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It all comes down to this. On Saturday night, the NASCAR regular season will conclude with the Coke Zero Sugar 400.
Currently, 13 drivers have clinched a spot in the postseason, with a 14th, Clint Bowyer, almost locked in. That leaves two spots up for grabs. Matt DiBenedetto, William Byron, and Jimmie Johnson are all in contention for those final two spots, though a host of drivers could lock their way into the playoffs with a victory. And since Daytona is a superspeedway where anything can happen, this race could get crazy.
Feel free to hit me up on Twitter if you have any NASCAR questions (or, really, any questions about any sport that isn't baseball)": @juscarts.
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NASCAR DFS Research for Coke Zero Sugar 400
If you are not familiar, in this article I will highlight some helpful NASCAR data from my deep dive into the Premium Research Station. You can get full access to that Premium DFS Tool, and others including our Lineup Optimizer, with our NASCAR Premium Pass.
Top Fantasy Values At Daytona
Obviously, building a strong DFS lineup requires you to find some strong value, and one thing our Research Station can provide you is the tools needed to find those values.
One way to determine value -- projected fantasy points per $1,000 dollar salary. Basically, which drivers are projected to score the most fantasy points relative to their price. This can help you figure out how to maximize your projected fantasy points.
Looking at projected value on FanDuel, we see a few notable things.
One is the big gap on platforms for Ricky Stenhouse Jr., who is moderately priced on DraftKings and has a projected FP/$ of 5.06, the highest of anyone priced at $7K or higher. On FanDuel, though, Stenhouse is the most expensive driver, which leads to a 3.73 projected FP/$. Not nearly as good of a play on there.
Some of the best projected values in the field come lower down the pricing list on FanDuel:
Usually, the bottom of the DFS pricing for a NASCAR race is a place you don't go. There'd be no point in playing Josh Bilicki at most tracks, even though a 39th-place start theoretically gives him place differential upside.
But anything can happen at Daytona. These cars might all be off the pace and fall out of the main draft early, but that might benefit them, because it also helps them avoid getting collected in large pack crashes. Of the six guys priced at exactly $5K, some will do their normal thing and finish in the mid 30s, but a couple can survive the carnage and wind up with a top 20. You've got to be willing to take more chances with your lineups this week and reach down to the depths like this.
Daytona Driver Ratings
NASCAR's driver rating formula puts together a lot of factors to spit out a number that rates how a driver performed in a certain race.
Here are the Dover ratings for the top DraftKings drivers this week:
So, let's talk about Erik Jones, as he stands out the most among this list.
Jones is basically in a must-win scenario to make the playoffs, because the chance that he makes up the necessary points on Byron and Johnson to pass both of them seem pretty slim.
Jones does have a win at Daytona in 2018. And a third place. He's also finished below 20th in three of his starts here, crashing out twice.
There are two ways to think about Jones this week. First, you could believe that as a past winner here and someone who needs a win to make the playoffs, he's going to do whatever it takes to contend for this win.
The other way is that you think he does too much to contend for the win and ends up getting his car towed from the grass after getting collected in a big wreck.
I don't know which scenario is more likely, but I do know that past results here suggest that Jones isn't nearly as safe an option as the other high-priced drivers.
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Track Correlation
The track correlation matrix can help us see what race tracks correlate to others to help figure out what drivers should be good here based on 2020 results at other places.
Daytona, though, doesn't correlate to anywhere. It's too wild, so the closest correlation is Talladega at 82.4 percent, the only track with an 80 percent correlation to it. That's definitely outside the norm when it comes to NASCAR tracks.
But hey, Talladega can help us learn some things about Daytona.
If we look back to this year's Talladega race, we see a relatively calm race in terms of accidents, but the final results still felt like someone threw all the driver names into a hat and then plucked them out. Only four drivers who finished in the top 10 of that race started in the top 10.
The correlation with Talladega is basically this: expect the unexpected. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. finished second in that race. Chris Buescher had a top 10. Quin Houff finihed ahead of Kyle Busch and Chase Elliott because even a relatively calm 'Dega still had its moments.
Be risky this week with your lineups. Data matters less than usual.
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