Talladega Superspeedway, 2026 NASCAR DFS results
Sunday, April 26, 2026 · Winner: Carson Hocevar · 188 laps
Race report
Carson Hocevar won the Talladega Superspeedway from P12 and led 19 laps but had to earn it in a race that stayed up for grabs. Christopher Bell actually paced the field with 31 laps led but couldn't close it out.
For DFS, Zane Smith was the top DraftKings score at 66.3 points, while Carson Hocevar led FanDuel (69.2). Biggest mover: Zane Smith, P30 to P5 (+25).
The model's pre-race top five (built lookahead-free) was led this week by Chase Elliott, who finished P4 for 44.5 DK. 1 of the five finished top ten.
This one was chaos, scoring barely correlated with pre-race odds (correlation -0.21), exactly the kind of week where leverage and differentiation win tournaments. Expected for a superspeedway/road-course slate, where variance runs high.
Auto-generated from the official results and the model’s pre-race projection.
- 1. Zane Smith66.3
- 2. Carson Hocevar63
- 3. Noah Gragson60.9
- 1. Carson Hocevar69.2
- 2. Zane Smith67.3
- 3. Alex Bowman65.3
Biggest mover: Zane Smith started 30, finished 5 (+25 positions).
How the model did
Its projected top 5 for Talladega Superspeedway and the DraftKings points each actually scored:
| 1 | Tyler Reddick | P14 | 18.3 DK |
| 2 | Ryan BlaneyWrecked | P37 | -18 DK |
| 3 | Chase Elliott | P4 | 44.5 DK |
| 4 | William ByronWrecked | P35 | -21.5 DK |
| 5 | Kyle LarsonWrecked | P40 | -36.1 DK |
Full results & DFS scoring
| Pos | Driver | Start | Led | Fast | DK | FD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Carson Hocevar | 12 | 19 | 5 | 63 | 69.2 |
| 2 | Chris Buescher | 10 | 22 | 3 | 56.9 | 65 |
| 3 | Alex Bowman | 20 | 0 | 1 | 58.5 | 65.3 |
| 4 | Chase Elliott | 8 | 0 | 1 | 44.5 | 57.8 |
| 5 | Zane Smith | 30 | 0 | 5 | 66.3 | 67.3 |
| 6 | Ricky Stenhouse Jr | 22 | 2 | 4 | 56.3 | 62 |
| 7 | Ross Chastain | 24 | 22 | 1 | 60 | 63.5 |
| 8 | Austin Cindric | 13 | 0 | 2 | 41.9 | 54.3 |
| 9 | Noah Gragson | 29 | 2 | 12 | 60.9 | 61 |
| 10 | Kyle Busch | 34 | 0 | 6 | 60.7 | 61.8 |
| 11 | Todd Gilliland | 19 | 0 | 4 | 41.8 | 52.8 |
| 12 | Daniel Suárez | 16 | 0 | 5 | 37.3 | 49.8 |
| 13 | Ty Dillon | 35 | 0 | 7 | 55.2 | 57.8 |
| 14 | Tyler Reddick | 1 | 2 | 4 | 18.3 | 39.5 |
| 15 | Denny Hamlin | 3 | 28 | 9 | 27.1 | 41.6 |
| 16 | AJ Allmendinger | 28 | 0 | 6 | 41.7 | 49.8 |
| 17 | Christopher Bell | 14 | 31 | 5 | 33 | 44.4 |
| 18 | Ryan Preece | 11 | 21 | 2 | 24.2 | 40.4 |
| 19 | Austin Dillon | 18 | 4 | 9 | 28.1 | 40.7 |
| 20 | Shane Van Gisbergen | 33 | 0 | 9 | 40.1 | 46.3 |
| 21 | Cody Ware | 36 | 0 | 1 | 36.5 | 46.3 |
| 22 | John H. Nemechek | 23 | 0 | 5 | 23.3 | 38.2 |
| 23 | Erik Jones | 21 | 0 | 6 | 19.7 | 35.7 |
| 24 | Daniel Dye | 40 | 0 | 4 | 35.8 | 43.6 |
| 25 | Riley Herbst | 17 | 0 | 2 | 9.9 | 30.6 |
| 26 | Connor Zilisch | 32 | 0 | 3 | 23.4 | 36.5 |
| 27 | Jesse Love | 37 | 0 | 5 | 27.3 | 37.5 |
| 28 | Chad Finchum | 38 | 8 | 5 | 28.3 | 37 |
| 29 | Chase Briscoe | 5 | 3 | 3 | -8.9 | 18.3 |
| 30 | Joey Gase | 39 | 0 | 1 | 21.5 | 33.2 |
| 31 | Brad Keselowski | 6 | 0 | 0 | -15 | 14.1 |
| 32 | Michael McDowell | 31 | 1 | 7 | 11.4 | 23.5 |
| 33 | Josh BerryWrecked | 26 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 16.9 |
| 34 | Ty GibbsWrecked | 9 | 17 | 1 | -13.3 | 8.4 |
| 35 | William ByronWrecked | 7 | 0 | 1 | -21.5 | 3.9 |
| 36 | Bubba WallaceWrecked | 4 | 3 | 1 | -25.8 | 0.7 |
| 37 | Ryan BlaneyWrecked | 15 | 0 | 0 | -18 | 4.4 |
| 38 | Cole CusterWrecked | 27 | 0 | 4 | -6.2 | 8.9 |
| 39 | Joey LoganoWrecked | 25 | 3 | 0 | -11.2 | 6.7 |
| 40 | Kyle LarsonWrecked | 2 | 0 | 2 | -36.1 | -6.6 |
Wrecked and DNF tags come from the official finishing status - those drivers fell well below their projection through attrition, not a model miss.
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