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
April 12, 2025
Chris Buescher ($8,300 on DraftKings this weekend) should be a strong DFS play for Sunday's Food City 500 race. The Roush-Fenway Keselowski Racing driver has been one of the best in the Next Gen era at this track, with a win and three top-10 finishes over the four races that the Cup Series has ran here with this car. His only "bad" race was a 14th-place effort last fall. As far as this weekend goes Buescher qualified back in 24th for Sunday's race, but that 's pretty normal for him considering his average starting position in the Next Gen era is 22.75. That means Place Differential points on DraftKings, and Buescher has been one of the best at that here at Bristol. Look for the No. 17 Ford to be in contention for yet another top-10 finish this weekend. Buescher is currently tied for the series lead with five top-10 results through the first eight races of the season.
--Jordan McAbeeSource: ifantasyrace
April 12, 2025
After back-to-back bad finishes at Martinsville and Darlington, plenty of people may be overlooking Josh Berry this weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway, but that's not the smart thing to do. In the spring Bristol race last season, Berry started second and finished 12th (leading 25 laps along the way) while driving for Stewart-Haas Racing, and now he (arguably) has some better equipment to work with in the No. 21 Ford for Wood Brothers Racing. This weekend, Berry qualified 11th and ranked 14th-best in practice when it came to 25-lap average. In terms of single-lap speed, the No. 21 Ford ranked 36th out of 39 cars, but that slow time could have been due to traffic on the race track during Josh's opening laps. On DraftKings this weekend, Berry is priced at $7,700 and is a somewhat-risky tournament play. With his upside, he makes a decent pivot in his price range off of some of the more popular drivers this weekend.
--Jordan McAbeeSource: Jayski
April 12, 2025
If you have high expectations for Daniel Suarez at Bristol Motor Speedway this weekend, you should probably temper those expectations. Although he did have a few good runs here in Thunder Valley early on in his career, Suarez hasn't been able to do much at all at Bristol since the 2019 season. In his last seven starts at this track, Suarez hasn't finished better than 18th, and his best driver rating over that span is an abysmal 54.8. This weekend, the No. 99 Chevrolet struggled in practice, and Suarez was visibly one of the worst cars on the long run during the session. He ended up qualifying 23rd for Sunday's Food City 500. Although there is room for positive Place Differential, the likelihood of Suarez pulling off a better-than-normal finish is quite low. You should still have some exposure to him priced at $6,800 on DraftKings and starting 23rd, but it should be relatively minimal.
--Jordan McAbeeSource: Driver Averages
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