2025 Xfinity Series Championship Race Picks

Date/Time: Saturday November 1st, 2025. 7:30PM (EST)
Where: Phoenix Raceway
TV: CW

On Friday, Corey Heim put the stamp on a Cinderella campaign by winning his 12th race of the season en route to the Craftsman Truck Series Championship at Phoenix Raceway. Heim overcame a crazy overtime finish from deep in the field which highlights the fragile nature of this one race finale that decides a championship. With one race in the books, the focus now turns to Saturday’s Xfinity Series Championship Race which will wave the green flag shortly after 7:30PM(EST) and is slated for 200 laps to decide another major touring series championship!

Similar to Heim’s success in the Truck Series, Connor Zilisch has been the breakout driver in the Xfinity Series throughout the 2025 campaign. Zilisch won his first career Xfinity Series start at Watkins Glen last year and came into the 2025 season as a prestigious road course talent. However, Zilisch has proven throughout the year to be one of the best outright drivers in the sport and has overcome any notion of simply being a phenomenal road course talent. In fact, Zilisch compiled the most dominant stretch in Xfinity Series history over the summer months by winning 7 of 8 races and has won 10 races overall this year. As a result, Zilisch will try to put his stamp on an incredible season with a walk-off championship style victory before moving full-time to the Cup Series in 2026.

Standing in the way of Zilisch is teammate and reigning Xfinity Series champion Justin Allgaier, teammate Carson Kvapil, and Richard Childress Racing driver Jesse Love. Love won the season opener at Daytona back in February but has failed to get back to victory lane. Meanwhile, Kvapil is yet to score his first Xfinity Series win. Meanwhile, Allgaier has been the best driver in the series this year behind Zilisch and has historically been very strong at Phoenix Raceway. Needless to say, Allgaier appears to be the biggest challenger to styme Zilisch’s breakout campaign. However, I will reiterate that anything is possible in this one race champion format that will take place Saturday night!

Handicapping Strategy

The Xfinity Series competed at Phoenix Raceway earlier this year. In that race, Aric Almirola emerged with a win in the Call 811.com Every Dig. Every Time 200. More importantly, the Xfinity Series routinely competes at Phoenix twice each year which gives handicappers and bettors some reliable historical data to rely on. In the Truck Series race on Friday, I advised that we could also lean on performance results from tracks like New Hampshire and Richmond which are very similar to Phoenix. The problem with that narrative for the Xfinity Series is that they have not competed at either of those venues this season. However, we can still observe how teams/drivers have performed at some of the smaller layouts like Rockingham, Iowa, and other comparable venues to ensure we don’t identify any extreme outliers from our historical Phoenix narrative.

Phoenix – Xfinity Notes

Justin Allgaier leads all active drivers with two (2) career wins at Phoenix.
Sammy Smith (2023) and Aric Almirola (2024) are also former winners at Phoenix.
Aric Almirola has finished 3rd and 1st in his last two starts at Phoenix.
Connor Zilisch has finished 4th (2024) and 16th (2025) in two career starts at Phoenix.
Justin Allgaier has finished in the Top 5 in 4 of the last 6 races at Phoenix.
Taylor Gray finished 6th in his only career start at Phoenix earlier this year.
Sheldon Creed has finished 7th or better in 5 of the last 6 races at Phoenix.
Jesse Love has finished 9th or better in all 3 career starts at Phoenix.
Austin Hill has finished in the Top 10 in 5 of the last 6 races at Phoenix.
Sammy Smith has finished in the Top 10 in 4 of 6 career starts at Phoenix.
Carson Kvapil finished 26th in his only career start at Phoenix earlier this year.
Toyota drivers have won 4 of the last 6 races at Phoenix.
The eventual race winner has started from the Top 8 positions in 12 of the last 13 races at Phoenix.

Practice Observations

Xfinity Series teams and drivers had an extended practice on Friday in preparation for Saturday’s championship race. At the end of Friday’s practice, Connor Zilisch stood at the top of the charts with the fastest lap of the session at 128.365mph. However, Jesse Love arguably exited Friday’s session as the biggest surprise story. Love posted the best overall average speed among all drivers and led every consecutive lap category which is the closest metric towards evaluating potential race speed. To be fair, Love has always performed well at Phoenix but the #2 car showed a ton of speed in Friday’s lone practice session.

Behind Love, Zilisch and Almirola appeared to be the next best cars, especially on the longer runs. Personally, I thought Almirola and Justin Allgaier had the best long run speed as both drivers were posting very good times after about 15 or so laps. Therefore, it will be interesting to see how Saturday’s championship race unfolds and if we get the long green flag runs that could potentially benefit those drivers. Meanwhile on the other side of the speed equation, Sheldon Creed and Taylor Gray were some notable names that struggled more than anyone would have expected going into the weekend. Both drivers were well off the pace in speed and will have some work to do going into Saturday.

Betting Targets

While I still believe that both Zilisch and Allgaier are the drivers to beat going into Saturday, I don’t think the margin is as wide as some may believe. More importantly, I have a hard time validating any serious betting consideration for Zilisch at mere 2-1 odds. While Zilisch has not exactly “struggled” anywhere this season, he has not been nearly as good on the smaller layouts as everywhere else. As a result, I am staying away from Zilisch despite the fact I think he “deserves” the championship. With that being said, I already have some exposure to Justin Allgaier due to a live parlay from the Truck Series race and I would not shy away from adding more exposure to Allgaier either.

The handicapping angles show that Allgaier and Almirola are the best drivers with this style of layout and have consistently been the frontrunners at the shorter tracks. As I mentioned in the practice observations, both Almirola and Allgaier showed excellent long-run speed in practice and I think that will pay dividends on Saturday. If any dark horses are to prevail on Saturday, Jesse Love likely has the best shot. As mentioned earlier, Love was really fast in practice and has performed really well at Phoenix throughout his young career. Love has also been running very well in recent weeks which means he is checking a lot of those handicapping boxes. Behind those names, I am not very confident in any significant long shots or dark horses. I do believe Sammy Smith and Corey Day are ideal H2H targets that have higher upside than current betting odds suggest. Meanwhile, potential fantasy fliers are Dean Thompson and Justin Bonsignore.

2025 Draftkings Xfinity Series Championship Race Optimal Lineup

2025 Xfinity Series Championship Race Picks

*FINAL* Aric Almirola +500 (1 unit)

H2H Match-Ups and Prop Bets

Sheldon Creed -130 over Ryan Sieg (2 units)
Austin Hill -115 over Ryan Sieg (2 units)
Brandon Jones -155 over Sammy Smith (2 units)
Taylor Gray -120 over Carson Kvapil (2 units)