Chase Elliott secured his second win of the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season after a late caution almost cost him the victory. But Elliott remains the lone Hendrick Motorsports driver with a victory so far this season, but Alex Bowman had a very strong effort finishing third after he missed a stretch of races earlier in the year. Kyle Larson remains winless as we’re nearing the mark of a full calendar year since his last win. 

For the final race before All-Star Weekend, all three series are in action this weekend at Watkins Glen International. This marks the second road course of the season so the DFS strategy and win equity landscape shifts a bit for this kind of race.

We have all your coverage this weekend with the NASCAR DFS Playbook for DraftKings and FanDuel in addition to the NASCAR DFS Projections and the NASCAR DFS Ownership outlook. Let’s dive in and take a look at the top plays and lineup building strategies as we get ready to Go Bowling at The Glen!

 

 

 

Watkins Glen International

Watkins Glen International represents the second road course of the season for our Go Bowling at The Glen DFS picks. This isn’t a track that is as technical as Circuit of the Americas (COTA), which we’ve already seen this year. Watkins Glen features some elevation changes but also some broader, sweeping turns.

There are two big changes we’re seeing for this race. For starters, this is the earliest Watkins Glen has appeared on the schedule in quite some time. This race usually happens in the summer, just before the playoffs. There are some weather concerns for this weekend but nothing too hazardous as of Saturday afternoon as they managed to get practice and qualifying in for the Go Bowling at The Glen race on Sunday. The other change is that NASCAR is making the race a little longer with 10 extra laps. That may not sound like much, but it does give us an extra seven dominator points to work with, after we previously had a maximum of 63 dominator points available for this race.

Based on the trends table above, it’s not likely we require multiple dominators for our Go Bowling at The Glen DFS picks on Sunday. You may want, at most, two drivers starting inside the top 10 and then build out the rest of your build with positional differential candidates and drivers that can finish well.

Errors on road courses aren’t too costly. But you also don’t want them later in the run. Connor Zilisch was spun multiple times at COTA. But he had a fast car and drove his way through the field multiple times. The costly error was when it happened again in stage three, but he still rallied for a top 15 finish. If you’re going to have a mistake or a pit road penalty, pray your drivers get those out of the way in the first half of the race.

 

 

 

NASCAR DraftKings and FanDuel Scoring Trends

Starting on the front row certainly has its perks as you can see from the table above. Four of the last five winners at Watkins Glen came from a driver starting in the first two rows. The outlier is Chris Buescher who won after starting P24 in 2024. But in that race, Shane Van Gisbergen finished as the runner-up after starting P3, and Ross Chastain led 51 laps from the pole and finished fourth. So naturally, we won’t shy away from road ringers who qualify well.

Four starting spots in the first six rows (P1-P12) are averaging at least 35 fantasy points on DraftKings. Only three starting spots starting deeper are averaging that many fantasy points, which is somewhat surprising given how important position differential is for DFS at this track type. As important as PD may be, we also want a good amount of win equity with our lineups. The last six optimal lineups on road courses have seen the winner lead at least 25 laps.

Shane Van Gisbergen and Connor Zilisch will draw everybody’s attention. It’s not impossible to play those two together this weekend but they’ll require half your salary on DraftKings and you’ll have to get very creative with the rest of your lineup.

But there are good road course drivers in the mid-range (Chris Buescher, A.J. Allmendinger, Michael McDowell) and the value tier (Ryan Preece, Todd Gilliland, Zane Smith). Road courses are the rare track where it’s fine to justify plays based on practice speed. But when cautions and pit strategy come into play, then all bets are off and we’re hoping we have the drivers that score well.

 

 

 

NASCAR DFS Picks & Strategy: Go Bowling at The Glen

 

NASCAR Go Bowling at The Glen Top Tier DFS Picks

Shane Van Gisbergen (Starting P1) – DraftKings: $13,500 | FanDuel: $14,500

A bold strategy at any road course is to be underweight compared to the field with SVG. But he’s just too damn good to ignore at this track type and he’s rightly the most expensive option available to us on both sites. SVG won five of the six road course races in 2025 and he was the runner-up back at COTA a couple months ago.

Specifically at Watkins Glen, he finished second to Chris Buescher in 2024 in a very exciting battle to end the race but he rebounded last year with a win while leading 38 laps. He’s going to be difficult to avoid just given the win equity (+100 on DraftKings Sportsbook as of Saturday) and while we don’t prioritize dominator points at road courses, we know he can certainly rack them up. The price is heavy but it’s not so gaudy that he can’t be in the optimal lineup if he destroys the field.

