August 10, 2025
William Byron's typical trend at Watkins Glen has been a good finish followed by an unlucky result. Byron, the current points leader and one of NASCAR's top road racers, did win at Watkins Glen in dominant fashion in 2023 after beating Michael McDowell out of the pits, but he never led there otherwise. However, he virtually always runs well on road courses as he has three top tens including a second at Austin in his four previous starts, the one exception coming at Chicago where he crashed in practice and had a clutch failure early in the race. If he has no bad luck, he will likely finish better than his starting position of 10th, but since he's been inconsistent and doesn't lead quite as often here as on other tracks not to mention how difficult it is to pass and his relatively high salary, he might be a riskier choice than you think, but still he's likely one of the best options.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
August 10, 2025
A.J. Allmendinger has never really gotten bad at road courses but he's become much less of a threat to win on them since Shane van Gisbergen became a full-time NASCAR Cup Series driver this year. Watkins Glen is one of Allmendinger's best road courses. In addition to winning here in 2014, he finished in the top ten all but twice in his ten starts from 2010-2023 before going out early due to a transmission failure last year. However, Allmendinger's qualifying run of 18th is his worst here since 2009, so it's possible he might run worse here than usual. His 24th-place practice time wasn't inspiring either, but his 10th-place average speed was a little better. You can probably count on Allmendinger finishing better than he starts and getting some Place Differential points, but it seems a lot less likely that he'll win or dominate than it might have a couple years ago.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
August 10, 2025
Denny Hamlin, this season's only four-time winner in the NASCAR Cup Series, looks to make it five at Watkins Glen on Sunday, but that seems like a real long shot since he is starting 22nd in a race where it seems like it will almost be impossible to pass. Although Hamlin is not particularly noted for his road racing, he's actually been more solid here than on most other road courses and has earned five top-five finishes from 2016-2023, including a win in 2016. Sitting 51 points behind championship leader William Byron, he may be intensely motivated to make up that deficit to win the regular-season championship. Since he's already won, expect him to short pit as much as possible in an effort to catch cautions at the right moment to work his way through the field on a day where it will be almost impossible to pass. Priced at $8,100 (much less than his usual value), he's definitely worthy of consideration.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
August 10, 2025
After five top-1o finishes in his last six races, Alex Bowman is now pretty safe in the playoff picture and has a 63-point lead over Ryan Preece, greater than one full race with only three races remaining. However, when evaluating him for Sunday's race at Watkins Glen, that could be more of a curse than a blessing, as he is likely going to play it ultimately safe by choosing to maximize points rather than maximizing his finishing position. Since he hasn't won a race, expect him to go for stage points to shore up his points position, which will likely hurt his chances for a good finish in the long run. Starting seventh, he's likely to earn stage points, which he might need at a track where he has not finished better than 14th. Although he's usually good on road courses, Bowman might be more focused on getting through this one, and as a result, he'll likely finish worse than he starts as he has done the last four years.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
August 10, 2025
After back-to-back top-five finnishes, Ryan Preece is surprisingly still very much alive in the playoff race as he only sits 23 points behind his RFK Racing teammate Chris Buescher for the final playoff spot. You'd think based on Buescher's tendency to earn top-10 finishes on road courses like clockwork and Preece's historical mediocrity on these tracks that Buescher might be guaranteed to gain points, but you might be wrong. Lately, Buescher seems to fail to meet expectations while Preece exceeds expectations in most races, and Preece has had his best runs at a lot of different tracks this year. That might help him at a track where he finished ninth last year despite starting worse in that race than his 17th-place starting position on Sunday. Given Buescher's road-course prowess, it's likely the No. 41 team has put in more effort to keep up with him, and he might finish better than you expect and be a better DFS choice than you might think.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
August 10, 2025
Last week at Iowa, Brad Keselowski arguably had his most impressive drive as an owner-driver, even if he didn't win, and his run of six finishes of 11th or better in his last seven starts rapidly propelled him from 32nd to 19th in points. But it's still almost impossible for him to make the playoffs unless he wins one of the last three races of the regular season. Don't expect that to happen at Watkins Glen since Keselowski has been worse on road courses than any other track type for years. His worst two finishes in that seven-race run (an 11th at Sonoma and a crash DNF at Chicago) both came on road/street courses and he hasn't had a top-10 finish on one since 2022, despite the fact that he did once have three consecutive second-place finishes here from 2011-2013. Couple that with Keselowski having an above-average starting position of 16th, and it's safe to say that he is best avoided on Sunday.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
August 10, 2025
It's been a tale of two careers for Erik Jones at Watkins Glen. In his three starts with Joe Gibbs Racing and its Furniture Row Racing satellite in 2017-2019, he earned top tens in all three starts and top fives in two of them. In the years since, he has hardly factored at Watkins Glen in particular or on road courses in general although he did finish 10th once in his underrated 2022. While Jones hasn't been as slow this year as in 2023 or 2024, he still hasn't been very fast and road courses continue to be his Achilles' heel as he hasn't finished better than 17th in any of the road/street course races this season. Don't expect that to change today, especially since he is starting 30th.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
August 10, 2025
