We have made it to the final race of the 2026 season, the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race from Homestead-Miami Speedway. As we enter the final weekend of the season, there are only three drivers eligible for the championship at this point: Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell, and Denny Hamlin. Larson has a 67-point cushion over Bell while Hamlin is 70 points behind Larson. All things considered, it’s very likely Larson repeats as champion unless he has an absolute disaster early on.
But the final race of the season returns to Homestead and this is arguably the best track on the schedule and it’s a shame we only get one race per year at this oval. Numerous drivers will say it’s their favorite track as it truly is a racer’s dream with multiple grooves and yes, they’ll have to manage their tires as best as they can.
We have all your coverage 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 NASCAR DFS picks and lineup building strategies on DraftKings and FanDuel as we get ready for the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race!
Homestead-Miami Speedway
As mentioned above, the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race returns to Homestead-Miami Speedway for the first time since 2019. This is the perfect race for the finale each year. For starters, it’s a destination city. Most people won’t say ‘no’ to a trip to South Florida in November. But the downside is that the race tends to get buried with regard to television ratings because it has to contend with the NFL. And at this point in the year, there are only three drivers in contention for the championship and one of them has a sizable lead.
It’s entirely possible Larson clinches another title following stage one. And from there, drivers are pretty much just racing for a good finish to end the year. But there are still owners points to race for and these drivers still want to put on a show for the fans in attendance.
Homestead-Miami Speedway is a 1.5-mile perfect oval. Unlike other intermediates on the schedule, this is not a tri-oval or quad-oval. Homestead’s most comparable track is likely Darlington Raceway. Both tracks qualify as intermediates and both tracks feature a lot of tire wear. Managing tires will be the name of the game this weekend, but similar to Darlington we should expect the more aggressive drivers to run the higher line along the wall to generate more momentum coming out of the turns. But we shouldn’t just limit ourselves to using data from this year’s races at Darlington. We can also look at who ran well at Kansas, Vegas, Charlotte, and possibly Michigan.
As frustrating as the NextGen car has been for a variety of tracks, there’s optimism for Sunday’s race. Homestead offers multiple grooves, and the intermediate aero package has thrived in comparison to the short track package. Let’s take a look at the latest DFS picks for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race and close out the season with some nice wins!
NASCAR DraftKings and FanDuel Scoring Trends with DFS Strategy
The tables above don’t necessarily tell us too much about what starting spots carry a significant edge. And that’s been rather rare this year. For Daytona and Talladega, we’re used to the best averages coming from deeper in the field. For shorter tracks and some intermediates, we’re used to the front row posting big scores because of the easy path to dominator points.
As we can see for Homestead, drivers can score well from anywhere in the starting order whether it’s through position differential, dominator points, or a combination of both! Now if we want to try and find a tiny “edge” we can look at the trends table from the previous section. 72.8% of the laps led over the last five Homestead races have come from drivers starting inside the top 10. But if you look specifically at the four NextGen races (2022-2025) that number goes up to about 82.8% and Kyle Larson won two of those races.
So with 267 laps on the table for this race, we have probably 170-175 dominator points to work with. I don’t think I’m going to really consider too many solo dominator builds for this kind of race. Two-to-three dominators seem appropriate because with tire management, and some drivers just wanting to get aggressive with their pit strategy to gain track position, I think we see multiple drivers cycling to lead laps.
NASCAR DFS Picks & Strategy: NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race
One thing to note for this weekend’s race is the gap between practice and the race. Practice was run Friday afternoon and qualifying was Saturday afternoon. Anything can change with the cars with so much time between practice and the race. So while the practice notes are helpful, just don’t go too heavy on any drivers solely based on practice speeds.
NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race Top Tier DFS Picks
Kyle Larson (Starting P4) – DraftKings: $11,500 | FanDuel: $14,000
Larson is going to be popular because this track type plays to his preferred style of racing. He’s a monster on the intermediate tracks, especially the ones you can run the high line along the wall. He knows how to utilize and manipulate the grooves as he runs his laps. His average finish is dragged down due to a couple bad results. In 2019, he finished second and third in the first two stages before failing to finish the race when his engine blew up. And then three years ago he was caught up in a wreck after leading 96 laps.
