Sonoma DraftKings NASCAR Picks, Projections, & Strategy Breakdown

The third road course race of the season is this weekend at Sonoma Raceway and we finally get a “normal” road course race. I use this term because before NASCAR started adding the rovals to the schedule, we had two road courses: Sonoma and Watkins Glen. And they were pretty easy to predict. This weekend, the Cup Series is back at Sonoma for the first time since the 2019 season, and Martin Truex, Jr. has won the last two races here. He starts 19th this weekend while road course king, Chase Elliott, starts 2nd alongside his teammate, Kyle Larson. You can check out the full starting lineup by clicking here. Also be sure to check out my other Sonoma articles this weekend: FanDuel (click here–lots of crossover) and Algorithm Predicted Finishing Order (click here).

LIVE STREAM REMINDER: I will be joining Brandon Cruz on race day to break down this slate and strategy for DraftKings lineups. It will be at approx. 1pm ET on Sunday. Click here for the link to watch it when we go live. Now let’s goooo!!!!

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Road Course Speed Report & Loop Data Driver Averages

To put it nicely, the two road course races this season have been shit shows. So I’m just going to throw up the driver average charts and statistics that I had for the Daytona Road Course DraftKings article earlier this season and call it a day. As mentioned in that article, “Road courses haven’t been plentiful on the Cup Series schedule in prior years, so we’re really dealing with some limited data for this race. Looking at the past two full seasons, there are only five road course races that we can analyze: one race here at the Daytona Road Course in 2020, two races at the Charlotte ROVAL (2019 and 2020), and then a race at Sonoma and a race at Watkins Glen, both held in 2019.”

Here are the top 5 drivers in terms of Driver Rating over those five road course races:

1. Chase Elliott (129.76 average driver rating)
2. Martin Truex, Jr. (121.60 average driver rating)
3. William Byron (99.48 average driver rating)
4. Kevin Harvick (96.98 average driver rating)
5. Denny Hamlin (94.94 average driver rating)

The number of laps led over that same time span are, as expected, the exact same order:

1. Chase Elliott (179 laps led)
2. Martin Truex, Jr. (71 laps led)
3. William Byron (71 laps led)
4. Kevin Harvick (34 laps led)
5. Denny Hamlin (20 laps led)

And when it comes to fastest laps, the gap between the top cars and the rest of the field widens even more:

1. Chase Elliott (99 fastest laps)
2. Martin Truex, Jr. (70 fastest laps)
3. William Byron (31 fastest laps)
4. Ryan Blaney (28 fastest laps)
5. Kyle Busch (19 fastest laps)

And of course, the ever valuable Green Flag Speed. Below you will find the top 5 drivers in term of average rank in green flag speed over the last five road course races.

1. Martin Truex, Jr. (3.0 average rank)
2. Chase Elliott (4.6 average rank)
3. Cole Custer (6.5 average rank) **only two races**
4. Kevin Harvick (8.2 average rank)
5. William Byron (9.0 average rank)

DraftKings Strategy & Dominators for Sonoma

Sonoma is a road course race, which means there aren’t many laps scheduled (90 to be exact). That puts a greater emphasis on place differential and finishing position for Sunday’s event, but you obviously have to take into account some dominator points as well. Track position is also huge at road course races, so I wouldn’t recommend focusing super heavy on place differential, instead sprinkling in top 10/15 starters that have a shot at a top 5 finish, too.

• There are 90 laps scheduled for Sunday’s Toyota / Save Mart 350, which means there are just 22.5 DraftKings FPTS up for grabs for laps led. Additionally, you can expect right around 75-80 green flag laps, giving us an additional 33.75 (approximately) DraftKings FPTS up for grabs for fastest laps.
• Again, don’t get too hung up on place differential. Yes, there is a lot of chalk this week, but taking down a tournament is likely going to come down to pivoting off that chalk. See my analysis below as to how you can pivot off of Martin Truex, Jr. this weekend and have a top 5 starting driver outscore him, even if Truex finishes 5th.

Dominators

These are the potential dominators for Sunday’s race at Sonoma, and are listed in the order of likelihood according to my projections:

• Chase Elliott
• Kyle Larson
• Kyle Busch
• Martin Truex, Jr.
• William Byron
• Denny Hamlin
• Kevin Harvick

Some “surprise” dominators that could happen on Sunday include: Christopher Bell, Tyler Reddick, and Alex Bowman.

Driver-by-Driver Breakdown Video

Now for the video breakdown! Be sure to go here and subscribe to my YouTube channel if you haven’t already.

Optimal Lineup According to Jordan’s Projections

The optimal DraftKings lineup for Sonoma according to my Projections is:

• Martin Truex, Jr.
• Kurt Busch
• Christopher Bell
• Cole Custer
• Chris Buescher
• Chase Briscoe

Confidence Rating = 8.5/10. This is the ultimate cash play lineup, as you’re just banking on place differential from some of the top road course racers in the series. I really like this as a base lineup to use, though, and then just make one or two adjustments for tournaments. The top Chase Elliott lineup according to my projections is: Elliott, Kurt Busch, Bell, Custer, Buescher, and Jones. When it comes to an Elliott/Truex combo lineup, the top projected without a back marker in it is: Elliott, Truex, Custer, Buescher, Briscoe, Jones.

