2026 Pit Boss/FoodMaxx 250 Betting Race Picks

Date/Time: Saturday June 27th, 2026. 5:30PM (EST)
Where: Sonoma Raceway
TV: CW

For the 2nd consecutive week, the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series will participate in road course racing as the series moves to wine country at Sonoma Raceway. Last week, the O’Reilly Series delivered one of the best races of the weekend on the street course at the San Diego Naval Base Coronado in an iconic event. Austin Hill emerged as the winner of the inaugural series’ event beating the O’Reilly Series regulars in the United Rentals Driven to Serve 250. However, this week several of the biggest road course names in the sport will step down from Cup Series competition to battle the O’Reilly Series drivers in the Pit Boss/FoodMaxx 250!

Last week, NASCAR’s rules for the inaugural race in San Diego did not allow Cup Series drivers to participate in the O’Reilly Series race. However, those rules are not in-place this week which allows road course titans Shane Van Gisbergen and Connor Zilisch to compete for a checkered flag on Saturday. Zilisch and SVG dominated this race last year and finished in the 1st and 2nd positions with Zilisch winning the checkered flag. In fact, both SVG and Zilisch battled neck and neck at several road course races last season when Zilisch was competing full-time in the O’Reilly Series. Needless to say, there is a strong likelihood that these elite road course drivers will be battling each other for another win on Saturday!

On Friday, the O’Reilly Series held practice and qualifying sessions for tomorrow’s race. In practice, Corey Day topped the charts towards the final moments of the session following a mock qualifying effort to edge out SVG for the fastest time. However, SVG returned to the #1 spot on the board during qualifying with a lap of 95.483mph to win the pole for the Pit Boss/FoodMaxx 250. SVG was followed by rookie Brent Crews, Taylor Gray, Anthony Alfredo, and Parker Retzlaff among the top 5 qualifiers on Saturday. Meanwhile, Zilisch and the #1 team blew a tire during their qualifying effort which will put last year’s winner towards the rear of the field. As a result, Zilisch will have to deal with a lot of traffic as he attempts to make his way through the field.

Handicapping Sonoma

I am not going to spend a lot of time discussing various handicapping angles for Sonoma this week. Last week, I provided our bettors performance stats related to how the O’Reilly Series drivers have performed in recent road course events. Those performance metrics helped us identify the underrated road course talent behind Austin Hill who helped us cash a winning ticket in last Saturday’s inaugural event in San Diego. If you happened to miss that preview, I would encourage bettors to review those performance metrics as they can be used again this week as a strong baseline for our handicapping expectations. Additionally, bettors should also review prior performance at Sonoma specifically since this is one of the traditional road course venues on the NASCAR schedule and many drivers have numerous starts at this 1.99 mile layout.

Practice Observations

To keep things short and sweet, SVG appeared to be the best car in practice. SVG had the fastest lap of the session up until Corey Day put together a mock qualifying effort and SVG appeared to have 1-2 tenths in the bank with almost every lap in practice. Behind SVG, Zilisch and Brent Crews were also really strong which should not be a surprise considering both young drivers are exceptional road course talents. Behind the Big 3 for this weekend, I thought both Jesse Love and Taylor Gray have looked really strong through all on-track sessions this weekend. Gray had a really strong run last week at San Diego and is perhaps another underrated road course talent. On the other side of the coin, Carson Kvapil and Ross Chastain appeared to be well off the mark from where most would expect them to be. However, both drivers are piloting less than optimal equipment this week which is likely the biggest reason behind their struggles on Friday. Corey Day, Brandon Jones, and William Sawalich were some additional names that did not appear to have the speed that most would have expected either.

Betting Targets

Going into Saturday’s Pit Boss/FoodMaxx 250, I believe SVG gets the nod top rated driver going into Sunday especially when you consider he will have optimal track position from the green flag. With that being said, Zilisch is very equal to SVG in the O’Reilly Series cars and has arguably been a touch better. Obviously, Zilisch will have to fight his way to the front after suffering misfortune during qualifying. However, Zilisch’s betting odds have not changed a lot and are still extremely conservative. As a result, I would take SVG if I were to take either driver as a potential parlay builder or H2H option. While at least one of those two drivers should win on Saturday, we saw a lot of leaders get in trouble last week at San Diego and those possibilities cannot be ruled out again on Saturday.

If the top guys do have problems, I believe Brent Crews is the driver that will be in position to potentially “steal” a victory. Crews has the speed to contend and a lot of times these road courses races are decided by a late restart or strategy. If Crews is in position late, he could make some magic happen. If we are looking for betting options in H2H formats, Taylor Gray and Jesse Love are the two drivers that appear to be hitting on several handicapping indicators and have looked really strong throughout the weekend. Deeper into the field, I believe William Sawalich, Sammy Smith, and Carson Kvapil are strong candidates to overcome relatively slow starts to the weekend. All of those drivers are much better road course talents than they have shown so far this weekend. As a result, I believe those drivers are potential H2H targets and also ideal fantasy targets.

2026 Draftkings Pit Boss/FoodMaxx 250 Optimal Lineup

2026 Pitboss/FoodMaxx 250 Race Picks

*FINAL*

Connor Zilisch +450 (1 unit)
Jesse Love +1600 (.5 unit)

H2H Match-Ups and Props

Sam Mayer -115 over Carson Kvapil (2 units)
Jesse Love -145 over Austin Hill (2 units)

Two Team Parlay

Taylor Gray +320 finishes Top 5
SVG -160 wins Toyota/Save Mart 350
Risking 1 unit to win: +590