NASCAR is road racing and everyone is back on the board. The Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, is far from a superspeedway but the field is still even. Longer odds can be targeted on Sunday. Here are the best bets for the NASCAR Cup Series EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at COTA.
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Race Winner — EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix
Connor Zilisch +1200
This is the Tiger Woods of racing. That’s bold but the 18-year-old out of Charlotte, North Carolina, is a monster — a Kaiju (giant monster in Japanese). He’s Con-Zilla. The kid has been devastating the motorsports scene for years. His Wikipedia is longer than most athletes’. Zilly’s accolades include two Xfinity Series wins, five ARCA wins, 13 Mazda MX-5 wins, five Trans-Am wins and eight late-model wins. That’s a Hall of Fame career.
There was a time when rookies struggled in the NASCAR Cup Series. That era is long gone. The Gen-7 car is easy to drive. There’s parity. The disparity between big-team mainstays and up-and-comers is nonexistent at road courses. Most of the road courses on the circuit are novel and the team’s notebooks are novellas. They have limited notes. This limits advantages.
Chip Ganassi Racing folded its NASCAR team. Trackhouse Racing picked up the pieces. No one expected anything from this small team. They immediately burst onto the scene at the road courses. Ross Chastain, Daniel Suarez and Shane Van Gisbergen all have Cup Series road course wins driving for Justin Marks’ team. Marks is a lifelong road racer. Trackhouse’s priority shouldn’t be a surprise. The field is even and Trackhouse doubles down on road courses.
Trackhouse went even further this week. The two-car team that expanded to three cars in 2025 will roll out four cars. Are they spreading themselves thin? No. All of the cars are fast this weekend at COTA. It’s a murderers’ row and the most deadly might be the youngest. Zilly won Saturday’s Xfinity Series race. It wasn’t a walk in the park but it was. When it came to driving, Zilisch humiliated his opponents. Pitting was different. Zilisch hit pit road at the wrong moment and was penalized. Laps later, he drove right back through the field. The legend grows and there’s no Mothra or King Kong to stop him.
Race Winner — EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix
AJ Allmendinger +2200
The Dinger is back in the Cup Series. Few drivers can match his illustrious road course racing career. His career stats are compelling as are his weekend stats. Allmendinger laid down the fifth-fastest lap in the first practice session and 10th-fastest in practice two. In the first session, his average lap time (excluding outlier laps) ranked fourth. He ranked fourth of the 24 drivers in five-lap averages. His speed was down a little in the second session but Allmendinger had top-10 speed.
After qualifying, Allmendinger wasn’t thrilled about his car. He’s never thrilled. The Dinger is known for his midrace in-car audio meltdowns. It’s very common for the broadcast to cut to therapy sessions between Allmendinger and Kaulig team president Chris Rice. Allmendinger’s post-q commentary was not significant because of the Dinger’s sour declaration. What’s unique is the tire wear. According to Allmendinger, the new tire (first raced at Watkins Glen) is falling off. The drivers with real experience could separate themselves over the course of green-flag laps.
