DraftKings Preview

AustYn

The 2022 season begins at Daytona International Speedway! One of the problems with dissecting a DFS strategy for a superspeedway like Daytona, is that wreckage and mayhem can happen at any moment. Starting towards the back of the field allows you to gain positive placement points, as DraftKings awards 1 point per position gained from where the drivers true qualifying position. Another important stat that you can gain over the competition is Fastest laps…DK awards 0.45 points per fastest lap and 0.25 in laps led. The lap’s led stat is minor in this one, with only 188 laps and the nature of pack racing, it will be difficult to get ahead using this strategy. With the fastest lap, you can pick a driver that hangs towards the back of the pack, because when the tail end of the train follows that large pack, they tend to gain amazing speed on the straightaways.

As if the superspeedways aren’t difficult enough to analyze…NASCAR has created a new car for this season. The only sample size that we have are the duels, and I must be honest…I am not really paying attention to those results. Teams are driving on the conservative side because they do not have many back-ups or parts to use in the event of a wreck. The Daytona 500 will be all hands-on deck for sure, but the duels were not a great indicator of what will happen. I won’t get too technical with the car, but the only thing I can tell from this week’s practice results, is that Fords look like they can draft in a pack a tad better. That could all change on Sunday though. My strategy will be to look at history and starting position…I will lean a little on practice speeds for the fastest laps stat, but that is really it. If I have learned anything from superspeedway racing…it is that some have a skill for it and others don’t…great analysis, right?

Top Pick: Denny Hamlin ($10,500) Starting P30

*(Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images)*

A real shocker here…Denny Hamlin is the most expensive driver on DK and is the winningest at Daytona with 3 wins. The value of him finishing inside the top-15 is too great…a 15th place finish regardless of supporting stats, gives him 43 points for the day. Hamlin is known to be ultra-cautious and always puts himself in a great spot. I look for him to be easily +60% owned by the DK players, but I don’t think you can afford to fade him.

Supporting Cast: Noah Gragson ($5,300) Starting P39 & David Ragan ($5,100) Starting P34

Playing DFS at Daytona always involves selecting drivers who would never compete at any other style of track. Noah Gragson qualified his way in on speed for the underdog Beard Motorsports team and David Ragan is driving an entry for Rick Ware Racing and has looked bad fast in practice all week. My motivation for picking these two are the starting spots. Gragson won at Daytona in the Xfinity series and the car has a strong enough engine program to hang around. Ragan is a proven superspeedway racer, as he has won at both Daytona and Talladega. The main kicker for me is that the #15 team showed speed in practice, and in starting in 34th I see Ragan getting some fastest laps points, on top of a decent finish.

FanDuel Preview

Yacs

Well, we’re finally here. The start of the 2022 NASCAR season and we’re kicking things off at Daytona, like usual. Daytona can be one of the most fun races as a DFS player or one of the most infuriating. The latter usually happens more often. It truly is a gamble to try and pick unscathed drivers for the entirety of the race and to make things more difficult, we have new cars. I promise, I’m not trying to discourage DFS players, but tracks like Daytona and Talladega are tough to pick. Now that my discouragements are out of the way, let’s get down to business.

FanDuel is running the same points format as last year. 0.1 points for Laps Led and Completed, +/-0.5 points for Position Differential, 43 points for the race win, 40 for 2nd Place, 38 for 3rd, and it goes down by one point each position.

The FanDuel strategy for Daytona is going to be simple, pick the drivers that are going to finish the race and finish in a good spot. Sounds simple enough, right? Think again. In the majority of Superspeedway races, the field is basically cut in half by the end of it and that’s a clean race. You could possibly manage to have one driver out of the race and still win money, but depending on who your fellow DFS players pick, that may not be the case. Your best bet is to draw numbers out of a hat and put those numbers in your lineup. Seriously though, this will be a tough week to pick and the best strategy is to make your picks based on the information that you have regarding driver history at the track. You could look at practice speeds, but I think the most valuable information that you will have is drivers finishing the race at Daytona. If you can get a driver that finishes the race at a high rate, go with them. Enough of that though, let’s dive in to my picks.

Right Out of the Gate: Justin Haley ($6,700); Starting 25th

Right Out of the Gate, I’m picking Justin Haley. Yes, I know he will likely be picked a lot considering he has a great history here, but I’m not looking that deep into it. Yes, he has a win here (rain delay win). Yes, his average Cup Series finish is 6.7, but what I like to see is Running at Finish (RAF), 3/3. Lead Lap Finishes (LLF), 3/3. That’s what I want. And if that’s not enough for you, In the Xfinity Series, he is 6/7 in LLFs. That’s what I like to see. You want a pick that can not only finish well, but more importantly, finish the race. Justin Haley is your guy for that. He has a knack for Superspeedways.

Tier 1: Ryan Blaney ($12,500); Starting 7th

I think you’ll have a lot of DFS players snatching Denny Hamlin off of the board fast in the 30th starting spot, and rightfully so. Hamlin is the best Superspeedway driver in the pack. I just hope my strategy with picking Blaney will be worth it. I’m picking him not only because of his good history at the track and Talladega, but I really don’t think a lot of DFS players will look at him because of his starting spot. In most races, 7th is a tough spot to pick and you want as many positional differential half points as you can get, but at Daytona, it doesn’t matter. Repeat after me, “You want to pick drivers that finish the race and finish well.” Blaney has proven he can do both of those things. 5 of his 7 wins are at tracks 2 miles or larger.

Middle of the Pack: Austin Dillon ($8,200); Starting 36th

For any race, you want a solid middle of the pack salary driver to really hold your lineup together. You can’t find a better driver than Austin Dillon for that task. He is a former Daytona 500 winner and that wasn’t really a fluke. He has been consistently good at Daytona. The starting position is mostly what makes him a good option here, but it definitely doesn’t hurt that he has a winning past at the track.

Lower Tier: Ty Dillon ($4,000); Starting 26th

Yes, we’re going with the Dillon brothers at Daytona. Like his brother Austin, he also has a good history here and honestly, I would say Ty is the better Superspeedway driver between the two. Ty hasn’t been in the equipment that Austin has, but has somehow managed to get 3 Top 10s and 6 LLFs at Daytona in 10 races. Digging a little deeper though, Ty has 8 LLFs at Talladega in 8 tries. At $4,000, he is a very safe pick and the 26th starting spot is nice for someone like him who could finish the race.

Last Pick: Kyle Busch ($10,500); Starting 10th

If you’re looking at our budget here, we have $18,600 left to spend and that would leave us with any driver in the field with $4,600 left over. We’re not going Denny Hamlin, but we are going with his teammate. Kyle Busch has had one marvelous career. Kyle has the most decorated career in NASCAR modern history with 59 Cup Series wins, 222 wins in NASCAR’s Top 3 divisions combined, 2 Cup Series Championships, but he’s missing one big thing. A Daytona 500 trophy. He has won at Daytona, but it wasn’t the 500. Busch doesn’t have the best track record here compared to other tracks, but compared to the rest of the field, it’s still above average. At Daytona, you have to roll the dice and we’ll leave $8,100 in the bank just because we can.

NASCAR Daytona 500 DFS Preview