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It has been nine weeks since the first road course race of 2022 was run and we had our sixth different winner of the season. In that span of time, we have had four drivers have repeated and the complexion of the season is in a high degree of change. From now until the regular season ends in 11 weeks, we will have four road course races, beginning this week at Sonoma Raceway.
Road courses can be wild cards because of the strategy involved. Passing is difficult and track position after the final pit stop is critical. A few drivers can overcome bad luck if the last green flag segment is long enough and these are opportunity races for them.
Throughout the course of NASCAR’s history, 60 drivers have won on road courses. Of them, half earned only one including some legendary names like Dale Earnhardt Sr., Davey Allison, Bill Elliott, and Buck Baker. Among active drivers, Joey Logano, Denny Hamlin, Kurt Busch, and AJ Allmendinger have just one win to their credit so far.
Forty-seven of the 60 winners have three or fewer. To be fair, that stat is skewed somewhat by the fact that NASCAR held only two or three road course races each year, but the point is that this is a track type that can be hard to predict.
1. Chase Elliott
After crashing in his last three oval races, Elliott desperately needs something good to happen this week. He’s won seven of the last 15 road course events and earned top-fives 11 times. (50)
2. Kyle Busch
With top-fives in four of his last six road course races, Busch has to be on your radar. Unfortunately, those are his only strong finishes in his last 12 attempts on this track type. (27)
3. Christopher Bell
Bell can be uneven on road courses. He finished outside the top 20 on them three times last year after winning at Daytona. Four of his last five road course races have been in the top 10, however, so he bears watching. (60)
4. Kyle Larson
When he was in championship form, Larson could win absolutely anywhere, which he proved with wins at Sonoma, Watkins Glen, and the Charlotte Roval. This year is not the same as 2021. (7)
5. Ross Chastain
Chastain wrecked the No. 11, No. 9, and No. 23 last week at Gateway. His COTA win came after he crashed the leader in that race. Patterns like that can have a devastating backlash. (11)
6. Martin Truex, Jr.
Truex has one of the best overall records on road courses of anyone in the field, but that did not help him in 2021 as he finished outside the top 10 in four of seven races and had an average of 15.1. (53)
7. Denny Hamlin
Hamlin enters this week with five consecutive top-10s at Sonoma, which is second-best on this course behind teammate Busch. (4)
8. William Byron
If you toss out last year’s Indy race when Byron was severely turtle bit, his recent road course efforts have been solid with results of sixth to 12th since Watkins Glen. (15)
9. Kurt Busch
Busch enters the weekend with a current, 10-race streak of top-15s at Sonoma and the overwhelming majority of those were top-10s. His streak begins with a win in 2011 and he was sixth last year. (18)
10. AJ Allmendinger
You cannot afford to ignore Allmendinger. He was challenging for the lead before getting wrecked by Chastain at Circuit of the Americas (COTA) and won last year’s race at Indy, but he also has several bad finishes in the past three seasons. (45)
11. Tyler Reddick
His might not be the first name that immediately comes to mind on road courses, but Reddick has five top-10s in his last seven attempts on them with the most recent two as top-fives. (38)
12. Ryan Blaney
With 11 races remaining in the regular season, Blaney would feel much more confident with a win. He inherited the top spot on the Charlotte Roval in 2018 when Truex and Jimmie Johnson wrecked and finished second last year at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course. (69)
13. Joey Logano
Logano went to Road America last year with four consecutive top-fives on road courses. In five races on them since, he’s earned only one top-10, which was seventh on the Charlotte Motor Speedway road course. (63)
14. Austin Cindric
Cindric’s ninth-place finish at Indy may have been aided by attrition, but he also earned a top-10 at COTA and had one of the best cars at Road America last year before disaster struck. 75
15. Alex Bowman
He started the 2021 season with three consecutive road course wins, and then Bowman slipped out of the top 15 for three races. He was 10th on the Charlotte Roval last fall and second at COTA this spring and could be starting a new streak. (80)
16. Chris Buescher
