The NASCAR Cup Series will compete on a road course for the third time this season when they travel across the country to Sonoma Raceway. This is a unique race track because of the changes in elevation and the way the track wears out tires. The Cup Series will run the carousel this week, so that will make the track even more technical. It should be fun to watch. The Toyota Save Mart 350 can be seen Sunday at 4 p.m. ET on FS1.
Austin Dillon was my One & Done pick for Charlotte. Picking the No. 3 car for the Coca-Cola 600 worked out well. Dillon spent the entire night in the top-10 and finished 6th. It was his second-best finish of the season (Dillon finished 3rd in the Daytona 500). Overall, it was a good race for the One & Done game.
My One & Done Pick for Sonoma: Daniel Suarez
Sonoma is one of the toughest tracks to figure out which driver to use in the One & Done game. The races at this track have been dominated by Martin Truex Jr., Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin and Kevin Harvick, but do we really want to use one of these drivers in a race were fuel-mileage determines the winner? I will save my top drivers and take a chance with a road course specialist.
Daniel Suarez will be my One & Done pick. I want a driver who has some experience at Sonoma and a driver who has good road course skills. Suarez checks both boxes. He has a 16th-place average finishing position at Sonoma and he finished 16th at the Daytona Road Course in February. He crashed at COTA, but that race was the “Circus” of the Americas so I am not considering the data from that race for the picks this week. Suarez should be able to post a top-15 finish this week.
Erik Jones will be my pick in games where I can use a driver more than once throughout the season. Jones was very good at Sonoma when he drove for Joe Gibbs Racing. He finished 7th and 8th in his last two races at the track. The switch to Richard Petty Motorsports should not slow Jones down too much. He was able to finish 14th in the Daytona Road Course race. Jones should finish in the top-15 Sunday.
Good luck this week!
Follow me on Twitter @MrFantasyNASCAR