NASCAR DFS Playbook: Henry 180

The Xfinity Series returns to Road America for the 4th of July weekend! This is a LOOOOOOONG road course and this is an exciting time since the Cup series will be racing here this weekend too. If you read this week’s Best Bets article you’ll get a decent idea on the drivers I’m looking at this weekend. We don’t have the starting order yet, but we do have practice times from Friday to consider.

As mentioned above, Road America is a lengthy road course clocking in at over four miles. We get 45 laps on Saturday and there will be no competition caution since we have practice and qualifying. 45 laps mean we get 31.5 dominator points but round that down to about 25-27 since we have to account for cautions. As is the case with most road courses, finishing position and PD are what we’re looking at. Normally, I have no problem looking at dominators in a road course race. But with fewer laps than normal, PD and finishing position will reign supreme more than most road courses.

Initial thoughts from practice? Nothing too surprising. Riley Herbst, Noah Gragson, and. (I believe) Sam Mayer will be going to backup cars. Gragson blew an engine in practice, that guy just can’t catch a break on road courses this year. Herbst? Well… At this point it’s safe to assume someone else will be driving the 98-car in 2022, but we’ll see what happens. Sam Mayer got off the track in his debut practice with the 8-car. People will scoff at the fact he’s taking over for Josh Berry who pulled out a win in this car, but give the kid a break. He’s 18 and I’d rather him go off the track in practice than the actual race. 

Qualifying will happen around Noon ET on Saturday and then the race will kick off around 2:30pm ET so once we know the starting order we’ll only have about two hours to finalize our DFS lineups.

Driver Pool

Kyle Busch ($10,900) – Credit to DraftKings because they did their Math for this race. With fewer dominator points, they had to drop Busch’s price a bit without knowing where he starts. He needs 54-55 points for 5X value. So if he lands on the pole he’ll need nine dominator points to hit “value.” So the analysis is simple, the higher he starts the more of a GPP play he becomes. And the closer he starts to the front, the lower his ownership should be. Casual players may look at the price tag and think this is a discount but it all depends on where he starts because we have fewer dominator points available. I doubt he qualifies poorly based on his practice speed. For Road America we can’t really look to hit “value” in the normal sense. Just build the lineup that can return the most points and if you think Busch can dominate this race like he did at COTA, then by all means throw him in your builds.

Austin Cindric ($10,700) – It may not make much sense to play Cindric and KB54 together, but we’ll see how qualifying plays out on Saturday. Cindric is a great road course driver and this is the rare occasion he has more experience on this track than the Cup drivers that are running this race and he won this race a year ago and finished as the runner-up in 2019. He was fastest by nearly a full second in practice which is incredibly impressive and we can expect similar speed on Saturday.

Ty Gibbs ($10,500) – It sucks to write up so many pay-up options but this is the hand we’ve been dealt. Gibbs won’t be in the 54-car since Kyle Busch laid claim to it. However, he’ll still be in JGR equipment for the 81-car. Gibbs has run eight races in Xfinity this year and he’s finished top five in seven of them with two wins. The kid can clearly drive and he’s not intimidated in this series. He recorded some great practice speed and is worth a look in our player pool for Saturday.

A.J. Allmendinger ($10,300) – Road Ringer Dinger! He’s had a bit of an underwhelming season but at the same time he’s been solid. He won Mid-Ohio about four weeks back, but he was offering PD and that track had more laps. He showcased top five speed in practice and will once again content for a win on Saturday.

Kevin Harvick ($9,900) – Harvick truly treated practice as practice to familiarize himself with the track. He ran outside the top 20 and despite the fact he’s not in the greatest equipment he’s still a former Cup series champion that will get the most out of this car. He was the same price at COTA and started 12th and finished 4th to give us almost 50 DK points.

Kaz Grala ($9,100) – Grala steps into the 31-car for Jordan Anderson Racing and he’s a road course specialist out of Boston. In his last two races at Road America, he’s logged a pair of top five finishes. His practice speed was a bit off, but that could be due to the equipment, in which case they can make adjustments. Good drivers have piloted this car to strong finishes and if he presents the opportunity for PD then he’ll be chalky, but a solid play all around.

