NASCAR DFS: Alsco Uniforms 250 Playbook

Back at it again with another Playbook for Saturday’s slate! I broke down the Truck series Playbook already and touched on how Texas can produce some slightly boring races, but I’d be surprised if we came away from Saturday without some chaos. We also have Kyle Busch in the field and we’ll touch on him shortly (it’s kinda hard not to).

But Saturday’s race will be broken into 40-40-87 lap segments with a competition caution on lap 20 so that’ll help a few drivers moving to the front, especially Kyle Busch. Teams will have five sets of tires with the fuel range running about 60 laps or so. We also have 116.9 dominator points on the table so approaching your builds with a one-or-two dominator strategy is firmly in play. We don’t generally see solo dominators in Xfinity as often as we do in the Cup series but it’s not completely off the table. Don’t be surprised if we see maybe eight-to-ten cautions for about 50 laps on Saturday. I noted it in the Truck series Playbook that while Texas is a basic 1.5-mile track it does see its share of wrecks.

Driver Pool 

Kyle Busch ($14,500; Starting P14) Busch is one-for-one so far when racing in the state of Texas this year. He won Xfinity’s inaugural race at COTA a few weeks back and flat out dominated the race. He was only $10,800 for that race which was a mistake by DraftKings. This week he’s $14.5K which means we need about 72.5 points on DraftKings for 5X value. He can easily hit that number and the competition caution on lap 20 will only help him get to the front faster when the field has to reset. There are enough dominator points available for him to register over 6X value, possibly 7X so don’t get cute and fade Kyle Busch. If you make three lineups, he should probably be in two. I’m building 20 and plan on having him in 13-to-15 of them.

Noah Gragson ($11,500; Starting P30) Gragson once again presents incredible PD on Saturday and he only needs a top ten finish to hit value. The problem is that he’s an extremely risky play. I can’t even confidently declare him Cash eligible because if he manages to wreck out (again) he’s killing your cash build. Historically, this isn’t one of his best tracks. He’s failed to finish twice in four races and he almost won last Fall’s race at Texas to advance to the Championship race in Phoenix until this happened. He’s clearly struggling, but the PD alone will make me play him in at least six or seven lineups. I’m still on the fence for cash games given his misfortunes this season.

Austin Cindric ($11,000; Starting P4) I am a little surprised with the price tag on Cindric this week. Even last week was a little tough to stomach on a road course, but his price went up in a race where Kyle Busch is running. I was hoping to get a little more value here. Alas, he won here last Summer and in four of his last five races at Texas he’s finished fourth or better. He will need dominator points to return value, which aren’t as much of a guarantee this week. I would limit exposure to just GPP’s.

A.J. Allmendinger ($10,500; Starting P1) Keeping with the pattern of playing the popular and most expensive drivers, Dinger’s once again in play this week but similar to Cindric, I don’t consider him a lock although you can feel better about him than Gragson. Dinger’s coming off an impressive win last week and he won Vegas earlier this year. He’s a veteran, but he didn’t run Texas last season since he was a part-time driver for Kaulig Racing. He’s the favorite for early dominator points, but the competition caution will allow Kyle Busch to possibly get the lead if he moves through the field in the first 20 laps.

Harrison Burton ($9,700; Starting P18) I’m skipping Allgaier and Berry for the sake of not writing up all the obvious plays. I will have some exposure to both and Berry might even crack the Core Plays. He doesn’t have much (if any) experience at Texas but he is running the Truck series race before Xfinity so he’s in play for this race too. But I’m highlighting Burton because I do think we could get a nice leverage play here if most people try to play two or three $10K drivers together. Burton stole this race from Gragson last year and he hasn’t finished worse than seventh in three races at Texas. He’s looked solid on 1.5-mile tracks this year and he’ll be in a handful of my lineups today.

I don’t really love the options in the $8K range. From Burton to Moffitt/Snider I don’t believe I’ll be getting much exposure to the driver’s in this range, but I’ll be in Discord declaring if that thought process changes.

Myatt Snider ($7,500; Starting P17) It was a tossup between Brett Moffitt and Snider. While I certainly don’t hate Moffit, he just hasn’t done well on intermediates this season. I’ll still probably get him into two or three lineups, but I’m willing to get hurt by Snider again this week. He hasn’t looked great lately and has made me look like a fool, but I like the leverage here. Limit exposure to just GPP’s. He has top ten upside, but his resume on intermediates isn’t that much more glowing than Moffitt’s. It’s a tossup, but I’ll lean to Snider ever so slightly based on ownership. 

