Savvy Pit Strategy Helps Denny Hamlin Win Stage 2 At Homestead

Homestead has always been one of Denny Hamlin's stronger tracks, so it didn't come as much of a surprise that he eventually finished fifth in Sunday's race there, but for a while, it looked like he might finish significantly worse. Hamlin initially started 23rd and fell back as low as 30th in the early laps […]

Chase Briscoe Moves Above Playoff Cut Line With Fourth-Place Finish

Although Chase Briscoe qualified fourth for Sunday's Homestead race (higher than any of his Joe Gibbs Racing teammates), a lot of people had rather low expectations given his history of struggling on intermediates for Stewart-Haas Racing. However, JGR is a lot faster than SHR on those tracks, and he had a lot more staying power […]

Joey Logano Misses Top 10 Again After Pit-Road Spin

Defending NASCAR Cup Series champion Joey Logano's streak of zero top-10 finishes to start the 2025 season continued with a 14th-place finish at Homestead. Given the speed of the Penske cars (especially Logano's teammate Ryan Blaney) in Sunday's event, Logano must have expected more. After starting 12th, Logano drove up to sixth when the caution […]

Tyler Reddick Underachieves But Still Finishes Eighth

Tyler Reddick had a strangely muted run at Homestead, which is conventionally one of his best tracks in the NASCAR Cup Series. After winning last fall's race at Homestead in gallant fashion, he only finished 8th today after running much worse than that for most of the event. Although he gained five positions from 20th […]

Justin Haley Earns First Non-Drafting Oval Top-10 Finish For Spire Motorsports

After a string of futility in his first half-season as a Spire Motorsports driver, Justin Haley earned his first top-10 finish on a non-drafting oval at Homestead on Sunday. In a race that had relatively little attrition, Haley started 21st and steadily worked his way through the pack during the race, finishing 15th at the […]

Alex Bowman Earns First Non-Drafting Superspeedway Pole Since 2016

After a long run of consistent finishes in races where he has otherwise mostly been a non-factor, Alex Bowman earned his first pole on a non-drafting superspeedway for Sunday's Straight Talk Wireless 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Although you'd think Homestead would be one of his absolute best tracks since it is similar to Chicagoland, Kansas, […]

Denny Hamlin's Poor Las Vegas Run Suggests He Might Be Overvalued For Homestead

Denny Hamlin has been reliably consistent at Homestead over the years, earning 13 top-10 finishes in 20 starts as well as three wins. He has also led all three Homestead races with the Next Gen chassis and battled Ryan Blaney and his driver Tyler Reddick for the win last year, but now his former crew […]

Joey Logano's Recent Homestead Record Misleading Due To Past Playoff Situations

Joey Logano has gotten a lot of criticism for being the first defending NASCAR Cup Series champion to fail to earn a top-10 finish in the first five races of the season, but that doesn't reflect how well he has run as the Penske cars seem to be a lot faster this year, and Logano […]

Josh Berry Probably Needs To Lead To Have DFS Value

After Josh Berry's semi-surprise first win at Las Vegas last week, he has continued to keep up his consistently good qualifying and starts on the outside front row for Sunday's Homestead race. Although he's definitely gained a lot of speed over his entire sophomore season, he still needed a lot of help from faster cars […]

Daniel Suarez's Poor Qualifying Makes Him A Strong DFS Option

After Daniel Suárez's unexpected second-place finish last week at Las Vegas where his teammate Ross Chastain seemed to have the most speed for a while, Suárez qualified a miserable 33rd at Homestead, which suggests there's a lot of value there if the Trackhouse Racing cars are able to carry over their speed to other intermediate […]

Shane Van Gisbergen Likely Too Inexperienced To Gain Many Positions At Homestead

Shane van Gisbergen is making his first NASCAR Cup Series start at Homestead. He qualified 25th and finished 17th in his one Xfinity Series start, typically behind A.J. Allmendinger and ahead of Josh Williams. However, that isn't enough experience to make him necessarily valuable at Homestead or really any oval. The fact that he qualified […]

Austin Cindric's Increased Staying Power In Races May Make Him More Valuable

Although Austin Cindric had a reputation of fading to mid-pack in most of the races where he qualified well, that definitely seems to have stopped in 2025 as he has seemed to have a lot more staying power up front. In last week's race at Las Vegas, he overcame a loose wheel after winning Stage […]

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Unlikely To Gain Enough Positions For DFS Value

Despite Ricky Stenhouse Jr.'s reputation as a superspeedway driver, Homestead has arguably been his worst superspeedway. At all tracks where Stenhouse has failed to ever earn a top-10 finish in the NASCAR Cup Series, he has made more starts at Homestead than any other despite some solid qualifying runs. He might have some DFS value, […]

John Hunter Nemechek Delivers His Second-Best Qualifying Run At Homestead

John Hunter Nemechek qualified seventh for Sunday's Homestead race, which is actually his best-ever as a full-time driver since his fifth-place finish at Charlotte in 2020 came with metric qualifying, and his fourth-place starting position in 2022 also came at Homestead while he was filling in for the injured Kurt Busch. It would be an […]

Cole Custer Has Been Hapless At Homestead In Cup Series

Cole Custer was something of a Homestead master in the NASCAR Xfinity Series with a win in 2017, two poles, and three second-place finishes, but his Cup Series performances at the track have left little to be desired as he has finished between 22nd and 24th in all three of his previous starts there for […]

