The Xfinity Series will join the Cup Series at Watkins Glen this weekend. The Truck Series already started their playoffs and the Cup Series playoffs begin in a few weeks. That is not the case for the Xfinity Series.”The Series Where Names are Made” still have five races before their playoffs begin at the end of September. There is still time for these drivers to secure their spot in the playoffs and it will be fun to see how these final races play out. The Sunoco Go Rewards 200 can be seen Saturday 3 p.m. ET on USA Network.
The race is absolutely stacked this week. It will be fun to watch the “race inside the race.” Who will win? The Xfinity Series or the Cup Series Saturday? AJ Allmendinger, Ty Gibbs, Justin Allgaier, Noah Gragson and Austin Hill have the best cars from the Xfinity Series regulars, while Kyle Larson, William Byron, Ross Chastain and Cole Custer all have fast cars from the Cup Series. There will be many good choices for our DraftKings lineups today.
XFINITY SERIES PRACTICE RESULTS
The Xfinity Series had their regular practice schedule this week (Don’t get me started on how it sucks that most people could not see it). The teams had 20 minutes to dial in their cars for the race. Watkins Glen is a 2.45-mile road course so the teams did not have time to make many long runs in practice. The driver’s qualifying position will tell more about the driver’s speed because there was a lot of traffic on the track in practice that slowed down some of the cars. It still doesn’t hurt to look at the driver’s practice speed.
Here are the lap times from the practice Saturday at Watkins Glen…
AVERAGE DFS POINTS ON ROAD COURSES (2022)
The Xfinity Series has competed in four road courses races this year. Many of the Cup Series drivers who will be competing in the race today competed in at least one of the four road courses races this year. It is a good idea to look at how the drivers performed on the road courses this year before setting your DraftKings lineup. These tracks include COTA, Portland, Road America and the Indy Road Course.
Here are the average DraftKings points on the road courses in 2022…
STRATEGY FOR WATKINS GLEN
The race at the Watkins Glen is scheduled for 82 laps (200 miles). That means there are 20.5 points available for laps led and 36.9 points available for fastest laps (57.4 dominator points).
The trend in the Xfinity Series races at Watkins Glen is for one driver to lead 42 laps and be the main dominator in the race. There are typical two other drivers who lead 24 and 10 laps in the race. That is not enough dominator points to chase this week. My strategy will be to try and select at least five drivers who have a good chance to finish in the top-12 today.
The class of the field includes AJ Allmendinger, Kyle Larson, William Byron, Ty Gibbs, Ross Chastain, Cole Custer, Justin Allgaier, Noah Gragson and Austin Hill. I want as many of these drivers in my lineup as possible. There are some cheap drivers who are good on the road courses who we can pair with the studs listed above. These drivers include Alex Labbe, Kaz Grala, Preston Pardus and Parker Gallagher.
DRIVER RANKINGS FOR WATKINS GLEN
CORE DRIVERS FOR WATKINS GLEN
TOP-TIER DRIVERS: AJ Allmendinger ($10,500), Ty Gibbs ($10,200), William Byron ($10,100), Ross Chastain ($9,900), Cole Custer ($9,800), Austin Hill ($9,600), Justin Allgaier ($9,400), Noah Gragson ($9,200)
VALUE DRIVERS: Josh Berry ($8,800), Sheldon Creed ($8,600), Brandon Jones ($8,400), Riley Herbst ($8,000), Sammy Smith ($7,600), Myatt Snider ($7,300), Andy Lally ($7,200), Alex Labbe ($7,100), Kaz Grala ($6,800), Ryan Sieg ($6,600), Preston Pardus ($6,100)
PUNT PLAYS: Josh Bilicki ($5,900), Brandon Brown ($5,800), Parker Gallagher ($5,500), Stefon Parsons ($5,200), Kris Wright ($4,800), Brad Perez ($4,500)
DRAFTKINGS CASH CONTEST LINEUP
DRAFTKINGS TOURNAMENT CONTEST LINEUP
Good Luck Saturday!
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