Daily Fantasy NASCAR Track Preview: Coke Zero Sugar 400
It is our duty of citizens of this planet to send NASCAR a thank you for the end of last week's race in Michigan.
Sure, it sucks to tear up race cars, especially ones to whom we may-or-may-not have had hefty financial exposure. But that late-race calamity gave us relevant drivers starting deep in the pack for the Coke Zero Sugar 400, and it's going to make our lives a whole heck of a lot easier.
As always, our strategy for a drafting track is to stack the back, exploiting the ease of passing and the volatility of finishes. In this era with few qualifying sessions, though, we're dependent on the brown stuff hitting the fan the week before to give us good place-differential drivers to lean on.
Luckily, we got that here. Let's dig into why this is our optimal strategy and what it means for our FanDuel lineups this weekend.
Why We Stack the Back
The reasons for prioritizing place-differential are threefold: the two factors mentioned above (easy to pass and a wreckfest) and the limited number of laps.
Saturday's race will be just 160 laps, leaving us 16.0 FanDuel points for laps led. That would typically be plenty, but you don't often see drivers dominate here. In four Daytona races since the Cup Series ditched restrictor plates, only two drivers have led more than 46 laps in a race. That were both by Denny Hamlin in the Daytona 500, a race that's 40 laps longer than Saturday's will be.
When you add it all up, you'll often see the biggest point totals come from the back of the pack. Here's the perfect lineup from February's Daytona 500.
| Perfect Lineup | Salary | Start | Laps Led |
|---|---|---|---|
| Denny Hamlin | $14,000 | 25th | 98 |
| Chase Elliott | $13,500 | 12th | 3 |
| Ross Chastain | $7,500 | 34th | 0 |
| Austin Dillon | $7,500 | 4th | 7 |
| Michael McDowell | $5,500 | 17th | 1 |
There was a clear skew toward the back there with three of five drivers starting 17th or lower and two outside the top 24.
The 500, though, uses a different method for setting the order. Our best comp comes from last year's regular-season finale where the starting grid was set by the same formula in place here. In that one, three of five drivers started in the back half of the field.
| Perfect Lineup | Salary | Start | Laps Led |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chase Elliott | $11,800 | 27th | 0 |
| Denny Hamlin | $11,700 | 10th | 9 |
| William Byron | $7,200 | 6th | 24 |
| Bubba Wallace | $7,000 | 21st | 0 |
| Brendan Gaughan | $6,500 | 40th | 0 |
We should expect this to continue on Saturday.
Luckily for us, we've got options this week. Former Daytona winners Joey Logano and Austin Dillon will start 22nd and 27th, respectively. Ross Chastain starts 29th and finished inside the top 10 at Daytona this February. We've got outlets; we just have to take advantage.
You will notice that not every driver in these perfect lineups is starting further back. That's because finishing points still matter a bunch, especially if you can get the 43 points for a win. This is what allows us to play the assumption game and still use some of the fun drivers starting at the front.
The assumption game is where you pick a driver who you think will win. It doesn't matter where they start; they'll be a viable DFS play no matter what if they get the job done. You lock them into your lineup, and then you skew toward place-differential for the final four spots as those drivers don't need the 43 points for a win to come through.
This is helpful here. Four of the five most likely winners in my simulations are starting inside the top five (Logano is the lone exception), and six of the top seven will start inside the top 10. There's a good chance our winner is at the front of the grid. As such, we don't want to entirely cross them off. We just have to be careful with our exposure levels.
One thing to consider when building your assumption lineups is pairing assumed winners with teammates or drivers on affiliated teams. Last year in the summer Daytona race, Hendrick Motorsports swept the top two spots, and four Chevys were in the perfect lineup. In February, Fords were holding down the top four spots in the final laps before they wrecked themselves. Teamwork matters more here than anywhere else, so pairing correlated drivers together is a wise strategy.
If you've been playing NASCAR DFS long enough, you know how to play these drafting races. You focus on place-differential, scoop an assumed winner, and profit. The starting order lends itself perfectly to this approach once again, and we should be straining to take advantage.