The last two weeks have been difficult on Buescher with his rollover crash in Charlotte and after being forced to sit out the inaugural World Wide Technology Raceway race because of COVID protocols. (46)
17. Erik Jones
Jones has run better than he’s finished quite often in the past 45 days and that elevated him into the Power Rankings top 10 for the first time this week. (33)
18. Austin Dillon
Dillon is not quite as consistent on road courses as he is on “cookie-cutters”, but he has finished in the top 15 in six of his last eight starts in the past two seasons. (25)
19. Brad Keselowski
Road courses are drivers’ tracks and that could elevate Keselowski a position or two, but his average finish on this track type in the past two seasons is only slightly better than 20th. (41)
20. Chase Briscoe
Three top-10s on road courses last year make Briscoe more than just a passing curiosity, but he has also finished worse than 25th on three occasions in the last eight races. (22)
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21. Kevin Harvick
For a while, Harvick was one of the best road course racers in the field, but as he’s struggled in the last few years, he has only two top-10s in his last 10 attempts. Wait for a better opportunity to risk anything on the No. 4. (30)
22. Aric Almirola
Almirola put himself in contention to lead a couple of times at Gateway last week and that is what it will take if he wants to be a part of the playoffs in his final full-time season. (84)
23. Cole Custer
Custer earned a top-10 in his second road course start at the senior level. In eight races since, he has only one more top-15 and an average finish just outside the top 20. (86)
24. Ty Dillon
Dillon has made four starts on road courses in the last two years with a best of 19th and a worst of 26th. He could be a solid fantasy value if he fits the right niche. (66)
25. Harrison Burton
There isn’t a lot to go on for Burton on road courses, but he showed promise in Austin this spring with a 17th in the Texas Grand Prix. (44)
26. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
Stenhouse came close to cracking the top 10 on road courses twice last year with an 11th at Indy and a 12th at Road America. (57)
27. Todd Gilliland
Gilliland’s 16th-place finish at COTA is one of his better races this season. He has another pair of results on the cusp of 15th in his last four attempts and should be watched as a potential dark horse. (72)
28. Bubba Wallace
One of Wallace’s best road racing efforts came in last year’s edition of this race when he finished 14th. On average, he’s somewhere in the mid-20s, however. (88)
29. Corey LaJoie
LaJoie was snake bit at COTA this spring, but he was solid on road courses last year and often sneaks into the top 25 on ovals. He’s an undervalued driver in most situations. (78)
30. Daniel Suarez
Suarez has come close to winning several times this year, but as we hit a period with a lot of road course races, he is likely to lose some of his momentum. (35)
31. Justin Haley
Haley is an opportunist on road courses with an eighth-place finish at Indy last year and a 15th at COTA this season. The remainder of his efforts on them earned a 31st on average. (9)
32. Michael McDowell
McDowell is a popular dark horse on road courses and he occasionally comes through. He has two top-10s in his last eight efforts and finished on the cusp of 15th in his last two tries. (82)
33. Josh Bilicki
Bilicki’s best road course finish came in last year’s car-killing race at Indy - beware the turtles - but he had a top-25 at COTA earlier this year and could be a mildly pleasant surprise. (87)
34. Scott Heckert
Heckert has made three starts in BJ McLeod‘s No. 78 and he finished on the lead lap every time with a career best of 26th. (10)
35. Joey Hand
Hand started the two most recent road course races with a best of 27th last fall on the Charlotte Roval. He has the skill, but the No. 15 is not at the front often enough to make him relevant. (89)
36. Cody Ware
Last year, Ware got off to a strong start on road courses with a 25th at Daytona and then slipped to 34.6 on average. This year, his first effort on this course type netted a 27th at COTA. (90)
The number in parentheses after the handicap refers to our confidence level for that driver compared to the field. A low number does not necessarily mean we do not have confidence this week, but that contrasted with the others in the field in previous races, we have missed more often in their handicaps. Starting with a confidence level of 90 percent, because 100 is impossible to achieve, this number decrements by percentage to a low of five.
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