Sam Mayer ($8,400) – He had a rough debut in practice, but if Ty Gibbs never existed, Mayer would be one of the most talked about prospects in this sport. Mayer impressed in the Truck series last year. He almost won at Gateway and then he did end up with a win at Bristol. Now that he’s 18 he gets to run Xfinity and he’ll take over the 8-car the rest of the season. His practice speeds weren’t great, but let’s see where qualifying shakes out. A shaky performance in practice won’t scare me away, but I’m hoping it has that effect on everyone else.

Michael Annett ($8,200) – Annett had poor practice results and all that means is if he qualifies poorly, I want exposure. He’s a solid play for a top ten if the PD is there. If he’s starting outside the top 15 then he’s going to make some of my lineups. He was a runner-up here back in 2017 and he has three straight top 12 finishes at this track and he isn’t an awful road racer if we’re being honest. As is always the case with Annett, we will need PD to validate him as a driver to target.

Andy Lally ($7,800) – Lally has plenty of experience at Road America and he’s a road course specialist. He’s in BJ McLeod Motorsports equipment for this race, but regardless we can get him in some builds. I previewed him in the Wager Alarm betting piece but to sum it up, he’s raced here for a variety of teams and has never finished worse than 15th including three top ten’s in four races. 

Preston Pardus ($7,700) – A big GPP question you’ll have to ask yourself will be “Pardus or Lally?” Both are similar in pricing and they were close in practice speeds. Pardus is running in the 90-car for DGM which has been an okay ride this year. For what it’s worth, Loris Hezemans gained ten spots of PD in last week’s race and Pardus ran top 12 in practice. Last year in the 36-car for DGM he grabbed a top ten finish here.

Myatt Snider ($6,900) – Snider finally broke out of his slump last week with a top ten at Pocono and the price dropped a couple hundred bucks to make him a nice play this week. He clocked in with the 16th-fastest lap. If he starts further back he’ll be a popular option for PD. I’d like him to start around 16th-18th since that’s the right combination of PD and moderately low ownership. The further back he starts, the heavier the ownership will be, which could be a bit of a bummer.

Jeremy Clements ($6,600) – I also like Brandon Brown in this range, but I can’t pass up this cheap of a play for a guy who won here four years ago. He got caught up in a wreck last year, but Clements typically performs well on road courses with an additional top ten here back in 2019. He flashed top ten speed in practice so he’s a nice paydown option. Don’t forget about Brown in this range either, but he’s on a bit of a cold streak entering this weekend.

Jade Buford ($6,100) – Buford had a great showing last week at Pocono and he’s proven to be a fairly reliable value play this season. He grabbed a top 15 finish at both Mid Ohio and COTA and ran inside the top 15 in practice. For the most part he ran inside the top ten in last year’s Road America race although he finished 19th. Given the price tag he’ll be a popular value play this week. Spencer Pumpelly is also worth a look in this range as he flashed top 20 speed in practice.

Cody Ware ($5,100) – Ware has experience here as he ran IndyCar at RA earlier this year and he hasn’t been terrible on road courses. His practice speeds put him just inside the top 30, but he did finish 15th at Mid Ohio about a month ago. He will likely qualify poorly and offer some PD.

Tommy Joe Martins ($4,900) – Honestly, he’s not the greatest road racer, but he’s just too cheap to ignore this week. This is arguably a $1,000 discount on TJM. He’s coming in with back-to-back top 20 finishes, but he’s been pretty terrible on road courses throughout his career and I’m still on the fence about where my exposure will land in regard to TJM. At the price tag you have to consider him, but this feels like a trap.

Core Drivers

So Gragson was going to have to start at the rear due to an engine change and then his team opted to not run a lap during qualifying. So he’s starting last and will be scored from there. I also love the starting spot for Justin Haley. During the first qualifying session he was running well until he and A.J. Allmendinger caught up to Matt Jaskol and he slowed them down so Haley starts 13th and I like the value there with him. Kevin Harvick is still a good play for me today starting 20th and have PD, but I think Cindric and Allmendinger have more upside in the top tier.