2026 Toyota/Save Mart 350 Betting Race Picks

Date/Time: Sunday June 28th, 2026. 3:30PM (EST)
Where: Sonoma Raceway
TV: TNT

Last week, Corey Heim delivered one of the biggest upsets in recent years by winning the Anduril 250 Race the Base at the San Diego Naval Base Coronado. Outside of Shane Van Gisbergen who notoriously won in his first career start, Heim became the 2nd quickest driver to score a win in the Next Gen era in just his 13th career start. More importantly for those that were brave enough to back “Heim Time,” the rookie cashed at 60-1 odds for the victory which is the biggest mark we have seen in several years. On Sunday, the Cup Series returns for another round of road course racing and perhaps another opportunity for a surprise winner with the running of the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway!

In last week’s race, there were a few wrecks that wiped out many of the frontrunners who were expected to contend for a victory in San Diego. I mention that fact not to undermine Heim’s breakout performance because I think he is one of the best young talents in a long time. However, I do mention that fact because we rarely expect road courses to produce surprise winners. Before last week’s race at San Diego, SVG had won 6 of the last 7 races on road and street courses in the Cup Series as the outright betting favorite. Therefore, I don’t believe bettors should be chasing any “huge” wins this week because that is definitely an anomaly for this style of racing. With that being said, I do believe the Cup Series is getting more competitive at these road course from a parity perspective and that means a lot more drivers are “capable” of winning at these venues.

The emerging parity was on full display on Saturday during qualifying. Ty Gibbs won the pole for the Toyota/Save Mart 350 with a speed of 95.737mph. However, Gibbs just narrowly edged out Carson Hocevar and Kyle Larson for the top qualifying position. Additionally, Michael McDowell and Ross Chastain also qualified in the Top 5 positions. All 5 of those drivers beat SVG in qualifying who finished in the 6th qualifying position. In fact, it was the first time in SVG’s career that he has not qualified on the pole at Sonoma which includes his starts in both the O’Reilly Series and Cup Series. Therefore in some ways, I believe Saturday’s qualifying session was a testament to the improvement that the Cup Series’ field has made at the road course style races and hopefully that will continue to improve the road course racing as we move forward.

Cup Series Notes – Sonoma

• Kyle Larson has the most wins (2) at Sonoma among active drivers.
• Daniel Suarez and Shane Van Gisbergen are the only former winners at Sonoma.
• Shane Van Gisbergen won in his first career start at Sonoma last year.
• Outside of SVG (1 start), Chase Elliott (107.0), Chris Buescher (106.1), Michael McDowell (101.4), Christopher Bell (99.2), and Kyle Larson (98.3) have the highest average driver ratings at Sonoma over the last 3 races.
• Chris Buescher has finished 4th or better in 3 of the last 4 races at Sonoma.
• Michael McDowell has finished 4th or better in 3 of the last 4 races at Sonoma.
• Chase Elliott has finished in the Top 5 in 4 of the last 5 races at Sonoma.
• AJ Allmendinger has finished 6th in 2 of the last 3 races at Sonoma.
• Tyler Reddick has finished 8th or better in the last two races at Sonoma.
• Christopher Bell has finished 9th or better in each of the last 3 races at Sonoma.
• Ross Chastain has finished in the Top 10 in 4 of the last 5 races at Sonoma.
• Ryan Blaney has finished in the Top 10 in 4 of the last 6 races at Sonoma.
• Bubba Wallace has finished 14th or worse in all 7 career starts at Sonoma.
• Denny Hamlin has finished 20th or worse in each of the last 4 races at Sonoma.
• Austin CIndric has finished 22nd or worse 3 of 4 career starts at Sonoma.
• Chevrolet drivers have won 4 of the last 5 races at Sonoma.
• The eventual race winner has started from the Top 8 positions in the last 7 races at Sonoma.

Dynamic Averages

I did not see many extreme outliers in practice that are worth mentioning for Sunday’s race. If you happen to browse practice speeds, you may notice guys like SVG, Christopher Bell, Connor Zilisch, and Christopher Bell who were further down the speed charts than most expected. However, those drivers went out in the opening group during practice due to their misfortune last week at San Diego. As a result, those drivers were practicing at far less optimal track conditions which is why you don’t see them as high on the speed charts. Instead of discussing practice speeds which did not appear to provide any significant value, I would encourage bettors to review our dynamic averages at the road courses which highlights performance trends over the last 5 races at road/street courses. These performance metrics are much better towards showing the drivers that are performing better or worse than expected at this specific style of racing. As a result, I believe these metrics are an important handicapping metric that should be combined with prior Sonoma performances for this weekend’s Toyota/Save Mart 350.

Betting Targets

Despite the fact that SVG did not win the pole on Saturday and will be starting with terrible (sarcasm) track position, he remains the guy to beat going into Sunday by a strong margin. SVG’s qualifying effort was more of a result of track conditions than it was in terms of speed. Last year, SVG put on a clinic at Sonoma in terms of managing the race and protecting his tires over the long runs. As a result, I expect he will continue to do so on Sunday though the restarts could be very dicey. With that said, SVG remains heavily favored from a betting standpoint. Therefore, we have to make the decision to either try to parlay SVG with a high yield 2nd option or choose to avoid SVG altogether. The argument for pivoting against SVG surrounds the fact that these road course races have a lot of inherent strategy and can produce a lot of chaos on restarts.

If SVG fails to get the job done for the 2nd straight week, I believe Kyle Larson and Michael McDowell are the most logical choices to steal a victory. Larson is a two-time winner at Sonoma and has actually reached the #1 spot with a 113.0 average driver rating over the last 5 races. Meanwhile, McDowell is getting excellent value at nearly 20-1 odds despite the fact that he has finished in the top 4 positions in 3 of the last 4 races at Sonoma. If we look deeper into the field, Chris Buescher and Chase Elliott are both significantly undervalued from an odds perspective. While I don’t have a ton of faith in either driver’s chances of visiting victory lane, both drivers have been outstanding talents at Sonoma and have much higher ceilings than current betting odds suggest. Personally, I believe Buescher and Elliott are ideal H2H targets but I would not fault anyone for taking a gamble on both drivers’ chances for the outright win. If we look even deeper into the field, Joey Logano and Austin Hill are getting some huge numbers beside their names. Both drivers are potential prop bet fliers that produce low risk/high yield options.

2026 Draftkings Toyota/Save Mart 350 Optimal Lineup

2026 Toyota/Save Mart 350 Race Picks

*FINAL*

Kyle Larson +750 (.5 unit)
Ty Gibbs +1100 (.5 unit)
Michael McDowell +1800 (.5 unit)

H2H Match-Ups and Props

Todd Gilliland +310 over Daniel Suarez (.5 unit)
Chase Elliott +145 finishes Top 10 (2 units)
Austin Hill +450 finishes Top 10 (1 unit)
Drivers to finish on the lead lap under 31.5 -160 (2 units)

Two Team Parlay

SVG -165 wins Toyota/Save Mart 350
Christopher Bell +330 finishes Top 10
Risking 1 unit to win: +590