2025 Pit Boss/FoodMaxx 250 Race Picks
Date/Time: Saturday July 12th, 2025. 4:30PM (EST)
Where: Sonoma Raceway
TV: CW
Once again, NASCAR’s Xfinity Series will go road course racing when the green flag waves on Saturday for the running of the Pit Boss/FoodMaxx 250 at Sonoma Raceway. For anyone keeping count, Saturday’s return to Wine Country will be the 3rd road course style race in the last 4 weeks and the Xfinity Series schedule still has 3 additional road course events remaining on the schedule. In previous weeks, Shane Van Gisbergen has continued to flex his road course prowess with victories at Mexico City and again last week in Chicago. On Saturday, SVG will once again lead the field to the green flag after winning the pole for the Pit Boss/FoodMaxx 250!
On Friday, SVG won the pole for the Pit Boss/FoodMaxx 250 with a fast lap of 95.151mph which was a quarter of a second faster than the field back to 2nd place qualifier Connor Zilisch. In last week’s preview at Chicago, I mentioned that SVG and Zilisch would likely battle it out on the streets at Chicago because their road course skills are simply head and shoulders above the field. At the end of last week’s race, SVG banged doors with Zilisch and beat him on a final restart to pick up the victory. For tomorrow’s Xfinity Series return to Sonoma, it would not exactly be a bold prediction to expect another battle between SVG and Zilisch for the outright victory.
The only reason last week’s race at Chicago was entertaining at the front of the field was due to the various strategy calls on pit road which shuffled the front of the field. Interestingly, Sonoma Raceway is merely the same size as the Chicago Street Course. In fact, Sonoma is .15 miles shorter in length which opens the window for drivers/teams to attempt to run the full-race on just one pit stop, especially if there are several cautions. Meanwhile, rest assured other drivers/teams will elect to change tires often because long-run speed will be very important. As a result, the team/driver that executes the optimal strategy at the front of the field could find themselves in victory lane. For those reasons, I would not completely rule out the possibility of an upset winner on Saturday.
Loop Data
Despite the fact the Cup Series has competed at Sonoma since 1989, the Xfinity Series has only competed at Sonoma twice previously in 2023 and again last year. While SVG won last year’s event, we really do not have a lot of historical narratives from a handicapping perspective to consider in Wine Country for the Xfinity Series. As a result, I thought it would be better to show loop data results for the last 5 road course races in the Xfinity Series. The results below should be a very solid handicapping baseline for everyone to consider as a primary handicapping angle going into race day!
| Driver | Avg. Rating | Avg. Start | Avg. Mid Race | Avg. Finish | Avg. Pos. | Pass Diff. | Fastest Lap | Laps Led | Total Laps |
|---|
| Connor Zilisch | 134.9 | 9.5 | 5.8 | 2.3 | 6.8 | -111 | 55 | 99 | 270 |
| Shane Van Gisbergen | 123.8 | 5.0 | 8.0 | 3.0 | 7.3 | 2 | 18 | 48 | 212 |
| Austin Hill | 99.7 | 7.4 | 15.0 | 9.6 | 10.4 | 17 | 8 | 6 | 332 |
| Sam Mayer | 97.3 | 4.8 | 14.6 | 11.0 | 11.6 | -167 | 16 | 14 | 342 |
| Sheldon Creed | 96.2 | 9.0 | 8.4 | 12.6 | 12.8 | -156 | 3 | 9 | 308 |
| Jesse Love | 95.0 | 9.8 | 9.8 | 11.4 | 10.4 | -133 | 3 | 9 | 342 |
| Sammy Smith | 86.9 | 12.8 | 17.6 | 11.4 | 13.6 | -162 | 1 | 5 | 342 |
| Riley Herbst | 84.4 | 11.0 | 13.7 | 19.3 | 15.3 | -5 | 1 | 7 | 212 |
| Christian Eckes | 84.2 | 27.3 | 17.7 | 8.0 | 16.0 | -75 | 2 | 0 | 180 |
| Taylor Gray | 83.4 | 17.0 | 11.0 | 14.3 | 13.7 | -206 | 5 | 4 | 168 |
| Justin Allgaier | 82.3 | 7.0 | 19.0 | 22.0 | 18.0 | -25 | 9 | 6 | 327 |
| Carson Kvapil | 81.7 | 7.3 | 14.3 | 19.3 | 14.3 | -137 | 11 | 12 | 180 |
| Nick Sanchez | 75.6 | 12.0 | 17.0 | 20.0 | 14.7 | -123 | 1 | 0 | 179 |
| Alex Labbe | 74.7 | 20.3 | 23.3 | 13.8 | 18.5 | -79 | 0 | 0 | 252 |
| Brandon Jones | 74.1 | 14.0 | 13.4 | 23.0 | 14.8 | -275 | 4 | 0 | 336 |
| William Sawalich | 73.0 | 13.7 | 22.0 | 17.3 | 21.7 | -233 | 1 | 0 | 137 |
| Harrison Burton | 71.8 | 22.7 | 18.3 | 19.0 | 18.3 | -96 | 0 | 5 | 170 |
| Daniel Dye | 68.8 | 21.7 | 15.0 | 16.3 | 17.7 | -159 | 0 | 0 | 180 |
| Austin Green | 68.0 | 19.0 | 18.8 | 16.6 | 20.8 | -121 | 1 | 0 | 328 |