Landon Cassill ($7,200; Starting P22) Yep… I’m going back to him again this week. And he wasn’t even all that disappointing last week, but I was just expecting more. Cassill has so-so results at intermediate tracks this season. He finished just outside the top 20 at Vegas, but 14th and 13th at Atlanta and Charlotte respectively so there is a little PD upside here. He hasn’t been a huge disappointment since he’s churned out fair DFS scores lately so I think there’s an okay floor here with top 15 upside.

Jeremy Clements ($7,100; Starting P20) Ownership on Clements will be elevated this week because we’re getting him with more PD than we’ve had in recent memory. Clements has been pretty strong on 1.5-mile intermediate tracks this season. He finished 17th at Vegas, 12th at Atlanta, and tenth at Charlotte. He doesn’t have a great resume at Texas, but he does have 24 races under his belt. He wrecked in last Fall’s race, but in last Summer’s race he finished 11th in similar show up and race circumstances.

Tanner Berryhill ($7,000; Starting P21) Let’s see what he can do. Berryhill gained 15 spots of PD at Darlington and finished 21st in his debut about a month ago so let’s go back to the well with this Our Motorsports 23-car. Tyler Reddick got a top 12 with this car at Vegas and Ty Dillon finished seventh a couple weeks ago at Charlotte so the car is good. Berryhill isn’t as experienced as those two drivers, but I’m thinking he has a top 15 in him this week.

Brandon Brown ($6,700; Starting P7) Brown’s having one hell of a year and surprisingly he’s struggling to find sponsors. That is until he released this electric promotional tweet earlier this week that caught the attention of plenty of potential partners. We’re only 13 races into the year and Brown has already set a career high for top tens with seven and we’ll need another top ten on Sunday to justify playing him. He finished 11th at Vegas earlier this season and came in fourth at Charlotte a couple weeks ago. I feel good enough to play him in a couple GPP lineups because I don’t think casual players want to go here, but I’m okay with having him in four of my lineups. He finished tenth here last Summer and fifth in the Fall race.

Jordan Anderson ($6,600; Starting P32) Here’s to hoping Tyler Reddick and Josh Berry left behind some talent in the 31-car. Reddick drove this car to top ten finishes at COTA and Charlotte while Berry got a top ten out of this ride at Mid-Ohio last week. I believe Anderson’s making his Xfinity series debut as he normally runs in the Truck series, but he has plenty of experience in the truck series at Texas with a pair of top 15 finishes over the last couple years. I would try and limit exposure to just GPP’s due to the fear of the unknown.

Bayley Currey ($6,300; Starting P39) This is a pretty obvious paydown option for me today. I didn’t even have to consult the Magic 8-ball here. Bayley’s strangely had solid runs at Texas. Here are his results in five career Xfinity races at Texas:

• Fall 2020 – Started 24th, Finished 12th (+12 PD)
• Summer 2020 – Started 31st, Finished 19th (+12 PD)
• Fall 2019 – Started 18th, Finished 20th (-2 PD)
• Fall 2018 – Started 34th, Finished 21st (+13 PD)
• Spring 2018 – Started 39th, Finished 22nd (+17 PD)

He can’t kill you with negative PD on Saturday and I am a little surprised he isn’t closer to $7,000. I imagine the field will pick up on his good fortune here as well so do be smart with your exposure here. He only needs a top 25 for value.

Tommy Joe Martins ($6,000; Starting P36) Tommy Joe starting 36th tells you everything you need to know about TJM and sadly we have to chase the PD here. He’s hit a cold streak the last few weeks with mechanical issues at both road courses and he wrecked at Charlotte. But he has top 15-20 upside that we saw at Vegas and Atlanta. And he only needs to finish 21st for 5X value, but if he’s paired with the right dominator(s) then you’ll be happy with a top 25 finish. I don’t really want to go lower than TJM but here’s are three value plays you can consider.

Dumpster Diving Options – Alex Labbe, Jade Buford, and Ryan Vargas are all under $5,500 and starting inside the top 15. If I had to guess I’d say there’s a good chance one holds their spot. Which one, you ask? I haven’t the slightest idea but I feel most confident in Labbe finishing in the top 15 given what we’ve seen from him over the last few weeks. I don’t want to have to rely on these three and I don’t want heavy exposure to this group, but in a GPP if you need to save some money I would just gamble on one of these drivers with potentially low ownership.