2025 Focused Health 302 Race Picks

Date/Time: Saturday October 11th, 2025. 7:30PM (EST)
Where: Las Vegas Motor Speedway
TV: CW

Last week, Connor Zilisch continued his breakout 2025 campaign by winning his 10th race of the season at the ROVAL at Charlotte Motor Speedway. While Zilisch’s dominance on the road courses and the ROVAL were not surprising, the fact that the young phenom has now won 8 out of the last 11 races in the Xfinity Series is something that nobody expected from the rookie. On Saturday, Zilisch will have the opportunity to keep his dream season and championship hopes alive when the Xfinity Series waves the green flag for the Focused Health 302 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway which will officially kick off the Round of 8 in the Xfinity Series playoffs!

Despite the fact that points are resetting for the Round of 8, Zilisch still has a 33 point lead over 2nd place due to the massive amount of playoff points he has accrued over the season. Along with Zilisch, all of the J.R Motorsports drivers/teams were also successful in advancing to the Round of 8 with Justin Allgaier, Carson Kvapil, and Sammy Smith all in contention. I mention the J.R. Motorsports cars for a specific reason because they have been the best cars/teams throughout the season on the intermediate 1.5 mile layouts. In fact, Justin Allgaier earned his first victory of the season at Las Vegas when the series visited earlier this year. The J.R Motorsports and Team Hendrick alliance has won 4 of the 5 races this season at 1.5 mile layouts which means Saturday’s Round of 8 opener should be a good opportunity for the JRM guys to punch a championship ticket to Phoenix!

The only downside to the aforementioned facts and performance observations is that the majority of the prior races at the 1.5 mile speedways were visited much earlier in the season. The only 1.5 mile (outside of Atlanta) that the Xfinity Series has competed at since May is Kansas Speedway which was just two weeks ago. In that race, Brandon Jones delivered a mild upset win which was the first victory for Joe Gibbs Racing on a 1.5 mile track since the 2024 race at Kansas. While JGR cars have typically performed well at Kansas, it just proves that performance trends on the 1.5 mile layouts are not always linear. With that being said, we will still use performance trends, historical analysis, and even a little recency bias to establish our handicapping foundation for Vegas!

Vegas – Xfinity Notes

Justin Allgaier (2024) and Austin Hill (2023) are the only former winners at Las Vegas.
Justin Allgaier (Las Vegas/Homestead) and Brandon Jones are the only drivers with wins on 1.5 mile layouts this season (excluding Atlanta).
Justin Allgaier has finished 6th or better in 7 of the last 8 races at Vegas.
Jesse Love has finished 6th or better in his last two starts at Vegas.
Austin Hill has finished 7th or better in 5 of the last 6 races at Vegas.
Sam Mayer has finished 7th or better in 4 of the last 6 races at Vegas.
Brandon Jones has finished in the Top 10 in 5 of the last 7 races at Vegas.
Aric Almirola finished 2nd at Las Vegas earlier this year. Almirola has only finished in the Top 10 in 1 of 7 career starts at Vegas.
Austin Hill has finished in the Top 5 in 4 of 5 races this season on 1.5 mile layouts (excluding Atlanta).
Justin Allgaier and Sam Mayer have finished in the Top 5 in 3 of 5 races this season on 1.5 mile layouts (excluding Atlanta).
Jesse Love has finished 7th or better in 4 of 5 races this season on 1.5 mile layouts (excluding Atlanta).
Brandon Jones has finished 9th or better in 4 of 5 races this season on 1.5 mile layouts (excluding Atlanta).
Justin Allgaier, Connor Zilisch, Austin Hill, Sam Mayer, Brandon Jones are the Top 5 drivers this season on 1.5 mile layouts (excluding Atlanta).
The eventual race winner has started outside the Top 5 in 9 straight races at Vegas.
Chevrolet drivers have won 4 of the last 6 races at Vegas.
There have been at least 5 cautions or less in 5 of the last 6 races at Vegas.

Betting Targets

I identified a lot of trends in the section above that are important for this week’s return to Las Vegas. Simply put, the best handicapping method for 1.5 mile tracks is looking back at performance on the 1.5 mile layouts. While I will use tomorrow’s practice to solidify my handicapping outlook, I do believe that Justin Allgaier should be the overall favorite despite the fact Zilisch is listed as the outright favorite. While I understand why Zilisch is the overall betting favorite (8 wins in 11 races), Allgaier has dominating performance metrics on the 1.5 mile layouts over all competitors. As a result, I would consider Allgaier the top ranked driver going into Sunday and a strong betting target in all formats.

Based on current betting odds, Austin Hill and Sam Mayer are among some of the best dark horse options. Both Hill and Mayer have been really good on the 1.5 mile layouts throughout the season and Hill is a former winner at Vegas. Mayer’s overall performance has been trending up in recent weeks and he is also triggering on other handicapping angles. For those reasons, I believe Hill and Mayer are value bets that can also be considered in all formats. Another driver that may provide sneaky value in H2H match-ups is Jesse Love. Love is among the championship contenders and his consistency, as a frontrunner, has largely gone unnoticed. If you are looking for deeper options, Nick Sanchez and Daniel Dye are both really solid 1.5 mile talents that have much higher upside than current betting odds suggest. Both drivers have legitimate Top 10 opportunities on Saturday which should yield value in both fantasy and prop bet formats!

2025 Draftkings Focused Health 302 Optimal Lineup

2025 Focused Health 302 Race Picks

*FINAL* Aric Almirola +500 (1 unit)
Sam Mayer +1400 (.5 unit)
Austin Hill +1800 (.5 unit)
Jesse Love +1800 (.5 unit)

H2H Match-Ups and Prop Bets

Jesse Love -110 over Sheldon Creed (3 units)
Sam Mayer -110 over Brandon Jones (2 units)
Ryan Sieg +250 wins Group C (Kvapil, Sawalich, Bayne) (1 unit) *Bovada*
Trevor Bayne +550 wins Group C (Kvapil, Sawalich, Sieg) (.5 unit) *Bovada*
Nick Sanchez +600 finishes Top 5 (.25 unit)
Daniel Dye +2000 finishes Top 5 (.25 unit)