying run at Talladega, his best since Dover nearly one year ago. Talladega is the site of his penultimate win two years ago, but that race had more to do with the brilliant pit strategy he called himself […]

Tyler Reddick's Drafting Track Record Worse Than It Looks

Tyler Reddick is last year's defending winner at Talladega, but he kind of backed into it as the crash that eliminated most of his fellow Toyotas after they had pitted but before anyone else had allowed Reddick to take the lead on the restart in a boxed-in 2X2 formation alongside Michael McDowell, who crashed coming […]

Daniel Suarez Likely Motivated at Talladega Since Trackhouse Cars Likely Too Slow for Him to Win On Regular Tracks

In a year when Trackhouse Racing has seemed to have lost a lot of speed, Daniel Suárez probably needs to place more emphasis on drafting tracks this year than in previous years since he is unlikely to have the speed to win anywhere else. He qualified 24th, highest of any of the three Trackhouse drivers. […]