DraftKings NASCAR DFS Picks for Watkins Glen: Fantasy NASCAR Strategy and Picks for the Go Bowling at The Glen

We’re road-course racing this weekend in the NASCAR Cup Series, as teams and drivers make their way to Watkins Glen for the second road-course race of the 2026 season.

This year, instead of the typical 90-lap event, NASCAR has added 10 laps to make this a 100-lap affair. However, that shouldn’t change much, if anything, in terms of strategy.

We’ll still want to largely field drivers that will finish toward the front, with an added bonus if they also pick up a bunch of place differential.

It’s likely there would be one dominator maximum, and I think we all know who that is (more on that later).

Practice is quite helpful at the Glen, but teams and drivers learned a lot with tire wear at such a high degree, so I’d expect my Watkings Glen practice FLAGS to be useful, but not the end all be all in terms of expected pace.

So as always, check out my NASCAR projections in the NASCAR Models on FantasyLabs, complete with floor, ceiling, median, and ownership projections.

Those projections, along with Stephen Young’s from RotoGrinders, are available in our NASCAR DFS package. You can read more about what the package entails here.

Let’s not skip the best part, my Perfect% metric, a metric that tells you how often certain racers appear in the optimal lineup when running 250,000 race simulations.

And don’t forget about the tools that FantasyLabs has to offer, like our Lineup Optimizer to effortlessly create up to 300 lineups or our Lineup Builder if you like to hand-build your lineups.

So, without further ado, here’s my strategy guide and NASCAR DFS picks for the Go Bowling at The Glen at Watkins Glen International.

Go Bowling at The Glen Cash Game Picks

Shane van Gisbergen ($13500): It’s tough to stuff $13,500 of salary into a lineup where there’s only 100 laps, but SVG was dominant in practice and is the best on tire management at road courses in the whole field.

My model is giving him north of a 50% chance of ending up in the optimal lineup, so he’s essentially a must-play in cash games, but there is room to get away from him in tournaments if you feel so inclined.

Riley Herbst ($5200): Herbst has quietly been putting together some solid results in his sophomore season, and there’s reason to be optimistic again despite starting 32nd.

In practice, Herbsts ranked 10th in the average of my four main FLAGS metrics (FLAGS, LONG, DEG, CON) showing he has a solid car that’s capable of moving up.

With SVG hogging so much salary, we need some salary relief, and Herbst provides us the best combination of salary relief with speed and place-differential potential.

Chase Elliott ($9700): Elliott starts 27th, but he is a fantastic road-course racer who was 12th in practice FLAGS, 12th in the composite four-metric average, and has run on some hard times at road courses as of late.

But that doesn’t scare me off, and his tire degradation was among the best in the field, which is massive on a day where tire management is premium.

Go Bowling at The Glen Tournament Picks

Dominators: Like I said, for dominators it’s basically SVG or go ahead and build a lineup of finishing position/place differential. Here are my top dominators by likelihood of dominating:

1. Shane van Gisbergen
   
   (massive, massive gap)
   
2. Michael McDowell
3. Connor Zilisch
4. Ross Chastain
5. Austin Cindric
   
6. Christopher Bell
7. Chase Briscoe
8. Ty Gibbs
9. Ryan Blaney

SVG is the dominator you want, even in tournament formats. But if something happens to him, the rest of the list is my order of likelihood. All of these drivers are tournament-playable, and the Bell through Blaney tier also has enough place-differential potential that you can field them as a normal play instead of as a dominator if they pull off a top-three finish.

Alex Bowman ($7800): Bowman didn’t have peak pace, which showed in qualifying, but Watkins Glen produces long runs and he ranked fifth in long-run speed and fifth in tire degradation in practice.

That’s the sign of a car that can move forward on these long runs, so Bowman, who hasn’t had any top-10 finishes at Watkins Glen, looks poised to possibly break that run of bad form here.

Chris Buescher ($8800): Buescher had pretty big falloff in practice, but I’m one of those who thinks he’s great at tire management generally and was just caught out by the unexpected high wear.

I think Buescher gets that corrected in the race, and he’s poised for a top-five finish if so. I think my simulations are underselling him because it is factoring in tire wear from practice, so this might be a great spot to manually bump up his projections.

Go Bowling at The Glen Paul Menard Pick of the Week

I think we have to go John Hunter Nemechek ($6000) for this week’s PMPOTW

The Legacy Motor Club driver ranked inside the top five (!!!) in overall FLAGS and long-run speed in practice, and he was top 10 in tire degradation.

That’s the sign of a well-rounded car, and his usage should be depressed by starting 17th, as he’s not really known as a road-course racer.

It’s risky, but I’d play him in about 10% of my lineups, or even a touch more to get leverage on the field, who I’m projecting to field JHN at a 7% rate overall.

Pictured: Shane van Gisbergen
Photo credit: Jerome Miron, Imagn