DailyFanRacing Newsletter - Vegas
What’s up, everyone?! It’s Dustin Maybin (@CUPharmDFS) back with your weekly DailyFanRacing newsletter. The number of playoff teams has been cut from 12 to 8 as last week’s elimination race saw the exits of Bubba Wallace, Brad Keselowski, Ross Chastain, and Kyle Busch. The Roval, despite being quite the boring on-track racing product, had its ups and downs with regard to the points, which is encouragaing since it was announced to be on the schedule again in 2024. For now though, we turn our focus to the last four weeks of the season, starting tomorrow afternoon.
Let’s first take a look at this weekend’s schedule of events:
Friday, October 13th, 2023
7:05 pm ET - Xfinity Series Practice/Qualifying
Saturday, October 14th, 2023
12:35 pm ET - Cup Series Practice/Qualifying
3:30 pm ET - Xfinity: Alsco Uniforms 302
Sunday, September 24th, 2023
2:30 pm ET - Cup: South Point 400
We had some fantastic results a week ago with several big wins including this one from Delo. We look forward to finishing the season strong at DailyFanRacing. We have one month left in the NASCAR season, come join us!!
This weekend, NASCAR returns to Las Vegas to kick off the Round of 8 in their Playoffs. The Cup and Xfinity Series will be in action, while the Truck Series has another week off. Formula One is also off this week, so we have more time to focus on the two-slate weekend, amidst of course, NFL and NBA.
Las Vegas Motor Speedway is a 1.5-mile intermediate oval, known for its fairly steep banking and multiple racing grooves. Though not really considered a high tire wear track, it is beginning to show some age and ranks slightly above average in tire degradation rate. Comparable tracks on the schedule include Kansas, Charlotte, Texas, and, to a lesser extent, Michigan. One could also argue that all intermediates could be used, which would add Darlington and Fontana, but they’re different enough that I plan to look mainly at the first group of tracks.
When NASCAR was at Vegas in the spring, the weather was significantly cooler with high temperatures nearing 60°. This weekend, however, that is the projected low temperature with race-time temperatures in the mid-80s. How that will affect the competitors remains to be seen, but it should be noted in the event that speeds look drastically different than they did in the spring.
Alsco Uniforms 302 (Xfinity)
Saturday’s race is scheduled for 200 laps (300 laps), yielding a maximum of 135 dominator points. Practice and qualifying will also take place just a few hours prior, creating our usual Saturday time crunch for building lineups.
48.9% of the top 10 DraftKings scores over the past nine Xfinity Series races at Vegas have come from drivers starting 10th or better. Given that the elite teams in this series are often those occupying the top qualifying positions, this is expected. However, just 30.2% of optimal lineup appearances come from this range. Since the elite drivers are all priced above $9,000 for the most part, they can’t all be afforded in lineups. Choosing the correct ones is crucial to gaining the GPP takedown, though simply ensuring you have at least two of them with a solid finish provides a floor that could still cash with the right value plays.
A driver starting in the front two rows (1st through 4th) has made the optimal lineup in each of the past 8 Vegas races. Over the past 9 races here, a driver starting 4th or better has been a main dominator, leading 47 or more laps and incurring 35 or more fast laps.
With regard to the rest of the field, top 10 DK performances and optimal lineup appearances have been fairly balanced at previous Vegas races, so pricing will be the biggest determinant of DFS viability post-qualifying.
South Point 400 (Cup)
To kick off the penultimate round of the playoffs, Sunday’s Cup race is scheduled for 267 laps (400 miles), allowing an average of 170 dominator points over the past 10 Vegas Cup races. The Toyotas have been the class of the field on intermediate tracks this season, but Hendrick Motorsports has turned it on lately and is always in contention for the win here in Vegas. Among the Fords, RFK Racing has been able to compete for top 5 finishes, but we should have a better idea after practice and qualifying.
In 7 of the past 11 Vegas races, there have been at least four drivers leading more than 20 laps. While there are usually two clear dominators, the rest of the dominator points can be quite spread out, making more drivers viable than we’re accustomed to. For what it’s worth, this spring’s race saw just two drivers leading double-digit laps as Hendrick teammates, William Byron and Kyle Larson combined to lead 239 laps (89.5% of the race). Regardless, I will be ensuring that my lineups have 2 to 4 drivers capable of scoring dominator points.
Only five times in the past 10 Vegas races has a driver starting worse than 30th either been in the optimal lineup or achieved a top 10 DraftKings score. Two of those five occasions were by Kyle Busch and Tyler Reddick in elite equipment, while two more came from Cody Ware and JJ Yeley priced less than $5,000 to provide the salary relief for multiple dominators.
While place differential and dominators can be tempting, do not forget about the drivers starting 11th through 20th! Several of them have top 5 upside and can also pick up some fast laps in the process. These combo type plays will likely go overlooked by the casual players, but can provide solid scores whether they’re optimal or not.
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!
If you haven’t done so already, join our FREE DailyFanRacing Discord, where we are chatting about NASCAR and F1 every week.
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 and F1.
Have a great week, and we’ll look forward to you winning with us again this weekend!