April 13, 2025
Unlike his contemporary Kyle Busch whose speed at Bristol markedly declined after he switched from Joe Gibbs Racing to Richard Childress Racing, Brad Keselowski has retained a lot of his speed there even after switching from Team Penske to RFK Racing. The three-time Bristol winner led 109 laps in the 2022 Bristol Night Race, the first with the Next Gen chassis and he probably would have won had he not blown a tire, then added an eighth and a third in his next two starts but was surprisingly lackluster last time, which eliminated him from the playoffs. The main issue is that Keselowski (who starts 16th today) has run terribly all season since replacing crew chief Matt McCall with Jeremy Bullins; he hasn't had an average running position better than 20th yet. On paper, Keselowski seems like one of the best options for DFS especially at $7,800, but his poor season performance suggests he likely won't have any speed.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
April 13, 2025
Although Chase Briscoe qualified 14th at Bristol, which doesn't sound terrible when you compare it to how the 23XI Racing Toyotas qualified, he was by far the slowest of the four Joe Gibbs Racing cars as his three teammates all qualified in the top seven. Briscoe is an agent of chaos who seems almost impossible to predict as this ties his worst qualifying run with this car even though he's now driving a JGR car that should by all rights be faster than the Stewart-Haas Racing cars he was driving before where he qualified 6th or better three times. Having said that, Briscoe has never led a lap at Bristol and finished worse than he started in all four races with the Next Gen chassis, so he likely is overvalued and his $9,000 cost on DFS seems to reflect the historical speed of the No. 19 car more than Briscoe's ability. All the other JGR drivers are likely better bets.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
April 13, 2025
Despite spinning out on his second qualifying lap on Saturday, Kyle Busch qualified 15th at Bristol. He is one of the track's all-time greats with eight wins and 2,598 laps led, but he has fallen on hard times since his arrival at Richard Childress Racing. Although Busch still frequently has speed on superspeedways and road courses at RCR, the team has generally been very lacking in short-track speed -- with Austin Dillon's grotesque win at Richmond serving as a rare exception. In his last five starts, Busch has only led five laps with a best finish of 20th, and he hasn't even run well, as his best average running position with this car is 19th. One would have to except Busch will figure out Bristol setups at some point and have another good run again, but until it actually happens, it's likely too big of a gamble to make.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
April 13, 2025
Despite only ranking 21st in points, Austin Cindric has looked consistently faster in 2025 than any previous season, so it's certainly plausible that he could get an unexpectedly strong result. However, the former road-course specialist has now steadily turned into a superspeedway specialist, and short tracks are not typically his specialty. He also qualified 21st for Sunday's race, far behind Ryan Blaney but well ahead of his other teammate Joey Logano. Cindric's best Bristol finish came in last year's night race when he finished 13th, but while he seems likely to have a regression to the mean after an unlucky season to date and a 50-point penalty, this seems far more likely to occur on a superspeedway than on any short track where he still lacks speed. He will probably finish around where he starts, and therefore has little DFS value.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
April 13, 2025
Short tracks have typically been Michael McDowell's Achilles heel throughout his career but he does seem to have figured something out at Bristol recently with the Next Gen chassis. Although he has still never led a lap here, he started 4th and finished 6th in the 2023 Bristol Night Race and ran in the top ten consistently. In his other three starts with this car, he has finished 11th with three top 15 average running positions. Now this time, he has qualified 13th. Although his two Spire Motorsports teammates Carson Hocevar and Justin Haley both outqualified him and Hocevar will likely outrun him, based on his recent history McDowell seems more likely to maintain his position than Haley. However, he's starting too well to earn many Place Differential points and likely won't be fast enough to lead or collect fastest laps, so he has little DFS value.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
April 13, 2025
Justin Haley qualified 10th at Bristol alongside his teammate Carson Hocevar, marking his best starting position ever at the track. This shouldn't come as a huge surprise as his Spire Motorsports cars are probably the fastest he has ever had here and Hocevar and Haley's predecessor Corey LaJoie both qualified in the top ten at the Bristol Night Race as well. Haley has improved his position in all three previous Bristol races in which he did not crash, but it's hard to conceive of him not sliding backward from 10th as he very rarely seems to have top ten speed anywhere, even though he did get a top ten at Homestead. It could help that Haley has crew chief Rodney Childers now who won two Bristol races with Kevin Harvick and Childers did lead 25 laps with Josh Berry last year, but it's hard not to see Haley sliding back to mid-pack as usual.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
April 13, 2025
Erik Jones used to be great at Bristol in his early years at Furniture Row Racing and Joe Gibbs Racing, when he earned four top fives and led 260 laps from the pole as a rookie in 2017 before finishing second. However, since moving to the No. 43 car (especially after the team name changed to Legacy Motor Club) he has had next to no speed on short tracks anywhere and he's never been more invisible. Even last week at his arguable best track at Darlington, he only improved from 34th to 17th. He qualified a little better at Bristol (28th) and starts alongside the usually much-faster Tyler Reddick, but the only other Toyota he outqualified was his teammate John Hunter Nemechek and the fact that Legacy Motor Club seems to get less Toyota factory support than JGR or 23XI Racing means it's hard to imagine either Legacy Motor Club driver getting a good finish.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
