DailyFanRacing Newsletter - Darlington
High stakes and high flips. Heart-pumping action and heartbreak. Hard hits and hard pills to swallow. Daytona had it all! What’s up, everyone?! It’s Dustin Maybin (@CUPharmDFS) back with your weekly DailyFanRacing newsletter. The NASCAR Cup Series concluded its regular season Saturday night with Chris Buescher picking up his third win of the year. Most Popular Driver Chase Elliott missed the playoffs, while Bubba Wallace earned the final spot. What everyone will remember most is Ryan Preece barrel-rolling down the backstretch in one of the gnarliest crashes in recent NASCAR history. Fortunately, everyone appears to be okay and we’re moving on to the playoffs!
Let’s first take a look at this weekend’s schedule of events:
Saturday, September 2nd, 2023
10:00 am ET - Formula One Qualifying
10:35 am ET - Xfinity Series Practice/Qualifying
12:35 pm ET - Cup Series Practice/Qualifying
3:30 pm ET - Xfinity: Sport Clips Haircuts VFM Help A Hero 200
Sunday, August 13th, 2023
9:00 am ET - F1: Pirelli Italian Grand Prix
6:00 pm ET - Cup: Cook Out Southern 500
The Xfinity and Cup Series will be in Darlington, South Carolina this week, while the Truck Series has the week off. Formula One will be in action again this week in Italy.
Darlington Raceway, also known as “The Lady in Black”, is a 1.33-mile oval with steep bankings mostly favoring drivers who prefer to run the high groove next to the wall. It also has a unique egg-like shape with turns 1 and 2 having a wider radius than turns 3 and 4. Why is this important? The tiniest lapse of focus could cause a driver to confuse the turns and end up with a famous “Darlington stripe” or worse, out of the race.
Another key aspect of racing at Darlington is managing tire degradation. Its abrasive surface wears tires easily, forcing drivers to try to manage them so that they can still be fast throughout a full run. The combination of the worn out surface and the silica from the local sandy beaches make for exciting racing. From a DFS perspective, fast laps will be spread out, especially if someone has to make an unscheduled pit stop for fresh tires while others are in the middle of a run. Also, different drivers will be fast at different points based on how they manage their tires, creating the opportunity for close racing.
If looking to compare other tracks, it can be a little difficult given the uniqueness of Darlington. It’s not a typical 1.5-mile track, but it does race more like an intermediate track than a short track. It is most similar to Homestead-Miami with the fastest line around the track being as close to the wall as possible, tires having a significant impact, and its steep corners. Darlington’s steep banking could also be compared to Bristol and Dover, though they’re both made of concrete. You could also look at Fontana as another track with high tire wear. Gateway is the same length and is also egg-shaped, but it doesn’t correlate near as much.
What you will notice if you look at these tracks is that the same drivers appear at the top of the charts consistently. Many of them often have dirt racing backgrounds which can be useful due to the amount of throttle control needed to succeed and run the fastest line.
Sport Clips Haircuts VFM Help A Hero 200 (Xfinity)
The past 11 Xfinity Series races at Darlington have seen at least two drivers lead 30+ laps. In 9 of those races, one of the main lap leaders has started 4th or better.
Even though drivers starting in the top 10 have accounted for 47% of top 10 DK scores, each optimal lineup has featured at least 3 drivers starting outside the top 20. The low downforce package and inexperienced in the drivers lead to carnage here at times, contributing to more variance and a greater emphasis on place differential.
Typically, in general terms, lineup construction should start with two potential dominators, unless there is a top tier driver that provides a clear place differential upside (starting 25th or worse with top 5 finishing potential).
Cook Out Southern 500 (Cup)
In 9 of the past 10 Darlington Cup Series races, the optimal lineup has featured at least two drivers starting in the top 10 with at least one starting 6th or better. Surprisingly, the starting positions for optimal lineups has been fairly even over the last 10 races throughout the field as seen below.
The fairly even distribution of optimal lineups illustrates that drivers starting near the front may all have good runs, but likely keep each other from being optimal due to similar salaries. Finding the correct value options to pair with the dominators will be crucial in GPPs this weekend. For more information, don’t forget to check out my driver-by-driver breakdown and Luke’s strategy article after qualifying!
Last time we saw a Darlington Xfinity race, DailyFanRacing member and ginseng guru wphsu99 smashed the field and took home 20 G’s. Let’s see if we can replicate that success again this time around. If you are not all ready a member then now is the time to join!! Sign up at DailyFanRacing.com today!
Final Lap
We will have much more lineup construction tidbits and advice in our race breakdowns, so join DailyFanRacing today to take advantage of the most comprehensive fantasy NASCAR coverage in the industry!
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As usual, for premium members, we will have full driver-by-driver breakdowns, expert rankings, and projections for each slate this weekend, in addition to a slate strategy article and podcast for Cup.
Have a great week, and we’ll look forward to you winning with us again this weekend!