DailyFanRacing Newsletter - NASCAR All-Star Race & Imola

What’s up, everyone?! Ryan Larkin (@Larkin8) here with a DFR newsletter for the first time in a while. Sorry for taking some time off with the newsletter but I am excited to bring it back this week. It certainly felt like the perfect time to jump back into things considering how damn good the racing has been in recent weeks.

We have a fun racing weekend ahead with the NASCAR All Star race taking place at North Wilkesboro, as well as the Truck Series race on Saturday. Plus we have F1 racing this weekend at Imola. Lots of opportunities to win some money but also I think this will be an entertaining weekend of racing all around.

Speaking of winning money, things have been fantastic with the DailyFanRacing crew. We nailed the race winner Brad Keselowski last week at Darlington which delivered some really good DFS scores and winning betting slips. The week before saw William earned a qualifier ticket to the Fantasy Racing World Championship and, of course, over the last month we have had a ton of big money winners. I try to highlight the big winners when I can to congratulate them but after about 5 weeks away it would probably be too many to mention. So congrats to all of you who have scored big in recent weeks!

Looking Ahead

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

Saturday, May 18th, 2024 - 1:30 pm ET - Wright Brand 250 (Trucks)

Saturday, May 18, 2024 - 5:00 pm ET - All-Star Heat Races (Cup)

Sunday, May 19th, 2024 - 9:00 am ET - Imola GP (F1)

Sunday, May 19th, 2024 - 5:30 pm ET - All-Star Open (Cup)

Sunday, May 19th, 2024 - 8:00 pm ET - All-Star Race (Cup)

North Wilkesboro

North Wilkesboro has been repaved since the last time NASCAR visited which will certainly shake things up. The racing we saw last year can essentially be thrown out of the window because very little will transfer over to this year’s races. For starters, during testing, the Truck Series drivers were well over 2 seconds faster per lap. It might get closer to 3 seconds once they get those things dialed in. Also, it went from a super high tire wear track to a track that will have zero tire wear. This will create a whole different element in terms of pit strategy.

I believe the best thing we can do when trying to comp the Truck Series race here is to look at Martinsville races. They are both half mile short tracks with similar banking and since this track no longer has significant tire fall off, I would assume we will also see tire strategy the resembles what we typically see at Martinsville races.

This race will be 250 laps in length for the Truck Series which makes dominator points incredibly important. Like any Truck Series short track race, I do expect a decent amount of crashes and stupidity so make sure you keep an open mind when building lineups.

Driver to Watch - Ty Majeski

I always want to leave you with a driver to watch for DFS heading into the weekend and this time around it’s Ty Majeski. Majeski is a short track ace whose best performances in the Truck Series have come on the small, half mile tracks. He finished 2nd here last year on the old surface, he won at IRP last year, and was 2nd at Martinsville earlier this year. Majeski led 66 laps and score 28 fast laps and was a factor the entire race in that Martinsville.

The most important part of this play is the pricing. DraftKings likes to just make things up for Truck races and as a result, Majeski is only $9,500. This has him priced below Sammy Smith and Aric Almirola… Not to mention Ross Chastain is once again $11,500. He currently sits at +650 to win this race while Ross is at +1000, Sammy +1100, and Aric +1200. There is a lot of built in value into this play. $9.5k for a driver who projects to finish top 3, score a bunch of fast laps, and has fantastic win equity is someone I want to invest heavily in. We will have to see what qualifying brings but this is a fantastic option.

Time for a quick promo for the site. I have to try at least once to get you to sign up.

We cover each and every racing DFS slate at DailyFanRacing. From Trucks to F1 and everything in between, we have you completely covered with the best DFS racing coverage in existence. If you are looking to get the best information to set you up for success then join the team by signing up at DailyFanRacing.com.

Not sure you want to subscribe? Then make sure to check out the DFR discord. The discord is free and we have a lot of great racing chatter. Also, I post my free prizepick and underdog plays in the discord.

All-Star race

There is a lot of unknowns this weekend with the multiple tire options and I am not going to try and read too much into it without seeing the heat races.

To start things off, we must talk about the two different tire compounds. Or maybe a third if it rains? I live about 45 minutes from the track and rain is expected most of the weekend. Anyways, NASCAR decided it was a good idea to bring two tire compounds for the All Star race. Tire #1 is going to be your traditional short track tire and will have yellow lettering while tire #2 will be a soft tire and will have red lettering. It will be called the “Option” tire by NASCAR so if you hear that, they mean the softer compound tire. The red lettering helps to mirror the F1 soft tire which uses red as the signifier.

All teams must start on the soft tire for the All Star race. There will be a lap 100 caution where all teams must make a 4 tire stop and a lap 150 caution where strategy is up in the air. This is where things start to impact us. On the new surface, there will be almost no tire fall off and I do not expect a lot of passing in the first part of the race. It’s the second half where teams can choose which tires to use during these two cautions that will potentially shake things up. NASCAR has made it a requirement to make a 4-tire stop at lap 100 and so teams must decide whether to use the softs early and go til the end or if they want to take the standard tire at lap 100 and then use the softs at lap 150.

This potential tire strategy will come down to how much actual fall off in speed there is with the soft tire. Also, if it rains and we end up using the rain tires then none of this matters. But let’s assume it doesn’t rain. In this scenario, we could see drivers who run 17th the first half of the race be able to flip strategy and gain track position that makes them an optimal play. On the flip side of this, we could see someone who runs top 5 for 150 laps get a bad finish simply by choosing the wrong tire strategy. This tire situation could deliver some randomness in terms of finishing position.

There will be 20 total drivers in the All Star race. 17 have already qualified with 2 drivers racing their way in through the All Star Open and 1 fan vote winner. The heat races that will decide the starting lineup for the top 17 drivers will take place on Saturday while the All Star Open will happen just a couple hours before the All Star race itself. That means we won’t know the full starting lineup until right before the main race starts. We will have everything covered at DailyFanRacing.com.

Fomula One - Imola

The last F1 race in Miami was amazing to watch and seeing Lando Norris get his first ever win was fantastic. McLaren showed up with a ton of upgrades heading into that weekend and the improvement showed. Norris had ridiculous race pace and was able to take the win after a little safety car fortune put him out front.

F1 heads back to Europe for the first time this year for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at Imola. Imola is actually named Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari after Ferrari founder Enzo Ferrari and his son. It is in the heart of Italy and there will be a massive amount of Ferrari support this weekend. So it probably won’t surprise you that Ferrari has dropped a laundry list of upgrades for their car in an effort to take the fight to Red Bull and McLaren. New front and rear wings, diffuser, sidepod inlets, and more were introduced and they were able to finish top of the board in both FP1 & FP2.

With the Red Bull car still looking like a slight handful for Verstappen, I think we will have a great battle at the front with Ferrari, McLaren, & Red Bull.

Lastly, there is the potential for rain this weekend which could make things very interesting as well.

I am really looking forward to breaking this slate down with Brett on the podcast and hopefully we get a great race on Sunday morning.

One last promo from me: If you haven’t already, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. Jason and I will be dropping many more episodes of our podcast through out the year including next week for the Coke 600. These shows are free and we are going to be doing numerous giveaways throughout the year so make sure you are there. I truly feel like we have an amazing podcast that is worth checking out.

Subscribe Here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRNrWhXte91zLYa2T9a60MA

Final Lap

If you haven’t done so already, join our FREE DailyFanRacing Discord, where we are chatting about NASCAR, F1, LOL/CS, and MMA everyday.

As usual, for premium members, we will have full driver-by-driver breakdowns, expert rankings, and projections for ALL FOUR  races 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!