Although Austin Dillon actually ran okay at Iowa to the surprise of many, don't expect him to do the same at Watkins Glen. Although his poor starting position of 26th and $6,100 DFS salary may be appealing on the surface, he isn't a noted road racer and he's never either finished or posted an average running position better than 15th in his ten previous starts despite finishing every race. Both his average finish of 25.8 at Watkins Glen and his average finish this season of 20.9 are poor enough that there's no reason to necessarily expect him to beat his starting position at all, particularly when considering he has finished worse than his starting position in seven of his ten Watkins Glen starts. Dillon's Watkins Glen record is so poor that he is actually likely one of the low-key worst options despite his poor qualifying position and cheap DFS salary.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
August 10, 2025
After starting ninth and finishing 11th for Stewart-Haas Racing last year at Watkins Glen, Noah Gragson starts 36th this year for the much slower Front Row Motorsports team. The combination of his strong finish last year and his weak starting position this year make him a respectable choice for DFS play, but bettors must bear in mind that his slower cars mean he likely won't replicate last year's finish. He has also been one of the most crash-prone drivers of the season and has run terribly of late. He did earn a rare road-course top-10 finish at Austin earlier in the season, but he didn't run very well, as his average running position in that race was only 21st. Even though Gragson could be capable of earning a lot of place-differential points, you'd be much better off opting for his teammate Zane Smith, who is better, cheaper, and starting only two positions ahead of him.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
August 10, 2025
After his inexplicable Cinderella run to the finals of NASCAR's In-Season Challenge, Ty Dillon once again returns to his usual invisible status. Dillon wasn't actually terrible in his last two road/street-course races in the tournament, even if he only advanced because Brad Keselowski crashed at Chicago and he bumped Alex Bowman out of the way at Sonoma. However, even in those races, he ran much worse than his 20th- and 17th-place finishes, and it's hard to imagine him earning another top-10 finish unless it rains. He has shown an occasional modicum of skill in rain races on road courses, but since NASCAR has rarely had a road race that was entirely wet throughout, that won't help him much. Since he's starting 33rd and has never placed better than 16th at Watkins Glen, he probably isn't worthy of consideration, even at the low cost of $5,500 in DFS.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
August 10, 2025
Although Cole Custer is typically mediocre, road courses have been a key area of strength for him, as he led the 2023 Chicago Xfinity Series race flag-to-flag and earned a top-10 finish at Mexico City early this season. Although he hasn't run nearly as well at Watkins Glen, he has gained positions in all three of his starts there, starting 29th and finishing 11th in his best drive in 2022. He'll need a similar performance to contend on Sunday, as he is starting even worse in 32nd, although since he did drive from 26th to eighth at Mexico City, it's definitely possible. Custer is by no means a top-tier option, but given his starting position, his road-course record, and his $5,300 DraftKings salary, he is certainly one of the best low-cost options.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
August 4, 2025
It was an up and down race day for Bubba Wallace at Iowa Speedway, as the 23XI Racing driver had good speed in his race car (he ranked sixth-fastest in Green Flag Speed during the race) but ran into some issues that he had to battle back from. One of those was a broken toe link, which caused Bubba to go two laps down in the race. Eventually, though, he got his laps back and was able to charge through the field on the final green flag stint, going from 32nd to sixth over the course of the last run. After the race, he noted, "I was just relaxed the whole time, really. And it's interesting how things shake out. We had a up-and-down day, as you mentioned. Was ready to just debrief the whole car mid-race and just figure out what we need to do to wholesale it. Had our damage, had our issues and just really fought hard to get our All True Camry back in the top 10." That sixth-place effort puts Bubba back into the top 10 in the regular season points standings, although his Playoffs spot is already locked in thanks to his Brickyard 400 win last weekend.
--Jordan McAbeeSource: On3
August 4, 2025
Although Chase Briscoe won the pole, finished second, and led the second-most laps at Iowa yesterday, he had a rather overrated drive. Eventual winner William Byron passed him on the opening lap and Briscoe did not actually take the lead on track, instead beating Stage 1 winner Brad Keselowski out of the pits thanks to his pit stall selection. Briscoe got trapped a lap down when a caution for Shane van Gisbergen's spin happened after he'd pitted, but he did break into the top ten again on the lap 250 restart and took second on lap 286 shortly after Byron took the lead before stalling out. However, his race was marred by causing back-to-back cautions only ten laps apart when he spun out Erik Jones then spun Tyler Reddick into Christopher Bell. He continues to have a knack for finishing better than he runs, but he also continues to seem like a bit of a paper tiger.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
August 4, 2025
Brad Keselowski had arguably his best drive as an owner-driver yesterday at Iowa, where he finished third, led 68 laps, and won both stages. In a race where it was nearly impossible to pass, Keselowski hunted down eventual winner William Byron to win Stage 1 after Byron made a mistake with a few laps remaining. Polesitter Chase Briscoe beat him out of the pits under that caution, but typically Keselowski opted to stay out long on the green-flag pit cycle while many other drivers pitted. When Shane van Gisbergen spun late in Stage 2, Keselowski was holding the lead but his former teammate Ryan Blaney beat him out of the pits. Nonetheless, Keselowski passed Blaney to win Stage 2 but his decision to again make his final pit stop much later left him buried in the field and he couldn't quite make it back to the lead. Nonetheless, he showed more speed than he'd had all year and jumped from 24th to 19th in points, but he still needs to win to make the playoffs.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
August 4, 2025
Austin Dillon finished 10th in yesterday's Iowa race. Perhaps this shouldn't have come as much of a surprise as it did because of his win at the similar Richmond track last year. Starting 18th, he broke into the top ten the first time at the start of Stage 2 before being trapped a lap down when he amongst many others short-pitted before a caution came out. This relegated him to 19th, but he eventually reemerged in the top five after Richard Boswell's savvy pit strategy and after his final pit stop, he reemerged in the top ten on lap 318 and remained there the rest of the race. Although he still isn't running very well at all, he outran his teammate Kyle Busch yesterday and earned his first top ten since his three straight top tens from Bristol to Texas.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
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