Connor Zilisch (Starting P5) – DraftKings: $11,500 | FanDuel: $13,000

Zilisch is appropriately priced right behind SVG for this race. These two are likely the top two road course ringers in the field and I doubt that Zilisch’s struggles in his rookie season suppress his ownership any. Has it been tough for him? Absolutely. But he was actually having a great day at COTA but ultimately finished 14th. Don’t forget that he had to drive through the field at least two times because of some kind of incident heading into turn one. Watkins Glen is far less technical than COTA and doesn’t quite have as much variance.

This track is also kind of special to the future star. He won here in 2024 for his first Xfinity Series win leading 45 laps and he won the 2025 Xfinity Series Watkins Glen race with 60 laps led. He won 10 races a year ago at the XFIN level and half of those were on road courses.

My lone concern for the entire Trackhouse team is that all three drivers are running all three races this weekend. The extra track time is nice but also we would prefer to avoid burnout. But Trackhouse Racing knows that the road courses are where they carry an edge because the ovals have been a struggle this year.

Tyler Reddick (Starting P15) – DraftKings: $10,500 | FanDuel: $12,500

Reddick laid down a top 10 lap in practice and even flashed top six speed in the 5-and-10-lap metrics. But the qualifying lap was a little lackluster. And that’s still fine, we can lean into the position differential because he has the third-best odds to win the race (+800). Additionally, we just saw him win at COTA a couple months ago, but he did start on the pole for that race.

Reddick has never won at Watkins Glen, but he does have four top 10 finishes in five Cup Series races at this track. But he’s now won twice at COTA and he’s a previous winner at the Indy Road Course and Road America. A top 10 finish only returns about 40 points for Reddick but a top five finish would bring about almost 50 fantasy points on DraftKings for our Go Bowling at The Glen DFS picks.

Chase Elliott (Starting P27) – DraftKings: $9,700 | FanDuel: $11,000

We have to tread carefully for tomorrow’s Go Bowling at The Glen because there’s a lot of chalk on DraftKings and FanDuel. Elliott won’t be a stranger to excess ownership. He’s won twice this year and prior to SVG and Zilisch having a presence in the NASCAR Cup Series, Elliott was arguably the best road course driver even though he has previously said he was just given fast cars that nailed the aero setup.

A top 15 finish from where Elliott is starting would provide 40 points on DraftKings and a top 10 would deliver over 50 fantasy points. Elliott won here in 2018 and 2019, was the runner-up in 2021, and he finished fourth in 2024. But it’s a little worrisome he doesn’t have a top 15 finish in his last three races at this track. Elliott did finish seventh at COTA two months ago so let’s put our faith in this car and driver to move up and grab a great finish.

 

 

 

NASCAR DFS Picks: Mid-Tier Drivers

Kyle Larson (Starting P23) – DraftKings: $9,000 | FanDuel: $10,500

I have a general rule that I live by with when identifying good plays on road course: if the driver is good, the equipment is good, the price is good, and the starting spot is good, then go with it. Larson wasn’t anything impressive in practice. In fact, he struggled quite a bit. But at the same time, this is a two-time Cup Series champion who has won on road courses. This is a car with an elite driver that can get better throughout the race.

Larson won at Watkins Glen in 2021 and 2022 but in two of the last three races here he’s finished 25th or worst. But again, from purely a DFS perspective, he’s a fine play. We rarely see Larson at this price tag and if he finishes in the top 10 he’ll return at least 47 fantasy points on DraftKings. If he finishes top eight he’s returning over 50 fantasy points. He’s also a two-time winner at Sonoma and the Roval so I’m not going to overthink this one just because of the practice results when the track was a bit wet and there were rubber pellets everywhere.

Chris Buescher (Starting P14) – DraftKings: $8,800 | FanDuel: $9,500

It’s crazy that Buescher is sort of floating in this mid-range on both sites but he’s still the eighth-most expensive driver on DraftKings and ninth-most on FanDuel. And for reference, he’s tied for the fourth-best odds to win the race (+1100) on DraftKings Sportsbook. He won this race back in 2024 and overall is a strong road course driver as he almost won at Sonoma back in 2022 but lost to Daniel Suarez.

Buescher has rattled off four straight top 10 finishes at Watkins Glen and despite not defending his WG title in 2025, he still managed a top three finish and from 2022-2024 at Sonoma, he grabbed three straight finishes in the top four. What’s even more impressive for Buescher is that his road course results have actually gotten better during the NextGen era so at this price it does feel like a bit of a discount but with SVG and Zilisch priced up they have to make you want to play everyone else.

Ty Gibbs (Starting P10) – DraftKings: $8,300 | FanDuel: $10,000

Gibbs has cooled off a little bit since his hot streak that culminated in his first career Cup Series win at Bristol back in April. But the last two tracks the Cup Series visited were Talladega and Texas and those tracks tend to see more chaos and Gibbs was wrecked by Ryan Preece last week.

Gibbs is on the better end of the spectrum in terms of road course racing and he won the Xfinity Series Watkins Glen race in 2021. In fact, in three-of-four XFIN races at Watkins Glen, Gibbs led at least 25 laps. He also grabbed XFIN road course wins at Daytona, Indianapolis, and Road America.

