DailyFanRacing Newsletter - Charlotte/Monaco

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We have an incredibly fun racing weekend ahead of us. All three NASCAR Series are racing at Charlotte Motor Speedway concluding with the Coke 600 on Sunday. We also have Formula 1 tackling the streets of Monaco, and hopefully we have a Sunday afternoon Indy 500. Even if weather impacts things a little, I do hope Kyle Larson can race both races, I am very interested in seeing him compete at Indy.

We had some really good wins pop up in the discord this past weekend. ImRobins was part of the winning chop for the F1 slate from Imola and Tbone20 was able to take dow the Lug Nut and $12 SE contest for the Truck race. Congrats guys on the big wins!

Looking Ahead

Here’s the schedule of races on the docket this weekend

Formula One

That's right! We are kicking things off with F1 this week. Formula One heads to Monaco for one of the most historic races in the history of motorsports, the Grand Prix de Monaco. I know Monaco isn’t everyone’s cup of tea but for me it is an amazing event. The ultra tight circuit on the streets of Monaco presents very little in terms of passing opportunities. And this is what creates the single greatest qualifying session in racing.

Monaco is the smallest and tightest track that F1 races on. Due to its layout, it is incredibly hard, if not impossible to make passes on track. As a result, qualifying is as important as anything else this entire weekend. I highly recommend watching qualifying on Saturday. You will not be disappointed.

The DFS slate will be rather predictable because of the nature of this race. Once we get the starting lineups, we will have a good idea about how the race will play out and who the best plays will be. The key will be trying to find ways to be different, if that is possible.

NASCAR - Charlotte

I don’t want to bore you by writing up all three races and I certainly don’t have the time to do it anyways so I am going to pack all of them into one big section.

As Dustin put it last year, “Charlotte Motor Speedway is a 1.5-mile asphalt quad-oval with 24° banking in the turns. It is the quintessential cookie-cutter intermediate track that NASCAR became enamored with in the ‘90s.”

And ya know what? I am enamored with them now. The intermediate tracks are producing the best racing in all three series. At Texas, we saw a photo finish with Ryan Sieg and Sam Mayer. The Cup races on intermediates have been ridiculous so far in 2024, and of course Truck races are chaos no matter where they are.

The Truck race on Friday night will be fairly light in terms of star power. Brett Moffitt back in the #1 Truck which I will be keeping a close eye on. We were able to smash that CORE play at Kansas but the secret is probably out. We also have Connor Mosack in the 7 truck and a slew of bad teams rounding out the field this week. If you don’t believe me, then simply look at the bottom 10 or so drivers on DraftKings. This could potentially be the worst field in the history of the Series. Winning big on this slate is likely going to come down to guessing right on which garbage driver scores the most. Not my idea of fun.

Truck Series Driver to Watch: Tanner Gray

Tanner has finished top 10 at our last three intermediate tracks. 8th at Texas, 7th at Kansas, and 10th at Darlington. The Tricon trucks are ridiculously fast this year on intermediates and a top 10 should once again be the expectation for Tanner this week. He could round out line ups nicely at just 8k.

The Xfinity Series will have a very interesting dynamic this week. There are several one-off drivers taking part in this race that will certainly spice things up. Kyle Busch will be driving a third car for RCR, Noah Gragson will be driving for the debuting Rette Jones Racing team who have a technical alliance with SHR, and Ty Gibbs will drive the 20 car this weekend. Also, Chase Elliott is in the #17 for HMS and Natalie Decker is in the 92 for DGM. It is a stacked field this weekend.

These additions to the field will be very interesting. Will Kyle Busch be able to pay off his $12k price tag driving an RCR car is probably the first question to answer. Feels weird to me to expect him to win, especially after his mediocre performance with Kaulig last year. Also, how will these additional drivers impact the rest of the field. Will drivers like Sieg, Sammy Smith, Love, Kligerman, etc be able to find their way into he top 10 or will they fail to be good plays because of the depth in this field.

Xfinity Series Driver to Watch: Justin Allgaier

Allgaier has been crushing the field this year in terms of fast laps and laps led. He won our last race at Darlington after leading 119 laps. He was also a massive dominator at Texas before throwing that race away and same thing at Dover. His speed enthuse high banked/high speed ovals has been borderline untouchable. There is a very good chance he gets ignored this week from a DFS perspective because of the existence of Busch, Gibbs, and Elliott. But none of those situations are guaranteed hits and I could definitely see a scenario where Allgaier is still the driver to beat.

Jason & I are back with another amazing podcast this week to preview the Cup Series race from Charlotte. We will go live this Saturday at 9PM ET. On the last show we gave out Brad Keselowski as our race winner and the time before that we had Larson as our Kansas winner. Can we make it three straight? Make sure to subscribe to the channel!

Also, we are giving away TWO monthly subs to DailyFanRacing this week. We will give these out during the show but make sure you retweet the following post on twitter to enter: https://x.com/Larkin8/status/1793675196731208112

COKE 600

That leaves us with the Coke 600. This race has been amazing since the NextGen car was introduced. Yes, it’s long as hell but the last two years have been some of the best Cup Series races of the last decade. The 2022 race saw 18 cautions and 30 lead changes. The 2023 race saw 16 cautions and 31 lead changes. The races were entertaining from start to finish and I expect more of the same this time around.

There are two key things to keep in mind when building lineups for this race. The first thing is that this is a 400 lap intermediate race. Almost all intermediate races are now 400 miles in length these days. Our typical 1.5 mile race has 267 laps. This week its 400 laps. That is a ton of dominator points. While we do see a lot of lead changes, that doesn’t mean we don’t see massive dominator performances. Getting the dominators right will be vital. Also, the high caution rate also means there’s a possibility for a high DNF rate. In 2022, we saw 17 DNF’s. Last year saw 8 DNF’s. I think it is safe to assume we will end up with 8 or so DNF’s yet again but there is the potential for many more. This will allow all those low price drivers who we hate playing the opportunity to reach value. Don’t be afraid to punt with someone you don’t like if it means you can afford those top end dominators that you want to play.

That will do it for this newsletter. HopefullyAs usual, for premium members, we will have full driver-by-driver breakdowns, rankings, and projections for ALL FOUR races this weekend. I strive to deliver the best NASCAR & F1 DFS coverage out there. If you aren’t already signed up then please join us at DailyFanRacing.com