But he’s won here twice (Fall 2022 and Spring 2025) and he’s led over 130 laps in three of his last nine races here. He’s finished inside the top five in six of his last 10 races at Homestead. The practice speeds on Friday were fine. There were certainly cars that looked better but I’m not putting it past Larson to blow everyone out of the water to cruise to his third Cup Series Championship to close out the year.
Tyler Reddick (Starting P3) – DraftKings: $10,700 | FanDuel: $13,000
Reddick and Larson have similar driving styles and they’ll line up next to each other for this race although Reddick has no shot to win the championship. But he’s still had a great year with six wins and he does carry plenty of win equity for this race.
Reddick won this race two years ago with 97 laps led and in four-of-six career Cup Series races at Homestead, he’s finished fourth or better. He also won at Darlington and Kansas earlier this year in the spring. Overall, he’s had a very strong year on the intermediates.
As far as practice goes, he once again looks like he has a top five ride for this race. So while he can’t win the championship, he can possibly go out and claim his seventh win of the season at one of his best tracks.
Ryan Blaney (Starting P9) – DraftKings: $10,500 | FanDuel: $12,500
Blaney is a bit of an unsung hero at Homestead. He’s never won here but he’s come close a few times. In each of the last three races at Homestead he’s led 45+ laps. In the Spring 2025 race he had an absolute rocketship and he was off to such a great start that year. But it seemed like he was plagued by constant bad luck. During that race his engine blew up after he led 124 laps. In 2023 and 2024, he finished as the runner-up. So he’s come close and he’s had competitive cars each of the last three races here.
The practice speeds on Friday looked great and hopefully they hold true for Sunday’s championship race. He had the best car in the long run and he finished top five at all four intermediate tracks during the playoffs (Darlington, Vegas, Kansas, and Charlotte). He will garner some ownership and rightfully so, but I do think he’s a high upside play if he once again gets to the front at Homestead.
Chase Briscoe (Starting P1) – DraftKings: $9,900 | FanDuel: $11,500
Briscoe is going to be a trendy option because he will start on the pole and that gives him a nice, quick, clear path to dominator points. Briscoe’s resume at Homestead is rather modest. However, like most tracks with Briscoe, his best results came after his move to Joe Gibbs Racing. In the Spring 2025 race at this track, he started and finished fourth.
He’s never led a lap here but obviously that should change tomorrow since he’s on the pole. But we also know the polesitter at Homestead isn’t necessarily a slam dunk based on the starting spot charts from earlier in the article. But Briscoe’s three wins this year all came on intermediates (Chicagoland, Vegas, and Charlotte) and he’s won at Darlington twice in his career. So, in theory, Homestead should be a track he thrives at and I do believe he has some win equity. But even if he can register 30+ dominator points and finish top five, he can land in the optimal lineup with that kind of performance.
NASCAR DFS Picks: Mid-Tier Drivers
Ty Gibbs (Starting P20) – DraftKings: $9,400 | FanDuel: $10,000
Gibbs will be a trendy position differential option but if you need a little savings, Joey Logano is fine as well. I can’t say I love the recent resume of either driver at this track but I’m willing to highlight Gibbs because he finally broke through with a couple wins this season and it’s just been a year of tremendous growth for the young driver.
While Gibbs clearly offers position differential, if he shows up on Sunday with the speed he had in Friday’s practice then he could possibly finish top five with a handful of fastest laps as well. Based on the practice-to-qualifying table above, he was top five in the short run and the long run. We just have to hope he doesn’t eat up his tires too much on the restarts which tends to happen with younger drivers.
Bubba Wallace (Starting P18) – DraftKings: $8,700 | FanDuel: $10,500
Bubba’s had some great runs here in the NextGen era and I guess we shouldn’t be too surprised. He’s shown a lot of growth, but he’s always had upside on the intermediates. He’s a previous winner at Kansas but he flirted with a win here in the Spring of 2025 where he finished third but led 56 laps. He also finished sixth at this track in the 2023 playoffs.
Bubba didn’t have the best practice speed, but I imagine the team will make adjustments early on or after stage one to make the car run better in the long run and it wouldn’t surprise me to see Bubba run or finish inside the top 10. I do have a little more faith in Gibbs/Logano but I can’t ignore Bubba given how well he’s performed at Kansas throughout his career.