| Dean Thompson | 65.2 | 29.7 | 22.7 | 14.7 | 20.0 | -160 | 0 | 0 | 180 |
| Josh Bilicki | 63.7 | 21.8 | 22.2 | 19.8 | 21.2 | 5 | 5 | 10 | 318 |
| Jeb Burton | 62.4 | 26.6 | 17.2 | 21.2 | 19.0 | -50 | 0 | 0 | 333 |
| Connor Mosack | 60.6 | 13.0 | 19.5 | 22.0 | 20.0 | -24 | 1 | 5 | 122 |
| Josh Williams | 57.7 | 28.2 | 22.2 | 22.8 | 21.6 | -79 | 0 | 0 | 292 |
| Blaine Perkins | 57.3 | 24.8 | 28.5 | 22.0 | 24.8 | -6 | 0 | 0 | 236 |
| Parker Retzlaff | 53.0 | 25.5 | 27.8 | 21.3 | 24.8 | -65 | 0 | 0 | 258 |
| Brennan Poole | 53.0 | 28.4 | 25.6 | 25.8 | 23.8 | -10 | 0 | 0 | 276 |
| Ryan Sieg | 52.5 | 28.8 | 21.8 | 25.0 | 23.2 | -3 | 0 | 0 | 296 |
| Matt DiBenedetto | 51.8 | 20.6 | 25.4 | 26.6 | 23.2 | -125 | 0 | 0 | 327 |
| Jeremy Clements | 51.1 | 22.4 | 26.6 | 26.6 | 25.4 | 28 | 0 | 0 | 320 |
| Ryan Ellis | 47.9 | 31.2 | 26.4 | 23.8 | 26.8 | -161 | 0 | 0 | 324 |
| Anthony Alfredo | 47.5 | 23.6 | 30.8 | 25.6 | 25.6 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 308 |
| Sage Karam | 47.4 | 25.3 | 16.3 | 32.0 | 22.7 | -66 | 0 | 0 | 173 |
| Brad Perez | 40.0 | 31.3 | 23.7 | 27.3 | 27.3 | 13 | 0 | 0 | 187 |
| Kyle Sieg | 38.5 | 35.4 | 23.6 | 27.0 | 28.8 | -46 | 0 | 0 | 306 |
Practice Observations
Prior to qualifying, Connor Zilisch posted the fastest lap in practice with a speed of 95.176mph over Jesse Love and SVG. In practice, SVG and Zilisch were easily the fastest cars lap over lap with Zilisch seemingly getting better in the later stages. Sheldon Creed and Jesse Love appeared to be two of the faster guys outside of the SVG/Zilisch duo. Creed finished 2nd last week at Chicago and ranks top 5 in our loop data above which means he is trending in another competitive direction. Less popular drivers that appeared to also be strong in practice included the likes of Anthony Alfredo, Carson Kvapil, and Christian Eckes. Meanwhile, I would mention that guys like Sam Mayer and Austin Hill (ranked high in our loop data) did not have strong practices. Hill was struggling with engine/carburetor issues and Mayer found himself off-course on more than one occasion.
Betting Targets
Without question, SVG remains the guy to beat going into Saturday and I believe it’s by a fairly wide margin. Connor Zilisch is likely the only guy that is fast enough to beat SVG straight-up but I’m not exactly sure he is fast enough to get it done on Saturday, especially when you consider how strong SVG is on the long-runs which will be very important. We took a few low-risk gambles on opening odds on drivers that normally contend at the road courses (Creed, Hill, Mayer) but I think those drivers are going to need some help to get into winning position. Creed appears to be in the best position to contend at the front of the field but I would not rule out the possibility of Hill/Mayer moving forward after disappointing results on Friday.
Despite the early gambles, I believe creating a parlay with SVG will likely be a necessary strategy. We were able to cash an SVG parlay last week and I believe the same opportunity will be optimal again on Saturday. Outside of the outright win, our best path to profits will need to be in the form of H2H match-ups and/or props. Based on current betting odds, Jesse Love, Carson Kvapil, and Anthony Alfredo are among my favorites that should shatter their suggested ceilings. Alfredo was one of the fastest cars in practice and is getting astronomical odds which makes the driver of the #42 an ideal long shot in prop bet formats. Love and Kvapil are more suitable in H2H situations. For fantasy purposes, I would also throw out names like Christian Eckes, Nick Sanchez, Sage Karam, and Austin Green as affordable fantasy options that should move forward once the green flag waves!
2025 Pit Boss/FoodMaxx 250 Race Picks
*FINAL* Sheldon Creed +1600 (.5 unit)
*early pick Sam Mayer +1600 (.5 unit)
*early pick Austin Hill +2000 (.5 unit)
*early pick H2H Match-Ups and Props
Sammy Smith -140 over Taylor Gray (2 units)
Sam Mayer -130 over Sheldon Creed (2 units)
Austin Hill -115 over Justin Allgaier (2 units)
*early pick Anthony Alfredo +3500 finishes Top 5 (.25 unit)
Two Team Parlay
Connor Zilisch +140 wins Pit Boss/FoodMaxx 250
Chris Buescher +330 wins Group A (Gibbs, McDowell, Byron)
Risking 1 unit to win:
+930 Shane Van Gisbergen -160 wins Pit Boss/FoodMaxx 250
Joey Logano +300 wins Group D (Bowman, Suarez, Hocevar)
Risking 1 unit to win:
+550