The fourth race of the NASCAR Cup Series season takes teams out west for the Shriners Children’s 500 at Phoenix Raceway. It will also be the fourth different track type in as many weeks adding to the challenge for not only drivers but the entire team in terms of setting up the cars and working logistically across the country from the race shops.
Phoenix Raceway is a one-mile track with an asphalt surface with a banking of nine degrees in turns one and two and 11 degrees in turns three and four. It is classified in my track-type database as a short/flat track and grouped with Martinsville, New Hampshire, Gateway, Richmond, Iowa, and Nashville. Like almost all of the short/flat tracks, Phoenix is a very tough track to pass on and has the highest correlation between starting position and finishing position of any track in my model. Inversely, Phoenix has also seen the lowest average of drivers to tally double-digit place differential. From a dominator standpoint, there has been at least one driver to lead 100+ laps in eight of the last nine races at Phoenix and two drivers leading 100+ four times.
From a lineup-building standpoint, I place a lot of weight on dominator points and starting position. This part of the model relies heavily on practice speeds, specifically the lap averages(5, 10, 15, 20). Depending on the price, we will want to start almost every lineup with at least two drivers who we feel have a shot to be one of the dominators. After that, we will look at some possible place differential upside and the drivers who have the best shot at finishing up front based on track history and short/flat track history.
Before we get to the weekend’s practice and qualifying sessions, let’s look at the top drivers in my pre-qualifying model and then dig into some of my favourite targets.
- Ryan Blaney
- William Byron
- Tyler Reddick
- Kyle Larson
- Christopher Bell
- Denny Hamlin
- Chris Buescher
- Ross Chastain
- Chase Elliott
- Chase Briscoe
Shriners Children’s 500: Core Plays
Ryan Blaney (DK $10,800 / FD $13,500)
It is insane to me that Ryan Blaney has yet to win at Phoenix Raceway given his series-leading 10.4 career average finish. He enters this race with nine straight Top 10s at the track and has finished inside the Top 5 in all six races in the Next Gen car(2022-present) with five of those runner-up finishes! He is second to only his teammate Joey Logano in laps led in those six races and leads all drivers, and by a wide margin, with 73.4 DK/78.1 FD points per race. Looking at his short/flat track history, he is third in average finish(9.9), fourth in average run position(9.5), and fourth in laps led.
Blaney is the second most expensive driver on both sites this week but checks every box and barring a bad practice and qualifying, is easily my top driver this week.
William Byron (DK $10,000 / FD $12,000)
Byron is one of just two drivers to rank Top 10 in every category in my model and it starts with the track history. He not only has seven Top 10 finishes in his last 10 trips to Phoenix, he won the spring race in 2023 and has Top 6 finishes in four of his last five. The 18th place finish last spring could have been much better as he picked up points at the end of stage two and had an average run of 9th place during the race. In the Next Gen car, he also has the second-best average finish(8.3) and fourth-most laps led(190).
He has started the season strong with a win at the Daytona 500, a runner-up finish last week and he had the fourth-best average run position at Atlanta before getting caught up in a wreck. I will continue to load up on Byron and best of all, he is down to 5th in pricing this week on both sites.
Tyler Reddick (DK $9,200 / FD $10,500)
Speaking of starting the season strong, Reddick is one of the other two drivers to tally two Top 5’s in the first three races and leads the series with an 8.0 average finish. After failing to finish better than 19th in his first four trips to Phoenix, Reddick has tallied four Top 10s in his last six and led a race-high 68 laps last spring. He has yet to win at a short/flat track in his career but has been very consistent as one of just two drivers with eight Top 10s over the last 10 races on the track type.
Reddick is 8th in pricing on both sites and is #3 in my pre-qualifying model which has him as a top target heading into the weekend.
Chris Buescher (DK $8,400/ FD $9,00)
As we head outside the Top 10 in pricing we find Chris Buescher who appears to be one of the top PTS/$ candidates this week. After struggling early on here at Phoenix he has put together Top 15 finishes in five of his last six, Top 5 finishes in two of his last three during a three-race Top 10 streak. Buescher has one career win on short/flat tracks(Richmond ’23) and was consistent in 2024 with three Top 5’s, five Top 10’s, and nine Top 20 finishes. What I like best about his short/flat track history is that he has the biggest gap in average start to average finish(+5.5) which has helped his fantasy output in terms of place differential.
He will be in search of his third Top 10 of the season and based on everything above, the odds are in his favour.
Noah Gragson (DK $6,800 / FD $6,500)
In the value range, there area few drivers who grab my attention but Gragson is at the top of that list. He not only finished 12th in both races here at Phoenix last year, he was also consistent overall on the short/flat tracks with eight Top 20 finishes in the 10 races. To lock him into our lineups, I will want to see a qualifying effort outside the Top 20 like the championship race here in the fall.
