Watkins Glen DraftKings NASCAR Picks, Projections, & Strategy Breakdown

We’re back, boys and girls! After the two weeks off due to the Olympics, the NASCAR Cup Series is back with the Go Bowling at The Glen on Sunday. Watkins Glen is a 2.45-mile road course, which means we’re going to see the drivers turn left and right on Sunday afternoon, but only for 90 laps. Road course races are quick events where a lot can change in the course of one lap, and nailing a great lineup in DraftKings takes a specific strategy. More on that later.

Make sure you check out this week’s episode of the Stacking Dennys podcast featuring RotoDoc and myself. We talked about Watkins Glen and our thoughts on it for quite a while. Click here to tune in. And finally, make sure you read my FanDuel article for this race as well (click here), as there is often quite a bit of similarities between the two DFS sites. Now let’s goooo!!!!

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Speed Report & Loop Data Driver Averages

We’re focusing on road course tracks this weekend. So far in 2021, we have raced at the Daytona Road Course, COTA, Sonoma, and Road America. Below you will find Driver Averages for those four races, as well as a second table that takes COTA out of the equation since it was such a shit show. The following statistics are included in these tables:

• Starts
• Finish
• ARP = average running position
• DR = driver rating
• FL = fastest laps (total)
• LL = laps led (total)
• T15 = laps ran inside top 15 (total)
• Total Laps = laps completed (total)

2021 Driver Averages At Road Courses

2021 Driver Averages At Road Courses (Minus COTA)

DraftKings Strategy & Dominators for Watkins Glen

Watkins Glen is a road course, which means we’re focusing mainly on place differential and finishing position for this race. Yes, there are going to be some dominator points, but with only 90 laps, it’s well below the usual.

• Make sure you look back at the other “traditional” road courses when analyzing data for Watkins Glen. This includes previous Glen races, as well as Sonoma races, and this year’s Road America race. The next tier of data to look at would be at the rovals, but I would slightly devalue it compared to “traditional” road course data (although it’s still a strong data set to use). You can go ahead and throw this year’s COTA data in the trash.
• Again, there are only 90 laps scheduled for Sunday’s Go Bowling at The Glen, so there aren’t going to be too many dominator points. We should focus mainly on finishing position and place differential. For laps led, there will be 22.5 DraftKings FPTS available and then for fastest laps, there will be approximately 31.5 DraftKings FPTS, as I’m expecting around 70 green flag laps.

Dominators

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

• Chase Elliott
• Kyle Larson
• Brad Keselowski
• Joey Logano
• Christopher Bell
• Martin Truex, Jr.

Some “surprise” dominators that could happen on Sunday include: Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch, and Ryan Blaney.

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 Watkins Glen according to my Projections is:

• Chase Elliott
• Kyle Larson
• Chase Briscoe
• Chris Buescher
• Erik Jones
• Austin Dillon

Confidence Rating = 7.9/10. I always get a little concerned when Erik Jones ends up in the optimal projected lineup because, well, it’s Erik Jones. But he was always strong here at Watkins Glen in Furniture Row and Joe Gibbs equipment, and he’s been respectable on the road courses this season in his Richard Petty Motorsports Chevrolet, with finishes of 14th, 16th, 11th, and 19th in the four races thus far.

GPP / Tournament Picks

Kyle Larson ($10,200) – Honestly, I almost wrote Kyle Larson up as a cash lineup play this weekend because my projections have him so high for Sunday’s Go Bowling at The Glen. I’ll have a ton of Larson exposure on Sunday for sure, and here’s why: this #5 Chevrolet could be the lone dominator of the race on Sunday, or if this is a two-dominator race, it’ll likely come down to Larson and Chase Elliott. Watkins Glen was the best road course on the schedule for Larson when he was with Ganassi, and now he has the best road course equipment in the garage. When it comes to dominator points on road courses this season, Larson is the only one that is even somewhat close to Chase Elliott.

Christopher Bell ($8,800) – This may be a “no brainer” tournament play, but then again, we’ve seen it happen many times this year where an obvious tournament play gets completely overlooked. Christopher Bell is one of the best road course racers in the series when he doesn’t run in to issues, and in addition to winning the Daytona Road Course race earlier this year, he also finished 2nd at Road America last month. As far as this #20 Toyota goes, Erik Jones grabbed top 5 finishes in both years he ran it here at Watkins Glen, and CBell is significantly better than Erik Jones at this track type. He starts 7th, so it’s risky, but Bell could challenge for the win on Sunday.

Ross Chastain ($8,100) – Ross Chastain has two career Watkins Glen Cup Series starts and they ended with finishes of 27th and 32nd. Sounds awful, right? Well, when you consider that he was in Premium Motorsports equipment, those finishes are actually pretty damn good. This season while in the #42 Chevrolet for Chip Ganassi Racing, Chastain has finished 7th or better in three of the four road course races. I love this play here at $8,100 for a driver starting 12th that has top 8 finishing potential.

Cash Core Drivers

Chase Elliott ($10,600) – The Road Course King starts 11th at, arguably, his best road course track. Need I say more? If you’re looking at any DraftKings content for Watkins Glen and Chase Elliott isn’t mentioned as a lock, then I’d recommend to stop following that website’s advice. The only way Chase doesn’t challenge for the win here on Sunday is if he has mechanical issues or wrecks. He has won the last two races here at Watkins Glen and six of the last eight road courses overall. Honestly, I could go 100% Elliott exposure on Sunday and not think twice.

Chase Briscoe ($8,300) – Chase Briscoe might still be going under the radar a little bit when it comes to road courses, but he really shouldn’t. At the Daytona Road Course earlier this year, Briscoe had legitimate top 15 or even top 10 potential despite not having power steering, and at both Road America and COTA he came home with 6th-place finishes. Briscoe starts back in 27th here at Watkins Glen on Sunday and should be, at worst, a top 15 car. Yes, he’s priced up a bit in DraftKings this week, but it’s worth it.

Austin Dillon ($6,100) – Okay this one is actually a little risky, but you can’t pass up this salary on Austin Dillon. A $6,100 driver with top 12 finishing potential is way too good to pass up. Yes, it’s risky since he starts up in 16th, but a 14th-place finish gets ADillon to 5x value in DraftKings. His track record here at Watkins Glen is beyond awful–Dillon has a career average finish of 27.8 at this track–but don’t forget that we haven’t raced here since 2019, and Austin has improved tremendously at road courses lately. His last three finishes on this track type in 2021 have been 11th, 13th, and 12th.

Go Bowling at The Glen 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.