Welcome back for another DFS Playbook for the Truck series! I picked the most unfortunate time to start previewing the Truck series given that there are two races this weekend, but alas, I’m sure you all don’t mind. I do have some quick notes first and foremost: I know I talked about eventually adding tables for the Truck series race. Unfortunately with my full-time gig this week I didn’t have time to make tables for either Truck or Xfinity so both Playbooks will be made without those in mind. My full-time job, finishing a 15,000+ word NFL Offensive Line Breakdown, podcasts, Playbooks, and MLB starting back up have made me have to sacrifice a little bit of extra time I normally would have had. So I’m hoping to have Tables for the Truck and Xfinity series back up and running in a couple weeks. Last thing, I may or may not be in the Chat for the Friday and Saturday races. I’ll obviously be working on Friday, but might also be working a good portion of the day on Saturday as well. If you have any questions hit me up on Twitter (@RealDANlanta) and I’ll do my best to answer some questions over yonder.

But we have Kansas races and one they don’t have Kyle Busch! However, it may have Travis Pastrana in one of the races, so I’ll do a deeper dive into that if that’s confirmed true. If you haven’t seen it yet, check out the Track Breakdown for the Cup Series to get a full understanding of the 1.5-mile track we’re dealing with. It’s similar to Kentucky and Chicagoland more than it is to Texas or Atlanta. But this track features a ton of racing grooves that make passing more possible than we saw at Kentucky. So in my Breakdowns of each driver, I’ll likely mention performances at those tracks as well. The downside is I don’t really know what we can take away from the Kentucky race from a few weeks ago since it was shortened due to poor weather. Also, we will not have competition cautions for the Truck race. Given the shorter nature of these races, and only four sets of tires, they’ve opted not to have any competition cautions.

Stages are 30-30-74. Top 15 from Friday's race will invert for Saturday's race. Every driver finishing after the Top 15 will start from where they finish.

Driver Pool

Note: I’ll likely add some drivers tomorrow hence why the driver pool may be a bit lighter upon initial reading. It’s a bit late at the time of publishing and I do have a slightly longer day at work tomorrow so if I can add a few more drivers that I may have overlooked, I will. I’ll also be publishing the Example Lineups early as well since I may not get to them tomorrow and I may not catch much of this race. My apologies if I'm not in the Chat leading up to lineup lock.

Johnny Sauter ($11,300; Starting P18) – I’m probably not going to play Sauter. However, he offers a ton of PD and he has previously won at Kansas and Chicago and he finished fourth at the shortened Kentucky race a few weeks ago. I know he has PD on his side, I just don’t know if we get enough out of him to return value. Without any dominator points he needs a Top Three finish to return value. If he was starting outside the Top 20-22 he’d be an absolute lock, but he just isn’t starting far enough back. I may throw him into one or two of my 20 lineups, but for the most part it’s gonna be a ‘no’ for me dog… In the words of Randy Jackson.

Ross Chastain ($11,000; Starting P10) – Watermelon Man is at a slight discount Friday night and the starting spot is pretty solid. I like his odds even more without Kyle Busch winning or even dominating the laps. Chastain should work his way into the top five, but it may take him longer to log some dominator points assuming Eckes and Jones have everything right with their trucks. He won this race in May of 2019 while finishing fourth at Kentucky last year, and seventh at Chicagoland.

Brandon Jones ($10,600; Starting P4) – Jones will likely be my favorite play this week. He might be everybody’s favorite play this week. The starting position is fantastic since it puts him in line for dominator points and this truck has been FAST regardless if he or Kyle Busch are in it. Busch drove this truck to a win last weekend at Texas and Jones himself took it to victory lane a month ago at Pocono, and he finished second in last summer’s race in Chicago. Jones also won the Xfinity race here last Fall so he knows the layout and the grooves and he’s in a fast truck Friday night.

Austin Hill ($10,300; Starting P6) – I’m not sure how much Hill I’m going to play to be honest. I obviously like him, he’s competitive every single race (except last week’s result was a bummer), but it’s weird because he hasn’t led a single lap in his last three races. He still has a 40-point floor, which is fine for Cash because we need to adjust our expectations just a little bit since the scoring is a bit muted for Trucks. If I make my normal 20 lineups, he’ll get into probably two or three lineups. I just really like Chastain, Jones, and Crafton more this week. He finished fourth at Kansas last year and his engine failure last week was the first time he’s finished outside the top ten in 2020. I still consider him a fairly safe play.

Matt Crafton ($10,000; Starting P17) – For the longest time I had the worst luck getting a read on Matt Crafton. I faded him for Pocono and that worked out marvelously because he wrecked before the race even started. It wasn’t his fault though. From there I’ve had the right read the last two races and he’s helped me make a little extra coin in the Truck series. The price is going up, but he lends himself to enough PD that even if he doesn’t hit 5X value, I’d be content with 4.0-4.5X value. Crafton has won here twice previously and he’s led a handful of laps. Obviously starting P17, the laps led may be more difficult to come by, but he’ll have a field day moving up through the traffic.