J.J. Yeley Needs Attrition To Gain Positions At Homestead

J.J. Yeley makes his second start of the 2025 season for the NY Racing Team on Sunday at Homestead, but don't expect him to be any sort of contender. Not only did Yeley qualify in 37th and last place for the race, he was so slow that pole-sitter Alex Bowman and 35th-place qualifier Shane van […]

Bubba Wallace Wrecks At Las Vegas But Shows Promising Speed

23XI Racing has always been fast on flat 1.5-mile ovals, and Sunday's Las Vegas race was no exception, even though neither Bubba Wallace nor his teammate Tyler Reddick ended up with good finishes. Despite starting 20th, Wallace drove up to fourth at the end of Stage 1 and then took the lead twice before being […]

Alex Bowman Recovers From Loose Wheel To Finish Seventh

Alex Bowman started sixth and finished seventh at Las Vegas, so you might figure he had his typical run-of-the-mill run where he ran in the back half of the top 10 of the race without really contending, but his run was actually a lot stronger than that. Bowman led two laps early after passing Austin […]

Austin Cindric Wins Stage 1, But Loose Wheel Foils Victory Bid

In a race where all the Team Penske drivers and their Wood Brothers satellite entry for Josh Berry seemed quite fast, Austin Cindric outdueled Alex Bowman to win Stage 1 at Sunday's Las Vegas race -- his first stage win on a non-drafting oval since Gateway in 2022. He still continuously ran in the top […]

William Byron Loses Las Vegas Race On Strategy But Expands Points Lead

William Byron entered Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series race at Las Vegas as the points leader and expanded his lead over Christopher Bell to 29 points after a fourth-place finish. Byron entered the race as one of the pre-race favorites and did briefly lead twice for 10 laps after passing Bubba Wallace then Michael McDowell for […]

Ryan Preece Earns Best Career Non-Drafting Oval Finish At Las Vegas

One week after leading at Phoenix due to his alternative-tire strategy, Ryan Preece surprisingly delivered the best finish of his career on a non-drafting oval in Sunday's Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas, finishing third in a race where his two RFK Racing teammates Chris Buescher and Brad Keselowski did not run very well. Although Preece […]

Joey Logano Likely To Lead At Las Vegas, But Will He Lead Enough For DFS Consideration?

Even though Joey Logano is very expensive at $9,500, last fall's Las Vegas winner seems potentially poised to lead early and often since he qualified second directly outside Michael McDowell. Considering he is a vastly better intermediate driver and one of Las Vegas' foremost masters, he stands a good chance of earning a lot of […]

Michael McDowell Wins Spire Motorsports' First Pole At Las Vegas

Michael McDowell pulled a big surprise by delivering Spire Motorsports' first pole position for Sunday's Pennzoil 400, while his teammates Carson Hocevar and Justin Haley only qualified 25th and 33rd, respectively. Although McDowell won the most poles last year, that came for a Front Row Motorsports team that was dominating on drafting tracks, and one […]

Austin Cindric Qualifies Third But Is Almost Guaranteed To Lose Spots

Austin Cindric tends to qualify well on flat intermediates, and Las Vegas is no exception, as he has now qualified third here for the third time, including three of the last four winter Las Vegas races. However, he also has a history of sliding back through the pack when he qualifies well on an intermediate […]

Chase Briscoe's Las Vegas Performance Hard To Predict

Chase Briscoe was typically very slow in his previous races at Las Vegas, with a fourth place in the 2022 fall event serving as his sole highlight, but even in that race he only had an average running position of 17th. Admittedly, a large part of that was the fact that the Stewart-Haas Racing cars […]

Ty Gibbs A Solid DFS Option In Theory

After looking like he would inevitably win his first NASCAR Cup Series race soon in the first half of last year, Ty Gibbs has had an inexplicable falloff. He has only posted a single top ten in the last 15 races despite having theoretically championship-caliber Joe Gibbs Racing equipment and it's not like he's even […]

Shane Van Gisbergen Too Inexperienced At Las Vegas For DFS Consideration

Even though Shane van Gisbergen's teammate Ross Chastain was the fastest driver in Saturday's practice at Las Vegas, don't expect SVG to utilize his Trackhouse Racing cars to the same extent. Although it might be tempting to draft him because he is starting 28th and because of Chastain's speed, he is still a rookie who […]

Noah Gragson Finished Well At Las Vegas Last Year

Although Noah Gragson crashed out last week at Phoenix when he seemed to be the best underdog DFS choice, the hometown native seems to have a little value at Las Vegas since last year he drove from 30th to sixth on a track type where the Stewart-Haas Racing cars usually struggle. However, even though he […]

Austin Dillon Decent At Las Vegas, But Not Worthy Of DFS Play

Austin Dillon has a decent record at Las Vegas, even though he hardly ever leads there. In 19 starts, he has finished in the top twenty 14 times and has been reliably consistent on a very low level, which suggests he will probably improve somewhat from his 22nd place starting position. However, he has only […]

Josh Berry's Poor Intermediate Record Likely To Override Strong Qualifying Result

Josh Berry qualifying well is starting to become rather routine, and his seventh-place starting position for Sunday's race at Las Vegas is consistent with that. However, he tends to be very slow on unrestricted intermediate tracks, and he only finished 20th and 24th in last year's Las Vegas races. Admittedly, he was a rookie, but […]