The NASCAR Cup Series will travel to Sonoma Raceway this weekend for their second road course race in the 2023 season (COTA was the first). Some of the drivers say that Sonoma races like a short track (the Martinsville of road course tracks), while Watkins Glen is the Talladega of the road courses. The Toyota /Save Mart 350 typically comes down to fuel strategy. That brings more drivers into play Sunday. It is still a good idea to play the best road course drivers in the race Sunday.
The Fantasy Live picks had a lot of bad luck in the Coca-Cola 600, but they bounced nicely last week in St. Louis. The picks are now outscoring 99% of the players on the nascar.com site. We need the picks to heat up over the summer so we can win our leagues once again.
STRATEGY FOR SONOMA
I have been busy using most of my top drivers in the Fantasy Live lineups. Now we have reached the portion of the schedule when we need to take a break from Kyle Larson, William Byron and Denny Hamlin and take a chance with some of the drivers that we have a lot of allocations with. This is a good race to post another top score in the Fantasy Live game.
CUP SERIES PRACTICE SPEEDS
The Cup Series had a 20 minute practice session for the teams to shake down their cars for Sunday’s race. That is not enough time for teams to make any long runs o a 2.52-mile road course track. There is also a lot of traffic during practice that could slow down a driver who is on a hot lap. The practice speeds typically do not translate into race speed at Sonoma, but it never hurts to check it out.
FANTASY LIVE LINEUP FOR SONOMA
TYLER REDDICK (5): The No. 45 car was clearly the class of the field at COTA. Reddick led 41 of the 77 laps on his way to Victory Lane. He has now won three of the last five road course races. Reddick looks fast again this weekend. The No. 45 car posted the fourth-fastest speed in practice and qualified second for the race. I will use another allocation with Reddick Sunday.
MARTIN TRUEX JR. (7): Truex used to be one of the best road course drivers when he had Cole Pearn as his crew chief. He hasn’t be great the last two seasons, but it looks like the No. 19 team hit on a setup this week. Truex posted the second-fastest speed in practice and qualified eighth for the race. Truex should run up front, score a lot of Stage Points and have a good chance for a top-five finish at Sonoma.
CHASE ELLIOTT (7): Elliott is currently 98 points below the cut line for making the playoffs. He needs a win to take the pressure off his team over the summer. His best tracks are the road courses. He has never won at Sonoma, but he has been really close. Elliott has the best Driver Ranking, best Average Running Position and an Average Finishing Position of sixth since 2019 at Sonoma. He should be fired up after his return from his suspension.
CHRIS BUESCHER (10): Buescher finished second in this race last year and he has been one of the most consistent drivers on the road courses over the last year. Buescher has finished the last six road course races in the top-10, with an average finishing position of 6.8. The No. 17 car should run up front, score a lot of Stage Points and have a great chance to finish in the top-10 Sunday.
MICHAEL MCDOWELL (10): McDowell finished third in this race last year. He has been good on the road courses in his career and the No. 34 team showed that they are not afraid to gamble with pit strategy to win a race. The team took two tires on almost every stop last week to get McDowell track position. The race Sunday is going to be a strategy race and McDowell has the talent to get to Victory Lane. He just needs some luck with his pit strategy.
(GARAGE PICK) AJ ALLMENDINGER (9): Every year Allmendinger looks awesome in practice and qualifies up front. I get suckered into playing him and he looks great through the first Stage. He then blows an engine in Stage 2 and finishes 30th. I then tell myself, “Never again will I play Allmendinger at Sonoma.” Well, guess what… I am playing him again this week. I guess I am a glutton for pinushment, but I will only have him in the Garage. If you want to play it safe, use Denny Hamin. I need to save the allocation with the No. 11 car, so Allmendinger gets the spot.
Good luck and be sure to follow me on Twitter @MrFantasyNASCAR. I will send out a Tweet during the race to let you know if I plan to swap out one of my drivers for my Garage pick.