GPP / Tournament Picks

Going Underweight on Martin Truex, Jr. ($10,900) – I’ve said it in the past and I’ll re-iterate again: I hate paying up for place differential. Is Martin Truex, Jr. an excellent road course racer? Yes. Could he win this race? Absolutely. Is it a guarantee? No. As you can see with my projections below, I have Truex as the highest-scoring driver on the slate this weekend. But he’s also projected to be the highest-owned. So strategy-wise, I like being underweight on Truex in big tournaments and fading him in some Single Entry contests as well. This play all just comes down to game theory and trying to get an advantage on the rest of the DFS field. If Truex finishes 5th on Sunday with no dominator points, he scores 53 DraftKings FPTS. If Kyle Busch finishes 2nd with with 10 dominator points, he’s at 55 DraftKings FPTS. So where my contrarian brain goes here is roll with a pivot over the chalky Truex in these top-loaded tournaments, because, as Ricky Bobby would say, “if you ain’t first, you’re last.”

Kevin Harvick ($8,900) – If you read my Best Bets article for this weekend (click here), you know that Kevin Harvick has been on my radar since mid-week. This weekend on DraftKings, Harvick is priced right below the mega chalk Kurt Busch ($9,100), which screams “pivot option” to me. Harvick is a strong road course racer and his crew chief, Rodney Childers, is one of the best strategy callers in the series. Additionally, this duo won here at Sonoma in 2017 and have five straight finishes of 6th or better at this track. Harvick starts 8th and has legitimate top 5, if not top 3, potential on Sunday. I love that play at $8,900 on DraftKings.

Cole Custer ($7,500) – Don’t sleep on Cole Custer this weekend. He’s actually shown surprising speed in a couple road courses races thus far in his young Cup Series career, but he has yet to really get that great finish that gets people talking about him. Custer did finish 9th at the Charlotte ROVAL last year and 13th at the Daytona Road Course this season, and this weekend at Sonoma he’s going to start from back in 23rd so there’s plenty of place differential potential there. Also, pricing-wise, he’s right there with chalk Ross Chastain ($7,700) and Michael McDowell ($7,600). I’ll take that pivot to Custer in tournaments for sure.

BONUS TOURNAMENT PICK = Erik Jones ($7,000). In case you missed my Algorithm Predicted Finishing Order post, click here to check that out. I have a full paragraph on my thoughts about Erik Jones this weekend.

Cash Core Drivers

Kurt Busch ($9,100) – You could apply the same strategy that I mentioned with Martin Truex, Jr. above to Kurt Busch this weekend, but the biggest difference here is that Kurt comes at a $1,800 discount and starts 11 positions worse than Truex in 30th. My projections have Kurt at an estimated finish of 13th, which would obviously give him one of the highest scores on the slate this Sunday, especially if he’s able to crack the top 10. Busch is a very strong road course racer and in addition to finishing 4th at the Daytona Road Course earlier this year, Kurt also hasn’t finished worse than 13th at Sonoma since the 2010 season. Bad luck can only haunt a team for so long; at a track where driver talent comes more into play than usual, Kurt Busch is a very solid cash play in DraftKings this weekend.

Christopher Bell ($8,400) – My projections love Christopher Bell this weekend, estimating an average of 43.23 DraftKings FPTS with just an average finish of 11.7 on Sunday. That alone makes him one of the best values on the slate since his salary is only $8,400 on DraftKings. Obviously, though, Christopher Bell has much higher potential than an 11th or 12th-place finish. Bell won the Daytona Road Course race earlier this season and going back to when we actually raced at Sonoma a couple of years ago, Joe Gibbs Racing had a significant advantage over everyone else at this track. I’ve seen nothing to say that that won’t be the case here on Sunday as well. Gibbs cars ranked 1-2-3 in Green Flag Speed in both the Busch Clash race and the Daytona Road Course “actual” race this season.

Chase Briscoe ($6,900) – The driver of the #14 Ford comes in at a very nice price of $6,900 on DraftKings this weekend, and even though my projections aren’t in love with Briscoe for Sunday, I’m rolling with him in cash and not thinking twice about it. Briscoe is a very good road course racer, and if you need any proof of that, just go back to the Daytona Road Course earlier this year when he was running inside the top 15 and even the top 10 with no power steering. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if Chase cracked the top 10 this weekend.

Sonoma Toyota / Save Mart 350 DraftKings Driver Projections

The following chart takes into account the very basics: the starting position and the projected finish of each driver. The projected finishes are averaged from six different ranking systems. Also factored in are projected laps led and fastest laps for each driver. You can click the headers below to sort the chart by that attribute. By default it is sorted by average projected FPTS.