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On Sunday, we get to encounter one of the most difficult things in NASCAR fantasy: a race at a new track.
Technically, Daytona International Speedway isn't new to the circuit. We've been racing here twice a year for what feels like forever. But Sunday, Cup cars take their turn on the circuit's road course layout for the first time ever, which should lead to a pretty difficult race to predict, especially if we get some Florida summer rain, since NASCAR lets road course races happen in the rain as long as there's no lightning.
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.
NASCAR DFS Research for Go Bowling 235
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 $1,000 dollar salary. Basically, which drivers are projected to score the most fantasy points relative to their price. This can help you figure out how to maximize your projected fantasy points.
Usually, we have a little cluster of drivers with projected DraftKings points around five, but NASCAR has instituted a new starting procedure that weighs the last race, so we don't necessarily have that same, like, eight driver run of value anymore, though there are some value spots deeper in the field:
A notable driver to target is Michael McDowell, a pretty good road racer who starts back in 3oth. McDowell had two top 15s on road courses last year. He'll likely be a pretty chalky pick this week, but chalky can be okay!
The only other driver with a projected FP/$ of five or better in this area is John Hunter Nemechek. Nemechek has a road course win in the Truck Series and while he isn't the same level of road course ace as teammate McDowell, he's a good cheap option for you.
One driver with a very low value is Austin Dillon, who tested positive for COVID-19 and won't run this race. Kaz Grala steps into the 3 car, which will start from the back of the field but be scored from 10th after the driver change. I like Grala, but there's virtually no upside this week.
Want a big risk? The 51 has a road ringer, James Davison, in it this week. His 5.38 projected FP/$ is intriguing, though his car's lack of speed is an issue and his overall projection of 28 fantasy points makes him a value, but not a huge value, as drivers priced $1k higher can get you the same production with far less downside.
Road Course 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.
Because we haven't been to this track before, we don't have ratings from it, but the Research Station does have ratings for road course races. Here are the numbers for all the $10k or above drivers on FanDuel:
Chase Elliott has had some huge success recently on road courses and is a good call for this race. If you're looking for someone to worry about based on recent results, Joey Logano could be that guy, with a 2019 road course rating of 75.8.
But really, the top drivers have done fairly well on this type of track. This isn't the old days of NASCAR, when the best oval drivers would struggle to turn right.
There are, though, some drivers who do better than expected on road courses. Recently, Matt DiBenedetto has a driver rating 25 percent over his average at road courses. Michael McDowell is at 24 percent over his average.
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Those question marks are because so many of things we would usually look at in the Research Station don't apply this week. There's no track correlation because we haven't raced here. There's no driver history at the track. There's just a lot of questions.
So, here's just kind of a grab bag of random observations I had while perusing the Research Station:
- For the sample size we have, Erik Jones has only finished 90 percent of laps at road course races.
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr. has only finished 92 percent of laps at road course races.
- William Byron earns a top 20 at road courses just half of the time.
- Kurt Busch records a top 10 75 percent of the time.
Maybe some of this will help you! But remember that if it starts raining on Sunday, everything's probably thrown out the window and it'll all be a crapshoot!
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