Five O'Reilly Series bets we like for Sonoma — Zilisch to win, four Top-5 plays — laid out pre-practice. Why we wait for Friday's speed before we fire. Receipts, not vibes.
Practice and qualifying haven’t run yet. These are the five we like before a lap is turned at Sonoma — one to win, four to finish top five — and exactly what Friday’s speed has to confirm before we actually fire them. Sonoma Raceway · Pit Boss/FoodMaxx 250 · June 2026 · By PitByNumbers Staff · 8 min read Why these five Road courses don’t lie the way ovals do.
A short track is half luck; a 1.99-mile road course is a skill test, and the same names keep passing it. That’s the thesis. But here’s the discipline that comes with it — we’re writing this before a single lap of practice.
On a circuit where passing is genuinely hard and track position is the whole ballgame, a clean qualifying lap is worth more than raw race speed, and we won’t know who has it until Friday afternoon. One more thing the board doesn’t flag loudly enough: Shane van Gisbergen and Ross Chastain are in this field. They can’t score series points, but they can finish in the top five, and every spot they take is one fewer for the regulars these Top-5 bets are built on.
So we like all five. We fire them when the grid says we should. 1.
Connor Zilisch — To Win (+200) Start with the anchor, because the board does. Zilisch is the defending winner of this race — he led 46 of 79 laps at Sonoma a year ago and won by under half a second. He is one of the best road racers in the sport, and he is fresh off running down Jesse Love and stealing Watkins Glen on the last lap in May.
He’s a full-time Cup rookie now, dropping back into JR Motorsports’ No. 1 for select road races, and Sonoma is one of them. At +200 for a driver of this caliber, defending this exact race, the number is fair-to-generous.
The only honest caveats: he shares the field with two other Cup-caliber road aces who can beat him, and his Cup commitments make the No. 1 a part-time program. We want to see the No.
1 unload with speed Friday before we lock it. 2. Jesse Love — Top 5 (+200) The value play among the series regulars, and the one whose road form is genuinely peaking.
Love is the reigning series champion, already signed to move up to Cup with the Wood Brothers in 2027 , and his 2026 road slate reads like a Top-5 receipt: 4th at COTA, 2nd at Watkins Glen — where only a last-corner pass from Zilisch cost him the win — and a 6th at San Diego that he salvaged from the rear after a pre-race penalty. His Sonoma history specifically is thin (he hasn’t cracked the top ten here yet), so this isn’t a track-history bet — it’s a bet on a champion in the best road-course form of anyone eligible for points. The one nick: a San Diego inspection penalty cost RCR pit-stall selection at Sonoma, a small strategic tax.
3. William Sawalich — Top 5 (+425) The track-history bet. Sawalich ran 3rd in this race a year ago and won the ARCA West race at Sonoma leading every lap — he simply knows his way around this place.
He’s in JGR’s No. 18 with real road-course ability and a stack of top-fives across the 2025 road slate to prove it. The honest counter, and the reason this one needs Friday more than most: his 2026 has been streaky, his road results this year have bounced from a 7th at COTA to a pair of 36ths at the Glen and San Diego, and he’s clinging to a playoff-bubble points position.
The Sonoma pedigree is real; the week-to-week consistency isn’t. If he qualifies up front, the +425 is a steal. If he rolls off mid-pack, it’s a pass.
4. Taylor Gray — Top 5 (+450) First, the housekeeping that’ll save you from a bad slip: this is Taylor Gray, the No. 54 JGR driver, not his brother Tanner, a Truck Series regular who isn’t in this race.
Confirm the name your book listed. Now the bet — because Taylor Gray has the hottest road form in this entire group. He ran 2nd at San Diego last week, beaten only on the final lap, and 3rd at Watkins Glen before that.
He finished 7th at Sonoma in 2025, he’s a 2026 race winner (Kansas), and he sits a comfortable 10th in points. The road speed is current, the equipment is championship-grade, and the Sonoma history is a top-ten. At +450 this is the live one of the Top-5 group.
The only reason it’s not already placed is the same reason as the rest: we want the grid first. 5. Austin Green — Top 5 (+700) The longshot, and a genuine road-course specialist the board prices like a backmarker.
Green ran 4th at Sonoma in 2024 in just his third career series start, and last fall he stunned the paddock with a runner-up at the Charlotte Roval — nine of his ten career top-tens have come on road courses. He’s back in the No. 87 specifically for the road weekends after sitting out a mid-season stretch, with Sonoma squarely in his wheelhouse.
The catch the +700 is pricing: it’s an underfunded small-team car, his 2026 oval results have been rough, and he sits 24th in points. This is a lottery-style Top-5 dart — pedigree-rich, equipment-poor. Size it small, and only if Friday shows the No.
87 has the pace it’s flashed at road courses before. Zilisch to win is the anchor and the soundest bet on the board — defending champ, best road racer in the field, fair price. Love and Taylor Gray are the Top-5 plays we like most among the regulars, both riding real road-course form.
Sawalich is the track-history dart, Green the pedigree longshot. But every one of these is written before a lap of practice, on a circuit where the grid decides the race. We like all five today.
We place them Friday, after qualifying tells us who actually has it.