April 13, 2025
The Trackhouse Racing cars have had issues with speed on short tracks in recent years, and Saturday's Bristol qualifying session was no exception. Obviously a concrete oval is far out of Supercars veteran Shane van Gisbergen's wheelhouse, so it shouldn't be a surprise that the Kiwi rookie only qualified 36th. What might be more surprising is that he qualified right alongside his veteran teammate Ross Chastain. This suggests that maybe Trackhouse's slow cars were a bigger issue than his inexperience, but his inexperience does mean he won't be likely to provide good enough feedback on how to make the cars better. While Chastain will probably make his way into the top 15 at some point, SVG probably won't make much progress in the race at all and won't be worth DFS consideration, even at $5,800.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
April 13, 2025
Corey LaJoie qualified 37th at Bristol and was outqualified by his teammate Cody Ware. This is a mild surprise because for all the criticism he got recently, LaJoie did qualify in the top ten in two of the last three races at Bristol and led 52 laps, but obviously Rick Ware Racing is admittedly going to prioritize its chartered No. 51 car over the unchartered No. 01 car. In last year's Bristol Night Race, he was running 11th when he crashed out of his final race at Spire Motorsports, but the RWR cars aren't as fast. LaJoie did seem to crash somewhat less in his RWR starts than in his Spire starts, so if he does that he should probably gain some positions in the race and outfinish his teammate, but the Ware cars are slow enough it's hard to imagine he'll be worth enough Place Differential points to justify starting him on DFS.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
April 13, 2025
Perhaps surprisingly, Cody Ware has only ever started one race at the paved Bristol oval because carbon monoxide poisoning kept him out of the 2021 Bristol Night Race. Even more surprisingly, Ware got his best career finish on a non-drafting oval of 17th in the 2022 Bristol Night Race and only finished three laps down. He did significantly benefit from missing a 12-car crash early in Stage 3 and he seems to have regressed since then as has the team since they are only running one full-time car now. Although his 34th-place qualifying position wasn't completely dreadful and he shockingly outqualified Ross Chastain and Joey Logano while also outqualifying his teammate Corey LaJoie, he'll need a lot of attrition to have any hope of contending in today's event and recent history suggests that isn't likely.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
April 13, 2025
Josh Bilicki makes his first start of the 2025 season for Carl Long's Garage 66 team on Sunday at Bristol from the 39th and last starting position. He drove the No. 66 entry in last year's Bristol Night Race, where he finished 33 laps down in 34th. In four previous starts at Bristol, he has never finished better than 18 laps down, which is actually the second-most laps a Long driver has completed at the track. Since Bilicki is driving a car that could only ever get a good finish on a drafting track, and his own experience is primarily that of a road racer, it should come as no surprise that he has his worst average finish on short tracks (34.0). Even though Bilicki's salary on DraftKings DFS is the lowest at $5,000, he still isn't worth considering for DFS lineups.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
April
13,
2025
For
the
second
straight
time
at
Bristol
Motor
Speedway,
Alex
Bowman
will
lead
the
field
to
the
green.
The
driver
of
the
No.
48
Chevrolet
for
Hendrick
Motorsports
turned
a
lap
of
128.675
mph
(14.912
second)
during
qualifying
on
Saturday
afternoon,
read more...
April
12,
2025
Denny
Hamlin
has
won
back-to-back
NASCAR
Cup
Series
races,
and
it
wouldn't
be
all
that
surprising
to
see
him
walk
away
with
a
third-straight
victory
this
weekend
in
the
Food
City
500
on
Sunday.
Bristol
Motor
Speedway
has
been
a
great
read more...
April 12, 2025
It's been quite a season of unfortunate happenings for Ryan Blaney in 2025, but eventually the bad luck should go away and he should start getting the finishes he deserves. The same has been true at Bristol Motor Speedway throughout Blaney's Cup Series career, as the Team Penske driver has led a bunch of laps here (507 to be exact) but has just two top-five results to show for it. Could he add a third this weekend, or maybe even a win? Blaney qualified fifth for this weekend's Food City 500 and the falloff of his lap times over the course of a long run in practice were above average. Blaney should be a top-five contender on Sunday--if (and it's a big if) nothing goes wrong. At $10,500 on DraftKings, he makes for an interesting pivot play off of some of the higher-priced drivers on the slate.
--Jordan McAbeeSource: DraftKings Network
April 12, 2025
Look for Christopher Bell to be a contender at Bristol Motor Speedway this weekend. In the Next Gen era, Bell has the best average driver rating (122.4), best Average Running Position (4.4), and he has average 89.8 laps led per race since the introduction of his new car. In those four races, Bell has yet to finish worse than 10th, and in three of the events he came home in the top five. This weekend, the No. 20 Toyota will roll off the starting grid from seventh-place. In practice, Bell was a little slow out of the gate, but his lap times steadily improved over the course of the long run--which will be key to success on race day. On DraftKings, Bell is priced at $10,200 for this weekend's race. He makes for a very interesting and strong pivot option in tournaments, especially off of the drivers that should have significantly higher ownership percentages (such as Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson).
--Jordan McAbeeSource: Driver Averages
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