The dust has settled out in Las Vegas, and now the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs roll into the ultimate wild card racetrack on the schedule: the big, fast and often infamous Talladega Superspeedway.
Talladega truly needs no introduction. Over the years in the playoff format, it has been known to end championship dreams as well as save them. With its intense pack racing and propensity to have big sweeping crashes, the drivers below the cut line have a tough task ahead of them this week.
Only one driver — Las Vegas winner Denny Hamlin — is sleeping well this week, I promise you that. This race is also incredibly hard on a guy to select a fantasy team and place some bets.
Outside of the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL, this is the one track where truly anyone can pop up and play spoiler outside of the playoffs. There are also plenty of talented superspeedway racers who are no longer a part of the playoffs who have a stellar record at places like this.
My advice is not to lean too heavily on the playoff drivers when picking your guys, as it is statistically impossible that all of them will have a great run. Throw in a good mixture of both perennial contenders and a few underdogs for good measure.
Fantasy/Betting Breakdown: 2025 South Point 400
| Right On The Money | Lick Your Wounds |
| Denny Hamlin: 58.5 points scored | Ryan Blaney: -20.6 points scored |
| Alex Bowman: 46.5 points scored | Shane Van Gisbergen: -12 points scored |
| Ryan Preece: 44.2 points scored | Josh Berry: 19.9 points scored |
None of my bets hit last week, so I went with the full rundown for fantasy instead, and boy was it a mixed bag. Sure, for the second week in a row, I got the win. Meanwhile, Ryan Blaney erased nearly half those winning points while Shane van Gisbergen took care of the rest. Hopefully Talladega will be kinder to me than it has been over the years on Sunday.
Fantasy Forecast
Ryan Blaney $10,500
I’m going to throw in a spoiler for you guys for the next week at Martinsville Speedway: you’re going to see Blaney in this number one spot as well.
While I’m hesitant about this pick because YRB had a disastrous spring race here (much like he did at Vegas), he is without question a force to be reckoned with on these drafting tracks.
In particular here at Talladega, he’s won three times. The last time being this very race in his championship season back in 2023. Don’t get me wrong, a lot will have to go right for this No. 12 team to get the win.
You just can’t afford not to have him in your lineup though.
Chase Elliott $9,800
Driver No. 9 shot himself completely in the foot last weekend and now finds himself in an uncomfortable, almost must-win situation.
I do feel like he could pull it off this week for some reason. Elliott is, in my opinion, the second-best drafting track driver in the series behind Blaney. The numbers do support that too, as his career average finish at Talladega is an impressive 14.6, and he’s won here twice.
He also won at Echo Park Speedway (Atlanta) back in the summer. He will have to absolutely avoid the mental errors this week though, because one mistake here could spell the end of his 2025 postseason.
Brad Keselowski $8,600
A living legend on drafting tracks, Keselowski’s record on the hallowed high banks of Talladega speaks for itself.
Six wins and a career average finish here of 15th is always more than enough to make me spend my DraftKings salary on him.
I mentioned a few weeks ago how shocked I am that RFK Racing doesn’t have a win this year. While I thought it could’ve come from either Ryan Preece or Chris Buescher this year, I’m starting to think the boss man may be the one to carry the flag.
This could be his best last chance to do so in 2025.
Chase Briscoe $7,900
Briscoe did absolutely everything he could do at Vegas to hold off Hamlin late, but nothing was going to stop that No. 11 Toyota Camry.
So now Briscoe faces his toughest challenge yet since joining Joe Gibbs Racing this past offseason. He’s shown plenty of speed on this style of track this year, as he won the pole for the Daytona 500 and several other pole on long, fast tracks. He’s just been able to seal the deal on this one in particular.
This past spring, he started 17th and finished 15th, and honestly never showed much speed that weekend. I think he’ll improve on that if he survives the melee on Sunday.
Michael McDowell $6,700
This first season with Spire Motorsports has not been kind to McDowell this season, but we’re getting right into his wheelhouse.
Of course, he’s the 2021 Daytona 500 winner, but more recently, he very nearly won here back in 2024.
This team needs a spark, especially with the news about Justin Haley’s departure and the cooling off of Carson Hocevar as of late. They brought in McDowell to lead this team, and I expect some leadership from the front at Talladega this week.
John Hunter Nemechek $6,000
Despite the lack of execution during the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs, there is no question that JHN has had a career year.
A career high in top-10 finishes is enough evidence for that. It just feels like he’s just meant to get one more round in the sun before the season closes.
We’ve seen many times how this place can clean out contenders and leave it in the hands of a hard-working driver deserving of a surprise win.
Dale Jarrett’s final win here in 2005 immediately comes to mind. This just seems like a race JHN could surprise us all in, so he’s my ultimate dark horse this weekend.
Prop Bets and Locks
- Spoiler Alert Parlay Special: Like I said earlier, this track tends to favor the playoff spoiler more than it does the eight drivers who are currently still in it. So, I think the odds that Tyler Reddick, Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., Kyle Busch and Keselowski all finish the top ten are pretty high. Plus, at +872, I love the idea of this bet making somebody some big bucks. They’re all accomplished superspeedway winners, and I think it’s very much worth the risk.
- The Hendrick Ladder Parlay Special: So, as you probably know, Elliott and William Byron are in a little bit of trouble this week. That said, I do believe they will answer the bell this week. The parlay calls for Byron to finish top three and Elliott to finish top five, but the question mark is that Kyle Larson has to finish in the top 10. While he has improved on this track type a lot this season, I don’t know if I would be willing to take this. However, at +1250, it is yet another low-risk, insanely-high reward scenario.
- Brad Keselowski +1800 to win: I can’t always give you the reasons why I like a certain driver on a particular weekend. I can throw up the six wins, the average finish, you name it. With superspeedway racing, a lot of that stuff doesn’t really matter. I just got a feeling about this No. 6 car this weekend. As I mentioned earlier, Jarrett won his final race 20 years ago, and his and Keselowski’s careers kind of mirror each other. No. 6 never quits, and I think he’ll be standing with the wreath in Victory Lane on Sunday afternoon.
Garrett joined Frontstretch as a news writer in 2023, and became a fantasy racing and betting writer in 2024. Hailing from the heart of coal country in southern West Virginia, he's a married father of three and currently enrolled in the Physical Therapy Assistant Program at New River Community Technical College in Beaver, WV.
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