Stewart Friesen ($9,400; Starting P14) – In three races here he has an average finish of 16.67 with an average start of 13.3. However, in 2017 he wrecked out so that’s driving the finish average down. Last year he started tenth and finished 15th, but he led 87 laps here and won the first two stages. Back in 2018, he finished third. So I’m of the mindset that Friesen runs pretty well here at Kansas. He finished third at Chicago last year and had back-to-back runner-up finishes at Kentucky in 2018 and 2019. He has some momentum coming off a Top Five finish at Texas. Get some exposure to him this week.

Christian Eckes ($8,900; Starting P1) – You have to assume Eckes will be popular Friday night. He’s on the pole and his truck has been incredible the last few races. He’s led at least ten laps in four out of his last five races with finishes in the top eight in four out of five as well. He wrecked out of the Pocono race, but Pocono was a mess for virtually everyone. He easily could have won last week’s race in Texas if Kyle Busch didn’t bother entering, but Eckes will be popular once again as he should get some dominator points Friday night.

Ben Rhodes ($8,600; Starting P5) – All too often I find myself regretting not rostering Ben Rhodes enough. That changes this week. He comes in with three straight top ten finishes including a runner-up finish at the shortened Kentucky race. Last year at Kansas he finished second and has a runner-up finish at Chicagoland from 2018. He’s done pretty well on the 1.5-mile tracks lately so I’ll be experimenting with more Rhodes this week. Where I’m going, I will need Rhodes.

Grant Enfinger ($7,900; Starting P8) – Enfinger has never really had a bad race here by any means. In three races he’s never finished worse than 11th, he led 47 laps here last year, and he’s never finished outside the top ten in any stage save for 2017 when he finished the race 11th. The big concern with him is his momentum lately. He’s been starting pretty high but going backwards overall and he hasn’t led many laps recently. Ownership could be down but keep the exposure just to GPP’s, no need to consider him in Cash games.

Raphael Lessard ($7,200; Starting P12) – I really like Lessard as a GPP play on Friday night. He’s starting P12 and he’s finished in the Top 13 in three of his last four races. This is a pretty high starting spot for him. If he can just hold the position or move up a couple spots he’ll help return value. The ownership could be light and on the off chance he finishes Top 10 he’ll really help your GPP lineups.

Ty Majeski ($7,100; Starting P19) – Majeski’s never raced at Kansas but he’s a favorite GPP-play of mine every single week. He hasn’t seen quite the return in value the last few races, but I’m still on board with him. He can sneak away with a Top 10 here, but even if he finishes 14th he can touch 5X value. He’s not trustworthy enough in Cash games, but I always like getting exposure to him in GPP’s.

Derek Kraus ($6,900; Starting P15) – Kraus has never run at Chicago or Kansas, but he had an interesting performance a few weeks back at Kentucky. He started 17th and finished eighth, but what made his result interesting was that he had to drop to the rear on pace laps for failing pre-race tech inspection. Despite the shortened race his team knew that they needed to fight for track position and he ended up getting back up to eighth before it was called due to weather. If he moves up three spots and finishes 12th he’s returning value for you.

Austin Wayne Self ($6,100; Starting P23) – AWS is an interesting guy. At Kansas, Kentucky, and Chicago he has some decent results. Nothing mind blowing. He’s always a strong value play in GPP’s and possibly Cash games as well. He got his best finish of the season last week at Texas cracking the Top 15 down there, and in general he’s been a good source of PD the last few races with the exception of that damn Pocono race. But he just needs a 17th or 18th-place finish Friday night for a little value. A second straight Top 15 finish would get 6X value. In 2017 and 2018 he cracked the Top 15 so he has that kind of run in him.

Spencer Boyd ($5,800; Starting P30) – Boyd’s starting spot definitely lends himself to some positive PD. He has some momentum and has shown the ability to gain a little PD over the last handful of races. At Kansas he’s had a little success as well. He has a pair of Top 20 finishes at this track so we like that for somebody start 30th. A Top 20 finish would be close to 6X value, but I think a more realistic expectation for him would be finishing in the 22-24 range which would still be fine for DFS.

Codie Rohrbaugh ($4,900; Starting P29) – Rohrbaugh is a very risky driver. He can surprise you with 6X value or ruin your day if he doesn’t finish the race, which is also likely. So if you don’t like Rohrbaugh you should look to Timmy Hill, but Rohrbaugh’s a GPP dart throw if building multiple lineups. A 24th-place finish would be 5X value and he has shown he can do more than that, but just tempter expectations. He’s never run a race before at Kansas.

Timmy Hill ($4,800; Starting P24) – Timmy Hill is about as cheap as one should go Friday night. Whoever’s driving the 56-truck, whether it’s Timmy or Tyler Hill, they get the most out of it and can yield a little PD. He’s so cheap that he only needs to move up two spots to get 5X value at 24 points. Even if he holds serve and finishes 24th you’ll take those 20 points because you probably loaded up elsewhere on PD plays and dominators. Hill doesn’t have the greatest history at Chicago, Kentucky, or Kansas in Xfinity but he’s having a really solid career year when you account for his more recent Xfinity results and the iRacing money he won. He’s a fine punt this weekend.

 

Example Lineups

DK Cash

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DK GPP1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DK GPP2