The O’Reilly Series returns after a week off to race at Pocono Raceway this weekend. The O’Reilly Series has produced some of the best racing in 2026 and I expect that trend to continue in the Pocono Mountains. The field is not stacked, but it is pretty good. William Byron drops down from the Cup Series to drive the No. 88 car for Junior Motorsports. Cole Custer returns to the O’Reilly Series in the No. 0 car for SS Green Light Racing. Connor Zilisch is not having any success in the Cup Series, so maybe his confidence can get a boost as he drives the No. 1 car for Junior Motorsports. It is a decent field, so this should be a good race for our DraftKings lineups. The Miller Tech Lithium Batteries 250 can be seen Saturday at 5 p.m. ET on CW Channel.
FANTASY STATS FOR POCONO
Pocono Raceway is a 2.5-mile, flat, triangle-shaped track. The three corners are completely different, so a team that hits the setup in one corner may be completely off in another corner. Finding the perfect balance for the car to turn in each corner is the secret to success at Pocono.
The best way to handicap the race at Pocono Raceway is to look at the results from the previous races at Pocono and the races on the large intermediate tracks this year. The drivers who have a history of running well at the Tricky Triangle and have been fast on the large intermediate tracks this year should run up front Saturday evening.
Here are the stats from the races on the intermediate tracks this year and the stats from the previous three races at Pocono Raceway, sorted by DraftKings Points….
PRACTICE / QUALIFYING
The O’Reilly Series had their normal practice session this week. The teams had 50-minutes to dial in their cars for the race this evening. Pocono is a large 2.5-mile track so most of the teams did not have time to make a long-run in practice. We will have to focus our picks on the single-lap speeds and qualifying position this morning. Nine of the top-10 finishing drivers at Pocono last year started in the top-11 in 2024. So track position is important in this race. The results were similar in 2023 and 2022 too. Last year, there was a bit more chaos, so place differential came into play a bit more.
Here are the O’Reilly Series practice speeds at Pocono Raceway….
DRIVER RANKINGS FOR POCONO
STRATEGY FOR POCONO
The race Saturday is scheduled for 100 laps (250 miles). That means there are 25 points available for leading laps and 45 points available for fastest laps (70 dominator points). The trend in the last three races at Pocono is for three dominators in the race. The main dominator leads roughly 30 laps and scores 12 fastest laps (12.9 dominator points). The second dominator leads roughly 20 laps and scores 12 fastest laps (15.5 dominator points). The third dominator leads 16 laps and scores 8 fastest laps (7.6 dominator points). I plan to have at least one driver who can dominate the race in my lineup. I will focus on finishing position and place differential points with my other drivers since the race is only 100 laps long. I doubt that we are going to get four dominators in this evening’s race.
WINNING LINEUPS AT POCONO (2024-2025)
The six drivers that were in the winning lineup at Pocono last year were different from the six drivers that were in the winning lineup in 2024. The race at Pocono comes down to momentum. The drivers have to keep the petal to the metal or these will lose their momentum and fall back in the pack. It is the same type of racing that we have at Atlanta and Daytona. This explains the randomness of the drivers showing up in the winning lineup.
I know I wrote above in the “Practice/Qualifying” session that track position is important at Pocono, but place differential is the key to winning your DraftKings Contest this week. Positions 8-20 seems to be the sweet spot for the drivers in the winning lineups.
Both lineups spent $49,800. I am not sure if this is a trend we can trust, but it does tell us that we need to spend most of the salary this weekend.
DRAFTKINGS CASH LINEUP
DRAFTKINGS TOURNAMENT LINEUP
Good Luck Saturday!
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