The Xfinity Series will do something they have never done before… The series “Where names are made” will make the trip to wine country for a race at Sonoma. This will be the second race in a row in the Pacific Northwest for the Xfinity Series and the second consecutive race on a road course. The field is absolutely stacked, so this should be one of the best races in 2023 to build a DraftKings lineup in. The DoorDash 250 can be seen Saturday at 8 p.m. ET on FS1.
XFINITY SERIES PRACTICE / QUALIFYING
The Xfinity Series was scheduled to have 50-minute practice Friday so the drivers could learn the track. They actually had about 35 minutes of practice because of red flags for wrecks. Some of the teams were able to make some long runs, so now we have an idea of which teams unloaded with some speed this week.
Here are the practice speeds for the DoorDash 250 at Sonoma…
XFINITY SERIES STATS ON ROAD COURSES
The Xfinity Series competes on more road courses than the other series. They have already run road course races at COTA and Portland this year. We can use that data and the data from the road course races last year to help predict which drivers will run up front Saturday night.
Here are the average DraftKings points for the drivers on the road courses in 2022 and 2023…
STRATEGY FOR SONOMA
The race Saturday is scheduled for 70 laps (176.4 miles). That means there are only 17.5 points available for leading laps and 31.5 points available for fastest laps (49 total dominator points). We do not have any data to work with to help predict how many dominator points each driver will score Saturday night. Based on the other road course races, one driver should lead 35% of the laps (24) and score 12 fastest laps (11.4 dominator points). Another driver should lead 25% of the laps (18) and score 10 fastest laps (9 dominator points). I will be paying up for the top drivers this week because this field is so deep that we can pair them with some good value picks in our lineups.
The drivers with the best chance to be the top dominators include Kyle Larson, AJ Allmendinger, Sheldon Creed and Justin Allgaier
The drivers who start in the back with the best chance to score place differential points include: Cole Custer, Ross Chastain, Brandon Jones, Riley Herbst, Daniel Suarez, Anthony Alfredo, Conner Mosak, Josh Bilicki, Chandler Smith, Ty Dillon, Ryan Sieg, and Kaz Grala
DRIVER RANKINGS FOR SONOMA
* So how good has Kyle Larson been this weekend in the Xfinity Series? He was 1.2 seconds faster than everyone and he was nearly one second faster than the field in qualifying. AJ Allmendinger said, “Larson is on another planet.” Michael Waltrip said, “The performance by Larson this week has been the most dominant we have seen from a driver heading into a race for a long time.” It is going to be tough to fade Larson tonight.
DRAFTKINGS CASH CONTEST LINEUP
DRAFTKINGS TOURNAMENT CONTEST LINEUP
DRIVER GROUP GAME PICKS
Here are the drivers I will use for the DoorDash 250 …
Good Luck Saturday!
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