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Here we go. On Saturday night, the final spot in the NASCAR Cup Series playoff field will be decided at Daytona International Speedway. Bubba Wallace currently holds the spot on points and Daniel Suarez has a shot to beat him if this race goes right for him, but a whole host of winless drivers are looking to spoil things and get in, just like Austin Dillon did in this race last year.
As far as DFS goes, this race is going to be a crapshoot. In this race last year, Landon Cassill, Noah Gragson, Cody Ware, B.J. McLeod, and David Ragan all had top 10s, and just 10 drivers finished on the lead lap. Of the top 10 starters, seven of them failed to finish the race. This one can get wild. Place differential is king, and lineup-building is going to get weird.
Below are my NASCAR DFS lineup picks for the Coke Zero Sugar 400 on DraftKings and FanDuel this week. This slate locks on 8/26/23 at 7:44 PM ET. If you have any questions or want to talk about NASCAR, you can find me on Twitter at @juscarts.
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Chase Elliott
Starts 23rd - DK: $10,500, FD: $12,500
Chase Elliott has to win on Saturday night to make the playoffs. NASCAR's most popular driver, someone who has made it to the championship races in the last three seasons and has never finished worse than 10th in points, might miss the postseason.
There's no such thing as a sure thing at Daytona. But I can say this—if Chase Elliott's car is running and minimally damaged on the last lap of this thing, he's going to be going all-out for the win. He's never won at Daytona, but he does have a pair of second-place finishes, and he's led double-digit laps here four times, including in this race last year before he crashed out.
William Byron
Starts 27th - DK: $9,500, FD: $12,000
Byron has already won five races this season, which means over half of his Cup Series victories have come in 2023. Can he make it six wins on Saturday night?
Starting 27th, Byron offers some place differential upside here. His track record at Daytona is spotty, with four consecutive finishes of 34th or worse at this track. If he started anywhere better than 20th, I'd probably be fading him on Saturday night, but the starting spot offers enough upside for me to ignore the seven Daytona DNFs on his resume.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
Starts 32nd - DK: $8,500, FD: $7,500
Stenhouse has a well-earned resume for being a good superspeedway racer. He's won at Daytona twice, for example, including winning this year's Daytona 500 from the 31st starting spot. He crashed out in the two races before that, but overall he's shown a knack for getting up front. In 22 starts at Daytona, he has just four top 10s, but he's led double-digit laps seven times.
He also had nine top 10s in 20 starts at Talladega, with a win there as well. He's led double-digit laps four times there, and he finished 15th in the spring Talladega race. RSJ is arguably the best place differential play in this field.
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Erik Jones
Starts 24th - DK: $6,700, FD: $5,500
Your impulse might be to load your lineup down with drivers starting 30th or worse, but I think there's some really good value to be had in that 21-29 range as well. Erik Jones, who starts 24th, is one of my favorite plays for that reason.
Jones has had some horrible luck here at Daytona lately, crashing out in five of the past six starts he's made here. But he's also a former winner of this race, and last year he looked competitive before crashing, as he led 22 laps.
This 43 car should be in the mix for a top-10 finish as long as Jones keeps it clean. Yes, more often than not, that's been an issue for him here. But Daytona's like playing scratch-off tickets. You're gonna lose a lot, you're going to break even a lot, but occasionally, you're winning $100 off that one-dollar ticket.
Chandler Smith
Starts 36th - DK: $5,400, FD: $4,800
At Daytona earlier this year, this 13 car had some issues and wasn't able to race its way into the field. And now, back at Daytona, the car had some issues and wasn't able to qualify. But the field isn't over 40 cars here, so Smith's in the field, albeit coming from the back. He starts 36th. This will be his second Cup Series start. At Richmond, he started 37th but put together a strong race, finishing 17th.
In Xfinity, Smith has run here twice, both this year. He was 12th in the season opener at Daytona, then 22nd last night after he was caught up in a crash.
At this price point, Smith's worth taking a risk on, even if he hasn't shown to be as good a superspeedway racer as his Kaulig teammates.
J.J. Yeley
Starts 33rd - DK: $5,100, FD: 4,000
I would almost never advise a person to play a J.J. Yeley-piloted Rick Ware Racing car in fantasy. But Daytona's a different beast and Yeley's a veteran driver who knows how to ride around in the back and stay out of trouble, allowing him to get a strong finish by the end of the night.
Yeley hasn't raced Daytona since 2020, when he finished 40th in this race after an early mechanical failure. But he had four finishes of 20th or better at Daytona in a six-race span before that, and he's never had a crash-related DNF at this track. He's gotten into a few more crashes at Talladega, but he's been running at the finish in his last five starts there, including an 11th-place run earlier this season at the track.
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