Five NASCAR Cup drivers — Chastain, van Gisbergen, Zilisch, Allmendinger, Hocevar — fill out the front of the entry list for Friday's 72-lap road course race. The model loves Christian Eckes ($11) at the top tier vs $14-$15 chalk, and Giovanni Ruggiero (#17 TRICON) is the slate's biggest pricing gap. Toni Breidinger and Dystany Spurlock both make historic Truck-series starts.
Friday's Bully Hill Vineyards 176 at Watkins Glen International is the eighth NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race of the 2026 season — and the first road course of the year. Thirty-eight trucks are entered for the 36-truck race, meaning two won't make it past qualifying.
Five Cup Series drivers are in the field, three of them pulling triple-duty across the weekend: Ross Chastain (#45 Niece), Shane van Gisbergen (#4 Niece) and Connor Zilisch (#71 Spire) all run Truck → O'Reilly → Cup. A.J. Allmendinger climbs into the No. 25 Kaulig Racing entry; Carson Hocevar pilots the No. 77 Spire one week after his Texas dominance. The crossovers compress the prize pool but they don't necessarily lock down the win — last year's Mid-Ohio Truck race went to a regular over a road-course ace, and this 2.45-mile circuit has rewarded craft over horsepower for decades.
The model loves the chalk at the top, but the meaningful disagreement with the conventional market is in the $11 FJ band — Christian Eckes (#91, McAnally-Hilgemann Chevrolet) projects as the field's top finisher (P1, 56.0 fantasy points) at a salary two tiers below the Cup-driver elite. That's where lineup leverage lives this Friday.
Race Details
| Race | Bully Hill Vineyards 176 at The Glen |
| Track | Watkins Glen International (2.45-mile road course) |
| Date | Friday, May 8, 2026 — 4:30 PM ET |
| TV / Radio | FOX Sports 1 / MRN / SiriusXM |
| Distance | 72 laps / 176.4 miles |
| Field | 38 entered, 36 start (2 DNQ) |
Top Plays
Christian Eckes (#91, $11 FJ / $7,800 DK) — The model's top-projected finisher in the field at P1. Eckes runs the McAnally-Hilgemann Chevrolet and has been a consistent road course threat in the truck series. At $11 FJ he's three tiers below Zilisch and SVG but projects ahead of both in our model. Top-tier value play.
Shane van Gisbergen (#4, $15 FJ / $14,000 DK) — The Supercars champion in a Niece Motorsports Chevy. SVG has dominated NASCAR road courses since arriving in 2023 and brings the deepest road-racing pedigree in the field. The $15 ceiling salary is the cost of admission for a true RC ace; pair him with cheaper anchors and he's the most defensible chalk play of the slate. Projected P2.
A.J. Allmendinger (#25, $14 FJ / $10,500 DK) — Kaulig Racing entry. Allmendinger's 88 career top-10s across NASCAR's national series include heavy road-course representation; he wins these races. P3 projection is the cleanest non-Cup-driver pick at the top of the board.
Brent Crews (#1, $14 FJ / $11,000 DK) — The TRICON Garage rookie has shown speed at every track type in 2026. P8 projection plus a clean track-type record makes him a sneaky tournament play.
Value Plays
Giovanni Ruggiero (#17, $3 FJ / DK n/a) — TRICON Garage entry that's missing from the DK price sheet entirely, dropping his FJ salary all the way to the $3 floor. Model has him P4 — if he runs anywhere close to that, he's a tournament-defining leverage play. Massive ceiling at minimum cost.
Connor Mosack (#7, $10 FJ / $7,400 DK) — The Spire Motorsports entry. Mosack quietly has a strong Truck road-course profile and the napa scheme is back. P13 projection at $10 is fine; the upside is the unique pivot from the Cup-driver chalk.
Toni Breidinger (#20, $4 FJ / $4,600 DK) — Historic start in the McAnally-Hilgemann Chevrolet. The Truck-series rookie projects realistically at P25 (the model briefly priced her higher before we corrected for thin ARCA road-course sample). Cap floor with name recognition for casual contests.
Storylines
Dystany Spurlock makes history. The 34-year-old Virginia native (No. 69 Motorsports Business Management Ford) becomes the first Black woman to compete in any of NASCAR's three national touring series when the green flag drops Friday. Spurlock came to stock-car racing from drag racing — competing in NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle and the XDA Motorcycle Drag Racing Series — while working as a flight attendant and a CDL-holding tractor-trailer driver to fund her career. She made her ARCA Menards Series debut at Hickory in March (P10) and adds two ARCA East starts in 2026.
Toni Breidinger's Truck full-time push continues. Now in the No. 20 Celsius Chevrolet for McAnally-Hilgemann Racing (a switch from the No. 27 Rackley W.A.R. ride). Watkins Glen is one of the toughest road courses in NASCAR; a clean run here matters more than the points.
Stephen Mallozzi fills in for Frankie Muniz in the No. 33 Team Reaume Ford. The 25-year-old Temple Law student-driver has 14 career Truck starts (best finish P22). Glen is his fifth career road course start across NASCAR's national series.
Watch For
The chalk at the top of the projection — SVG, Allmendinger, Eckes, Zilisch — covers the leverage. Pivots are at $9-$11 FJ where Mosack, Garcia and Brenden Queen offer ceiling without the contest-wide ownership. The two biggest model-vs-market gaps to exploit:
- Eckes ($11) as the top FJ-projected driver below the conventional ceiling tier
- Ruggiero ($3) unpriced by DK and projecting top-5 — a leverage play for tournaments only