Pearce Dietrich gives his top NASCAR bets on DraftKings Sportsbook for the NASCAR Cup Series Toyota / Save Mart 350 at Sonoma.
Sonoma decides nothing by accident. The road course rewards skill, not luck. This week’s best bets lean on the drivers who’ve already proven it.
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There’s no such thing as a sure thing in life or racing. A -165 wager in any sport is far from a certainty. Too much can go wrong. Last week’s experimental road course race on a Navy base is a perfect example of the unpredictability of NASCAR Cup Series road course racing. The race in San Diego didn’t work out for SVG. It wasn’t for lack of speed. It was a lack of luck. Sonoma is a traditional NASCAR road course, where luck should be secondary to skill and experience.
Van Gisbergen’s domination on road courses is well known. In a short period of time, Trackhouse Racing’s resident road rockstar has registered numerous victories. His Cup Series trophy case has quickly become as cluttered as his Supercars case. SVG’s competition has strong notebooks, but at the end of the day, it comes down to execution at this technical track. Technical tracks require technique, and Van Gisbergen has developed technique never seen before in the NASCAR Cup Series. SVG led 97 of 110 laps on his way to his 2025 Sonoma Cup Series victory. The year prior, he won the 2024 O’Reilly Auto Parts 225 at Sonoma as a rookie for Kaulig Racing.
The “Track Knowers” are exactly what the parlay describes. The cream rises to the top at Sonoma, and the drivers with experience and skill turn laps in the top 10. This is not a flukey street course. The stars squash the secondary drivers like grapes.
SVG and Chase Elliott are well-known road course experts. They’re possibly the best ever. Chris Buescher deserves to be in that conversation, but the uncharismatic driver does not lend himself to chatter. The only hot take is that there’s never a hot take for RFK’s star. Buescher won an O’Reilly Auto Parts Series championship. He’s a weekly top-10 driver, and his road course stats measure up against anyone in the field, or any stock car driver to ever turn right.
The only question is Michael McDowell, and that’s not a big question. The parlay doesn’t require a win, a podium, or a top-5 finish. McDowell needs to finish better than three-quarters of the field. On a bad day, McDowell waltzes into the top 20 and smokes half the field. On an average day, he’s comfortably in the top-10 mix. On a good day, McDowell is the second-best of the “Track Knowers.”
It appears Larson’s luck has changed. He was snake-bitten on the road courses in 2025. Last week, Larson landed on the launch pad podium. San Diego road course results aren’t necessarily a true reflection of speed or skill, but those have already been established by the Californian. The question was fortune. It appears the dark cloud that cruised along with Kyle has cleared. He’s primed to compete on the wine country course just down the road from his hometown of Elk Grove.
Yung Money won the wine at Sonoma in 2024. The win would have been sweeter if Larson had defeated SVG, but the Kiwi didn’t compete. Some wins and some wines aren’t too sweet. Some prefer a bold red. Larson has always been bold at home. He always showed speed at Sonoma with Chip Ganassi Racing but lacked the equipment to seal the deal and put the cork in the bottle. With Hendrick Motorsports, that changed. The wins come easier everywhere, and so have the Cup championships (2021 and 2025). Larson has a legit shot at leveling the New Zealander, with or without luck.
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