NASCAR DFS: Enjoy Illinois 300 @ World Wide Technology Raceway

Welcome back, race fans. The second race of the Chase takes NASCAR to World Wide Technology Park, also known as Gateway, for the Enjoy Illinois 300 this Sunday. While Denny Hamlin still leads the standings after an 18th-place finish to kick off the playoffs, it did reduce his lead to just 12 points over teammate and race winner, Christopher Bell. Bell and Wallace made the biggest jumps as both gained four positions after race #1.

In this article, we will preview the track, look at some past trends, and go over some pre-qualifying picks that we should consider for our DFS lineups this weekend. Let’s get started.

NASCAR DFS: Enjoy Illinois 300

Track Preview & Fantasy Angle

Gateway is a 1.25-mile flat oval short track with 11 degrees of banking in turns one and two and nine degrees of banking in turns three and four. For the Cup series, we don’t have a lot of track history as they have only been racing here since 2022. There is definitely some things we can draw from those four races; however, starting with tough passing conditions and the importance of track position. When looking at the quality pass metric, it comes in as one of the lowest in the database. The winner of this race has started on the front row in three straight races. With 240 laps in the race, we don’t necessarily see a mega dominator, as only once has a driver led 100 or more laps here. The dominator points were somewhat spread out the other three years, with three drivers leading between 50 and 75 laps in 2025, three drivers leading between 40 and 80 laps in 2024, and three drivers leading between 30 and 66 in 2022. That one outlier was Kyle Busch in 2023, as he led 121 laps en route to his win. From a place differential standpoint, we have seen seven drivers get to double digits three times, with eight drivers in the other race.

My initial strategy for DFS this weekend will be to target multiple drivers starting inside the top 10 starting positions. When narrowing down those drivers from a dominator perspective, I will look closely at practice speeds and, more importantly, lap averages. Track history is a smaller sample size but still important to see who excels at the track consistently. I will also factor in performance on short/flat tracks in general, as all are somewhat tough to pass on with similar characteristics.

Top Pre-Qualifying Targets for DraftKings

Denny Hamlin ($10,500)

For the first time in a long time, Denny is not the most expensive driver in the field (non-road course), and we need to take advantage. He has been dominant at Gateway, winning the race last year and finishing runner-up in both 2024 and 2023. He is also always one of the top dominator candidates at short flat tracks, as he leads the series with 1,005 laps led over 16 races since the start of 2025, which comes with three wins (2nd most), 10 top-5s (Tied for 1st), and 13 top-10s (1st). I look for the #11 team to get back on track and extend that Chase points lead this weekend.

Joey Logano ($10,200)

Logano has joined the $10K club this week and for good reason. He returns to Gateway as not only the only driver to finish inside the Top 10 in each of the four races but has also finished Top 5 in each race, including a win in 2022. The #22 team has improved steadily as the season has gone on and has five top-10 finishes in their last eight races, including a 9th last week at Darlington in the Chase opener. I look for the strong short/flat track form and track history to carry over into race #2 of the Chase this week.

Josh Berry ($7,900)

My hope is that the combination of an increase in price and poor track history leads to some lower ownership, as Berry has been one of the more consistent drivers lately. With a 7th place finish last week at Darlington, Berry extended his top 10 streak to six straight races and is tied with Christopher Bell with a 6.2 average finish over the last five races. I am not too worried about the two DNF’s here at Gateway the last two years, as Berry appears to have taken the next step in his career progression in 2026.

Ryan Preece ($7,000)

In terms of value plays, Preece tops the pre-qualifying rankings in my model among all drivers under $8K on DraftKings this week. The track history (13th, 29th, 17th) doesn’t jump off the page, but he checks all the other boxes. The form is what stands out the most as he enters race #2 of the Chase with three straight top-10 finishes, including a win at Daytona to close out the regular season. Looking at the short/flat track data, Preece has top-10 finishes in two of the last four (New Hampshire, North Wilkesboro) and has been very consistent with 13 top-20 finishes (tied for 5th most) in the last 16 races on the track type.