The NASCAR Xfinity Series will join the Cup Series on the street course in Chicago today. The Xfinity Series typically puts on a good show at the road courses, but this 4th of July weekend may have some fireworks. Shane van Gisbergen is back in the Xfinity Series. He will drive the No. 9 car for Junior Motorsports. Daniel Suarez drove the No. 9 car to Victory Lane in Mexico. It is going to be tough to keep SVG from doing burnouts and kicking the rugby ball (or “the footy” as it is called in New Zealand) into the stands today. The Loop 110 can be seen Saturday at 4:30 p.m. ET on CW Channel.
DRAFTKINGS STATS FOR CHICAGO
The Xfinity Series is used to racing on the road courses. This series typically races on five road course tracks each year. This year the Xfinity Series has seven road course tracks on their schedule. That means we have a lot of data to work with to predict which drivers will run up front today. I am using the data from the two races on the street course in Chicago and the data from the last five road course races to handicap this race. I will use the chart below and the speeds from practice to make the picks for the Loop 110.
Here are the stats from the two races at Chicago and the last five road course races, sorted by DraftKings Points….
PRACTICE / QUALIFYING
The Chicago Street Course is still a pretty new track for the Xfinity Series so NASCAR gave the teams 50-minutes to shake down their cars for today’s race. Most of the teams made a 5-6 laps in practice and then came in to make some adjustments. The cars then lined up from group qualifying to set the field for the Loop 110. The cars were impounded after qualifying, so any changes to the cars will force the drivers to start in the back for today’s race. We should be able to learn a bit from the single-lap and five-lap average speeds in practice.
Here are the speeds from Saturday morning’s practice on the Chicago Street Course…
CONNOR ZILISCH spun out in practice and damaged his car. Zilisch did not make a qualifying lap, so he will start from the back. He has a great chance to be the top place differential driver in the field.
JUSTIN ALLGAIER said he was only going to run 75% in practice because he did not want to take a chance at hitting the wall and going to a backup car.
TAYLOR GRAY wrecked in practice so the No. 54 car will start in the back today. Gray finished 7th at COTA and 2nd in Mexico. He should be a great pick today.
CHRISTIAN ESCKES wrecked in practice so his team went to a backup car. Eckes will start in the back. He has had some success on the road courses, so he should be a good pick today.
STRATEGY FOR CHICAGO
The race today is scheduled for 50 laps (110 miles). That means there are 12.5 points available for leading laps and 22.5 points available for fastest laps (35 dominator points). The trend in the first two street course races in Chicago is for one driver to lead roughly 14 laps and score 8 fastest laps (7.1 dominator points). Another driver leads roughly 14 laps and scores 4 fastest laps (5.3 dominator points). A third driver leads roughly 12 laps and scores 6 fastest laps (5.7 dominator points). There is a great chance that the dominator points will be split between Shane van Gisbergen and Connor Zilisch so I expect this to be more of a two dominator race.
We need to decide what to do with Shane van Gisbergen and Connor Zilisch today. Do we play SVG and five mid-tier drivers? Do we take the $1,000 discount with Zilisch and play a more balanced lineup or do we play both SVG and Zilisch in a “stars and scrubs” lineup? I plan to play a lot of the three entry tournaments with each combination of lineups listed above.
DRIVER RANKINGS FOR CHICAGO
DRAFTKINGS SVG LINEUP
*This lineup is best for Cash Contests.
DRAFTKINGS CONNOR ZILISCH LINEUP
DRAFTKINGS SVG + ZILISCH LINEUP
Good Luck This Evening!
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