Ryan Preece (Starting P32) – DraftKings: $7,700 | FanDuel: $6,800
Preece has frequented plenty of the NASCAR DFS Playbooks this year. He normally qualifies close to the middle of the field, but we get a ton of position differential to target for the final race of the season. For what it’s worth, Preece was not very good in practice. Nobody with RFK Racing was necessarily elite in Friday’s practice session, but two of them will make this Playbook because of the PD they bring to the table.
Preece has some of the best track history you’ll find in this field. We normally upgrade him for the short, flat tracks but Homestead has been kind to Preece. In the 2023 playoffs, Preece started P29 and finished 13th. The next year he started P35 and finished 10th. Then he joined RFK Racing for the 2025 campaign and in the spring race at Homestead that season, he started P31 and finished ninth. So we have three examples where he qualified poorly at this track and just weathered the storm and still finished well. I hope he can do that once again on Sunday for our NASCAR DFS picks.
NASCAR DFS Picks: Value Drivers
Alex Bowman (Starting P13) – DraftKings: $7,300 | FanDuel: $7,500
We have some high upside PD options in the value range, but I want to mention Alex Bowman because, while he doesn’t offer as much PD, I think it’s important to emphasize some GPP options that won’t carry much ownership. Bowman starts P13 and that’s pretty much in line with where the car ran in practice.
But Bowman has really good track history at Homestead. In the Spring 2025 race he won the pole and finished second with 43 laps led. In the playoffs two years ago, he started P11 and finished seventh. In 2021, he started P13 and finished ninth. Back in the 2019 Championship race, he started P12 and finished ninth. I mention these results because he’s starting P13 and has shown he can gain a handful of spots and post a great score even if he doesn’t offer a significant amount of PD. But because we have other drivers with safer floors in this range, we should really only use Bowman in tournaments, not cash games.
Brad Keselowski (Starting P40) – DraftKings: $7,100 | FanDuel: $6,200
To put it simply, Keselowski has the safest floor on the slate. And this is a race with 40(!) drivers. We usually only see that for the superspeedway races and maybe Indianapolis. I am surprised we have such a large field for the season finale. But Keselowski wrecked on his qualifying lap so he’ll start at the rear of the field.
Even if Brad just has a ho-hum kind of day where he puts around for a top 25 finish, he’ll return 30+ fantasy points on DraftKings. If he manages a top 20 finish, he’ll return 43 fantasy points with no dominator points. So he provides a safe floor and a very high ceiling. At his price, you can still cash even if he doesn’t crack the top 20. He will be very popular because of all that, but this will be his final race with RFK Racing and you have to imagine he wants to go out with a bang.
A.J. Allmendinger (Starting P29) – DraftKings: $6,600 | FanDuel: $5,800
Allmendinger is a value driver that will likely garner ownership based on track history and the practice speeds. We didn’t really see a true long run in Friday’s practice session, but he was top 15 in the shorter metrics and even over the 15-lap metric he had the 11th-best average.
But Allmendinger loves this track even though it’s not a road course. In the NextGen era he’s finished top 10 in all four races with Kaulig Racing from 2022-2025. In five races in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, he’s finished top 10 in three of his last four races at Homestead including a pair of top five finishes.
Regardless of the qualifying spot, Allmendinger was going to be in play. In 2022, he started P10 and finished third here. And last year he started P10 and finished seventh. And try to remember that you need to be able to manage your tires here. Allmendinger carries plenty of experience and knows how important it is to not abuse your tires at this track.
Noah Gragson (Starting P33) – DraftKings: $5,400 | FanDuel: $3,800
Gragson obviously won’t win this race but he has an average finish of 17.5 over his last two Homestead races, but I’ll add the caveat that he went backwards in both races. But in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, this was one of his best tracks. In four-of-five races at that level, he had four top five finishes and a win. And in the race where he wrecked, he was leading at the time before he wrecked with another car that was a lap down.
Gragson’s actually been serviceable at times in the playoffs. He grabbed a top 20 at Vegas and surprisingly finished 13th at Phoenix. The practice speeds, while they weren’t elite, they weren’t awful for what we’re paying for in this range. For the most part, he should have a top 25 car. If he can just finish 24th then he’s returning about 27 fantasy points on DraftKings. And maybe he finds a little magic and strategizes correctly and maintains the lead lap throughout the race. I won’t bank on it, but I want to lean into the narrative that this is one of the more comfortable tracks for him.
NASCAR DFS Optimizer & Lineups Picks This Week
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