2025 Window World 250 Race Picks

Date/Time: Saturday May 17th, 2025. 1:30PM (EST)
Where: North Wilkesboro Speedway
TV: FS1

NASCAR’s All-Star Race festivities have arrived this weekend at North Wilkesboro Speedway which will feature 3 straight days of on-track activities. The All-Star Race festivities will feature qualifying on Friday, heat races on Saturday, and the main event will take place late Sunday evening. While our betting picks do not cover non-points paying events like the All-Star Race, the Craftsman Truck Series will be in action on Saturday for a points paying race with the running of the Window World 250. As a result, we will enjoy a rather relaxed weekend and focus solely on Saturday’s Truck Series race in effort to turn in a profitable betting card.

Last week, Carson Hocevar became the 3rd Cup Series driver to earn a victory this season in Truck Series competition with his win at Kansas. Hocevar joined Kyle Busch (Atlanta) and Kyle Larson (Homestead) as Cup Series drivers that have won races this season in the Craftsman Truck Series. On Saturday, Kyle Busch will return to the series in pursuit of another win from the Cup Series veterans. Busch will step into the #07 truck with Spire Motorsports for just his 2nd start of the season in the Truck Series following the win at Atlanta earlier this year. Spire Motorsports captured a 1-2 finish last week at Kansas with Hocevar and William Byron. Needless to say, the momentum from Spire Motorsports combined with Busch’s enormous potential has made “Rowdy” the outright betting favorite going into the weekend!

The outright betting favorite has won the last two races at North Wilkesboro since the Truck Series returned to the historic .625 mile oval in 2023. Kyle Larson dominated the initial return in 2023 by leading 138 of 252 laps en route to victory. Last year, Corey Heim completed an encore performance as the outright betting favorite and dominated on the newly repaved surface at North Wilkesboro. While Busch is currently listed as the overall betting favorite, Corey Heim is also considered a relatively big favorite. Needless to say, our initial outlook does not look entirely promising for some of the dark horses that are looking for their first win of the season. However, there are some drivers that should be on everyone’s radar in the event they are able to capture some precious track position late in Saturday’s Window World 250.

Handicapping Strategy

In reality, North Wilkesboro is unlike any other track on the Truck Series schedule. If I had to make comparisons, I could make arguments for Richmond and IRP being the closest tracks in comparison to North Wilkesboro that are on the current schedule. Essentially, North Wilkesboro requires strong short-track skills because drivers will consistently struggle with rear-grip and will have to be creative in their approaches to the corner; especially when passing or in lap traffic. Since North Wilkesboro is so unique, my handicapping will focus heavily on prior performances over the last two years among the Truck Series regulars as our primary handicapping angle. However, we will also consider performance themes at other short tracks like Richmond, IRP, and others as part of the entire handicapping equation. Simply put, North Wilkesboro is one of those tracks where the strong short track talents should emerge and that will be the central focus of how we identify betting opportunities this week!

North Wilkesboro – Quick Notes

Corey Heim has posted incredible average driver ratings of 125.6 and 140.8 over the last two races at North Wilkesboro.
Corey Heim has led a minimum of 65 laps in each of the prior two races at North Wilkesboro.
Grant Enfinger posted top 4 finishes at North Wilkesboro, IRP, and Richmond last year. *Enfinger finished 3rd and posted an impressive 113.6 average driver rating at North Wilkesboro.
Layne Riggs finished 3rd and posted a 110.0 average driver rating in his only start at North Wilkesboro last year. *Riggs finished 5th last year at both IRP and Richmond.
Ty Majeski has posted a 90.0 average driver rating in two starts at North Wilkesboro. *Majeski has also won the last two races at IRP.
Kyle Busch has 6 wins and 3 runner-up finishes in his last 12 starts in the Truck Series.
Jake Garcia has finished 7th or better in 5 of the last 6 races including a runner-up finish at Rockingham. *Garcia led 40 laps in last year’s race at North Wilkesboro.
Tyler Ankrum has finished in the Top 5 in 5 of the last 6 races this year. *Ankrum’s short track success this season features a win at Rockingham, 4th place finish at Bristol, and runner-up at Martinsville

Betting Targets

In terms of the betting favorites, give me Corey Heim over Kyle Busch as slightly better odds. Nothing against Rowdy but he has not been nearly as dominant in recent Truck Series starts. Not to mention, Busch rarely competes in the Truck Series on the shorter layouts. More importantly, the #11 truck has been the fastest guy in the field on a weekly basis despite not always getting the results. With that being said, there is obviously not a lot of value in either of the top two favorites and I am not ruling out the potential for an upset winner on Saturday. As you see from the notes above, there are a lot of lesser known names that have been performing very well in recent weeks especially on the shorter layouts.

We know that Ty Majeski, Layne Riggs, and Grant Enfinger are worthy dark horses that deserve consideration at the short tracks. Both Majeski and Riggs captured multiple wins last season on the short tracks. Meanwhile, Enfinger was the runner-up in this race last year despite an awful start to the race. In fact, Enfinger was the fastest car on the track at the end of last year’s race but simply ran out of time. While Enfinger has not shown tremendous speed yet this season, I would expect him to have a much better outing on Saturday. Enfinger is actually one of my favorite H2H targets going into the weekend because I believe his ceiling is much higher than current betting odds suggest. Likewise, Tyler Ankrum and Jake Garcia are two drivers that are running extremely well in recent weeks and also appear poised to shatter their current projections.

Draftkings 2025 Window World 250 Optimal Fantasy Lineup

***TBD After Qualifying***

2025 Window World 250 Betting Picks

*FINAL* Layne Riggs +600 (1 unit)
Grant Enfinger +2500 (.5 unit)
Jake Garcia +3000 (.5 unit)

H2H Match-Ups and Props

Corey Heim -105 over Kyle Busch (3 units)
Grant Enfinger -110 over Daniel Hemric (3 units)
Tyler Ankrum -115 over Kaden Honeycutt (2 units)
Jake Garcia +400 finishes Top 5 (.5 unit)