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The NASCAR Cup Series heads to Watkins Glen on Sunday for the penultimate race before the NASCAR playoffs begin. With just two more chances for drivers to win their way into the postseason, what will happen at the Glen?
Last year, Kyle Larson drove to victory in this race, leading 27 of the 90 laps. He was one of the two dominant cars that day, as Martin Truex Jr. led 34 laps and finished third. It was a fairly clean race, with 24 drivers finishing on the lead lap.
Below are my NASCAR DFS lineup picks for DraftKings and FanDuel this week. This slate locks on 8/21/22 at 3:17 p.m. ET. If you have any questions or want to talk about NASCAR, you can find me on Twitter at @juscarts.
DFS Lineup Picks - DraftKings, FanDuel
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Chase Elliott
Starts 1st - DraftKings $10,700 | FanDuel $14,000
Chase Elliott is currently the best road course racer in Cup, even if he hasn't won at a road course since last season. He's a two-time Watkins Glen winner, leading 52 of 90 laps in 2018 for his first Cup Series victory and then in 2019 leading 80 of the 90 laps and winning.
Elliott starts on the pole Sunday. He'll have Michael McDowell behind him, which is good because it likely means he won't face much of a challenge from behind heading into the first turn. If he can just get past his teammate Kyle Larson, who shares the front row with him, then Elliott could lead a lot of early laps.
Consider Elliott the favorite to dominate this race.
Austin Cindric
Starts 8th - DraftKings $9,800| FanDuel $11,000
Cindric is a really good road course racer. He's also proven in Xfinity that he's good at the Glen, as he won here in 2019 and finished third last year, leading 22 laps in the process.
I don't usually love starting drivers in the back half of the top 10, because the place differential downside is pretty great and there's not necessarily a chance for them to get up front and lead laps, but I like Cindric today because he's reliable at road courses. In seven Cup Series starts on them, he has five top 10s, plus a pair of top fives.
Cindric might not challenge for the victory, but there's a good chance he finishes right around where he starts, if not a few spots higher.
Christopher Bell
Starts 38th - DraftKings $8,700 | FanDuel $9,500
This is the chalky place differential play of the week.
Bell will roll off 38th on Sunday. In his only Cup Series start at this track, he finishes seventh. Overall, Bell has top 10s in five of his 13 road course starts.
This season, Bell's road course results look like this: third at COTA, 27th at Sonoma, 18th at Road America and 12th at Indianapolis. That's one really good run, plus two more top 20s. And with a 38th-place starting position, a top 20 would deliver you a great result in terms of place differential.
Also worth mentioning: Bell has two Xfinity starts here, resulting in two top 10s.
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Kimi Raikkonen
Starts 27th - DraftKings $7,600 | FanDuel $6,000
I'll be honest: I have no idea if this is a good play or not. If you're scared of Raikkonen's lack of stock car experience, you could go for a place differential play like Erik Jones instead.
But Raikkonen is too intriguing to ignore. I'm going to have him in some lineups because there's plenty of upside here.
Raikkonen has run a couple of races before in NASCAR, starting Xfinity and Truck races in 2011. Both were on oval tracks though, which the former F1 star didn't really have experience with. Even with that, he was 15th in the Truck Series start.
Now, the 2007 Formula 1 champion makes his NASCAR road course debut. He's in a Trackhouse car, which has been arguably the best team this season on road courses. He starts 27th, so there's place differential upside. Sure, this could be a disaster since Raikkonen is in his 40s and has never run this series, but I'm too intrigued to fade him.
Ty Gibbs
Starts 16th - DraftKings $6,900 | FanDuel $6,800
As I write this paragraph, Ty Gibbs is leading the Xfinity race here at Watkins Glen. If he ends up winning this race—and by the time you read this, you'll probably know if he does or not—it would be his second Xfinity win here in two starts.
Gibbs has proven in Xfinity that he's really good at road courses. In Cup, he has one road course start, starting 26th and finishing 17th at Indy. But Gibbs has gotten some more experience in this car since then, including his first top 10 at Michigan.
I'm not saying that Ty Gibbs is going to win a Cup Series race in his fifth start, but this is a really cheap price for a driver who knows his way around this track and can get up there and finish in the top 10.
Harrison Burton
Starts 30th - DraftKings $5,800 | FanDuel $4,800
I really love the value here.
Burton's rookie season has had a lot more lows than it's had highs, but there's one reason why I like him this week, which is that the last time the Cup Series visited a road course, Burton finished third.
That's probably not the most logically sound reason. This is a totally different track. That was a race with a lot of DNFs and some wild stuff went down late.
But Harrison Burton is just so cheap in DFS right now. I'll run wild off of that one positive sign because of how easy it makes building the rest of my lineup.
Also, Burton made one Xfinity start at the Glen and he led three laps and finished fifth. There's a second reason. Thanks for reading. Play Harrison Burton.
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