2025 Pennzoil 250 Race Picks

Date/Time: Saturday July 26th, 2025. 4:00PM (EST)
Where: Indianapolis Motor Speedway
TV: CW

NASCAR’s Xfinity Series will take center stage at “The Racing Capital Of The World” on Saturday for the running of the Pennzoil 250 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Despite NASCAR’s prestigious history at Indianapolis going back to the 1990s, Saturday’s Pennzoil 250 will be just the 10th race all-time for the Xfinity Series on the historic 2.5 mile oval. In fact, Justin Allgaier (2018) is the only driver in the field that has won at Indy’s historic oval. However, there will be plenty of challengers on Saturday led by Kyle Larson and a host of Xfinity full-time competitors looking for an opportunity to kiss the bricks!

On Friday, Xfinity Series’ teams and drivers were fortunate enough to get a full practice session completed. I say “fortunate” because rain cancelled most on-track activities on Friday including the Cup Series practice. With that being said, Connor Zilisch was the guy that posted the fastest lap in practice with a speed of 166.627mph. Zilisch captured his 4th win of the season in a rain-shortened race at Dover last week and is starting to become one of the drivers to beat on a weekly basis. Zilisch’s fast time was nearly a full half-second faster than the field despite the fact he appeared to be completing a mock qualifying lap.

While we will get into practice observations below, I would like to mention that Indianapolis is one of those very unique racing venues that is unlike any other track on the circuit. While fans and bettors may compare components of Indianapolis to places like Pocono and Michigan, Indianapolis Motor Speedway is truly one of a kind. Since the Xfinity Series has only competed on the 2.5 mile oval once in the last 5 years, we really don’t have a lot of historical information to reference from a handicapping perspective. Therefore, I believe bettors should be relatively cautious for this race. We should look for opportunistic value in futures and ensure our sharp money is targeted at H2H match-ups!

Handicapping Indianapolis

As I mentioned above, Indianapolis Motor Speedway is a very unique track and is one of the biggest on the schedule at 2.5 miles in length. The size of the track produces tremendous speeds but drivers also have to be very technical towards hitting their lift/braking marks lap over lap. In many ways, it’s a perfect blend of driver and car that is needed to be working together to find a successful formula. For those reasons, I like to look at how teams/drivers have performed at tracks where raw speed is very prominent. Tracks like Kansas/Michigan are good comparisons to find raw speed while tracks like Pocono have a lot of the technicality components that are also required at Indy. Therefore in order to handicap Indianapolis successfully, we need to be on top of performance trends and also ensure that teams/drivers have unloaded a fast car for the weekend by observing practice times. Only then can we construct a baseline of expectations with the confidence level to make selections.

Practice Observations

As I mentioned earlier, Connor Zilisch posted the fastest lap in practice but that was largely due to a mock qualifying effort. More importantly, I don’t think single lap speeds should be given too much attention but rather we should be looking for the drivers/cars that displayed strong speed lap after lap. While there were not many “long” runs in practice, it was pretty apparent that all of the JRM cars were really solid in the speed department. Justin Allgaier arguably showed the best speed of the entire session. Meanwhile, Zilisch and Carson Kvapil were pretty solid as well. Kyle Larson flashed a couple of really fast laps but simply did not run enough laps to really gauge his race speed.

Behind the JRM guys, I thought Taylor Gray stood out as a potential dark horse. Gray has shown most of his best performances on the shorter tracks but had excellent speed in practice. Teammate Brandon Jones and Jesse Love were among the others that also appeared to be really solid throughout the entire session. Austin Hill, Aric Almirola, and Sheldon Creed were some other big names that I had my eyes on during practice. However, all of those drivers seemingly struggled in practice. In my opinion, Hill and Creed were well off the mark in terms of speed. With that being said, teams are still allowed to make changes overnight so everything that we learned from practice is still subject to change.

Betting Targets

For the first time in recent memory, betting odds are actually fairly generous going into Saturday’s Pennzoil 250. Kyle Larson is currently a huge betting favorite for all the right reasons and admittedly deserves betting exposure. However if something happens to Larson, there is a lot of betting value in the remaining drivers that are likely to contend on Saturday. Both Connor Zilisch and Justin Allgaier are deserving of consideration. Personally, I think Allgaier has the most experience and technical skills that suit the driving style that is needed at Indianapolis. It also helps that Allgaier is getting the best odds of the duo. Therefore, I believe Allgaier is nearly a must-play on all lineups.

Behind the favorites, Taylor Gray and Austin Hill are among my favorite drivers that are yielding enough value to warrant betting consideration. To be clear, Hill did not appear to have the fastest car in practice and actually struggled at certain points. However, Hill has also been the best driver in the series at the high speed tracks and the #21 team still has time to find speed going into Saturday. Meanwhile, Gray was one of the fastest cars in Friday’s practice. In fact, I thought all of the JGR cars were pretty solid with Gray appearing to be the best of the group.

I’m not sure if I have a high degree of confidence that any big dark horses will be in contention for a victory on Saturday barring strategy plays on pit road. With that being said, Brandon Jones and Nick Sanchez are a couple of drivers that appear to be poised to outperform their current betting odds. Jones was sneaky fast in practice and has been performing fairly well in recent weeks. Meanwhile, Sanchez has been one of the best raw talents in the series this season despite his limited experience. At a track like Indianapolis where the driver can make up a lot of time, Sanchez has a much higher ceiling than current betting odds suggest.