A little over two months ago, Gibbs was in contention at COTA when he started and finished inside the top five with a few dominator points to boost his score. Let’s go back to the well for our Go Bowling at The Glen DFS picks!

Daniel Suarez (Starting P16) – DraftKings: $7,700 | FanDuel: $7,500

Suarez is a previous winner on a road course (Sonoma 2022) and he has a strong resume at Watkins Glen for our Go Bowling at The Glen DFS picks. Suarez has eight career Cup Series races at Watkins Glen and he’s finished seventh or better in half of them. He had some strong runs during his time with Trackhouse Racing and Joe Gibbs Racing. A lot of folks might view the Spire Motorsports move as a downgrade, but Spire received a significant investment in the offseason and it’s put Suarez in the playoff picture while Trackhouse has regressed on every track type aside from road courses.

The starting spot likely takes him out of our cash game lineups but he’s in play for DFS lineups as most people will likely try and force Alex Bowman in over Suarez and based on track history, Suarez might have the better ceiling and he’ll carry less ownership.

 

 

 

NASCAR DFS Picks: Value Drivers

Kyle Busch (Starting P21) – DraftKings: $7,500 | FanDuel: $6,200

If this was a standard oval race, I can understand not wanting to play Kyle Busch. But on a slate with so many obvious, popular plays I don’t want to shy away from Busch. Prior to last week’s race at Texas, the team moved on from Jim Pohlman as the crew chief and replaced him with Andy Street. Now does that necessarily improve the equipment? No, but they had to make a change and they’ll either yield similar results or be just as bad as they’ve been all season.

Busch finished 20th at Texas but he had a strong showing in practice and qualifying. For this race, Busch laid down the sixth-fastest lap in practice and he was second in five-lap averages. Back during his time with Joe Gibbs Racing, Busch was regarded as a strong road course driver but he’s obviously regressed with the move to RCR.

If he was starting inside the top 10 I’d probably stay away. But I don’t anticipate a ton of ownership going to this recommendation. If there’s carnage and he avoids it, there’s a path for him to be optimal with a top 10 finish.

Ryan Preece (Starting P30) – DraftKings: $6,700 | FanDuel: $6,800

I know it seems like I feature Preece as a top 15 contender each week (which he is), but this is another case of a discounted driver that can return good value as we Go Bowling at The Glen. Preece has finished 17th or better in three straight races at Watkins Glen gaining a total of +29 spots of position differential in that sample size.

In 2025, his first season with RFK Racing, Preece finished 15th at Mexico City, seventh at Chicago, 12th at Sonoma, 13th at Watkins Glen, and sixth at the Roval. Now three of those tracks don’t appear on the 2026 schedule as NASCAR is taking a softer approach with road courses this season. But he still possesses the ability to put up a good result and he showed what he could do last year with good equipment at this type of track.

Zane Smith (Starting P33) – DraftKings: $6,200 | FanDuel: $5,200

We probably need a little chaos in this race, but Zane Smith is an intriguing value play. Two years ago with Spire Motorsports he started P17 and finished in the top five. Then last year, in his first season with Front Row Motorsports, he started P33 and finished 17th.

Zane doesn’t get much recognition as a road ringer because he’s not on an elite team. But during his time in the Truck Series he had a pair of wins at COTA and a pair of runner-up finishes at Mid-Ohio. And keep in mind, the Truck Series doesn’t often race on road courses. They get maybe half the road course dates that the O’Reilly and Cup Series do.

It’s not that greatest upside but if you’re trying to pay up for either SVG or Zilisch you need to save some money with one or two drivers and there are worse drivers on road courses in this tier than Zane Smith.

Noah Gragson (Starting P35) – DraftKings: $5,900 | FanDuel: $3,800

It’s not the best analysis for Gragson but he starts deep enough in the field where if he has a mechanical issue, a wreck, or just runs poorly he won’t be killing your lineup(s) and you can still min cash. But if he has a similar performance to COTA (where he started P35 and finished 22nd) then he’s going to be helping our lineups immensely.

I do give Front Row Motorsports a slight upgrade on road courses. And two of our favorite value plays for the Go Bowling at The Glen are FRM drivers starting outside the top 30. Two years ago at Watkins Glen, Gragson started P9 and finished 11th with Stewart-Haas Racing. Last year in his first season with FRM, Gragson started P35 and finished 21st. If there’s chaos and Gragson can luck his way to a 19th place finish he’s giving you 40 fantasy points. Gragson’s not going to shock us with a win, nor is it likely he finishes in the top 10. But I do think there’s a path to a top 20 for one of NASCAR’s most popular drivers.

 

 

 

NASCAR DFS Optimizer & Lineups Picks This Week

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