NASCAR DFS: BrakeBest Brake Pads 159 Playbook

We don’t see the Truck series run too many races on the road course. The past few years have seen them run one at the most, but there is some familiarity here as the Trucks ran this course last summer. The race is set for Friday night at 7:30pm ET. They’ll run for 44 laps so that immediately tells us we don’t get a ton of dominator points, 30.8 to be exact. Stages will be run in 12-13-19 segments. And some laps will be run under caution. If there’s a caution, it may only last for one lap, possibly two, but we may only be looking at a total of 28 dominator points. So, position differential and overall finishing position will be key. Will the optimal lineup have the winning driver that potentially leads 20+ laps? Probably. But the rest of the lineup will need to have drivers finishing in the top five-to-twelve spots with PD upside. Here’s a look at some stats from last year’s race:

Last season’s race isn’t the only truck race to go off of at DRC. In prior years the trucks ran at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in Bowmanville, Ontario so we’ll pull some data for those tracks as well. Now it’s looking like we’ll get rain and thunderstorms for this race. That’s totally fine for a road course race. They’ll likely have rain tires at the ready because this race could be a slippery one.

Driver Pool

Austin Hill ($10,700; Starting P20) – Hill is among the more elite drivers in the field and he’s offering position differential on Friday. You’ll hear me discuss a ton of chalky options on Friday, but maybe there’s so much chalk, that it levels out and there isn’t much chalk? Food for thought! But I expect Hill’s ownership to be pretty high. He consistently ran inside the top five in last year’s DRC event and he logged a pair of top ten finishes at Bowmanville, including a top five in 2019. A top five finish is well within reach and if he finishes fifth that’ll hit 5X value without any laps led or fastest laps.

Sheldon Creed ($10,400; Starting P5) – Next we’ll move on to the guy who won this race last year, and he’s also the defending truck series champion. Creed led 19 laps and had 13 of the fastest laps, plus he offered PD upside starting 14^th. He also finished fourth at Bowmanville in 2019. He’s a pretty solid play in line for dominator points once again, but not the same level of position differential this time around.

Brett Moffitt ($10,000; Starting P21) – Moffitt finished second to Creed at this race last summer, but he led 13 laps and had a dozen fastest laps. He dominated the 2019 Bowmanville race with 44 laps led and 21 fastest laps en route to a win and in 2018 he finished third after starting P17. So in the last three truck series races, Moffitt has an average finish of 2.0 so he obviously knows what he’s doing. Now he’s not with GMS Racing this year and they’ve won the last three road course races with three different drivers, but the pedigree is still there for him. He offers plenty of PD from this starting spot so get ready to eat some chalk.

Tyler Ankrum  ($9,800; Starting P26) – Perhaps in the midst of all the chalk in tomorrow’s race, DFS players will overlook Tyler Ankrum. Ankrum’s a fan favorite and he is in good equipment with GMS. He started fifth and finished sixth at DRC last year and he starts P26 so the PD is definitely there for him. He also finished ninth at Bowmanville in 2019. This could be a play that comes in at low ownership and he’s a great GPP play, although I strongly dislike the price tag.

Todd Gilliland ($9,600; Starting P32) – Gilliland had an electrical issue last summer here, so he started sixth and finished outside the top 30. He still is offering plenty of PD on Friday since he’s starting 32^nd. He’s going to be popular in cash and GPP lineups so heed this warning. At Bowmanville, he had three top 15 finishes including a runner-up in 2019.

Stewart Friesen ($9,400; Starting P30) – Just another guy that is starting too far back that’ll come with decent ownership. In last summer’s race at DRC he started 22^nd and finished tenth. And at Bowmanville he logged back-to-back seventh-place finishes in 2018 and 2019. Friesen is a bit of a “bad luck” driver at times, but we tend to see fewer wrecks at road courses so hopefully he can dodge the bullet this weekend and give us some value starting way back at P30.

Sam Mayer ($9,200; Starting P36) – Mayer’s in the 75-truck for Henderson Motorsports this weekend. He won at Bristol last September and finished fourth at Gateway a few weeks prior. In general, he’s done well to move up through the field in whatever race he’s entered in. The equipment is not quite what he ran last with in a part-time deal with GMS, but he’s on tap for seven races at the truck level, but he’s only 17 years old and needs to be on everyone’s radar.

Matt Crafton ($8,800; Starting P9) – Crafton’s always just a solid, and safe play. And honestly with so many drivers starting further back, he may go under-owned. He’ll start ninth and he’s a decent road course driver. Last summer at DRC he started 12^th and finished fourth while leading seven laps. In seven races at Bowmanville, he only finished outside the Top 11 just once and that was due to engine failure. Otherwise, he had four finishes inside the top six. I probably wouldn’t play him in cash games just because of the drivers starting behind him offering more PD and if he doesn’t get to the front and lead laps it could be difficult for him to return value.

Riley Herbst ($8,500; Starting P25) – Herbst will step in for David Gilliland in Friday night’s race and while we’ll discuss plenty of chalk, Herbst will be among the most chalktastic options. Herbst is a decent road ringer and he finished seventh at DRC in Xfinity last year. Gilliland was going to start P25. With the driver change, Herbst may have to drop, but if not this is a great starting spot for another talented driver that will offer PD.

Parker Chase ($8,300; Starting P22) – Parker Chase steps into the 51-truck for Kyle Busch Motorsports on Friday night. He’s making his Truck series debut and he’s a driver I’m looking at in GPP’s with so much chalk available Friday night. He previously ran DRC last year in the ARCA series and he finished tenth. He’s being brought in by KBM to run DRC and COTA later this season so they clearly like his road course pedigree. The equipment is great and I don’t think ownership will be terribly high because of the other obvious chalk starting around him. It’s also worth mentioning he’s run 24 Hours at Daytona twice in his young career.

Johnny Sauter ($7,800; Starting P19) – Call me crazy but I don’t think Sauter’s ownership will be terribly high. Does that mean I’m aiming to be heavier than the field? Hell no. Sauter was a disaster last year on any track he didn’t have practice on, and that’s including DRC. However, a year ago he started 11^th and finished 21^st. This year he’s starting 19^th and has an easier path to positive PD. Am I entirely confident in that? No because he can’t keep his composure behind the wheel. But I’ll mix him into a few GPP lineups to spread exposure around just a bit. From 2014-2019 Sauter rattled off six straight races at Bowmanville where he finished sixth, seventh, or eight and in four of those races he was on the higher end of that spectrum finishing sixth.

Timothy Peters ($7,600; Starting P27) – Peters had a pretty good showing last week at Daytona after he started 26^th and finished tenth. I’m hoping DFS players just assume that was luck due to Daytona’s chaotic nature, but Peters is a respectable road racer. In five races at Bowmanville he has three top ten finishes and in his last appearance in 2018 he finished fourth and consistently ran inside the top eight the whole race. He is a good play from a driver starting P27.

Kaz Grala ($7,100; Starting P24) – Grala is a very good road ringer. He has back-to-back top five finishes at Road America at the Xfinity level, a top ten at the Roval, and a top 15 at Watkins Glen. Those are pretty decent numbers. In his last performance at the Truck level, he finished third at Bowmanville. He’s going to be popular since the secret is out among the DFS community that he’s a solid road racer. This is another good play from a PD perspective.

Other Drivers To Consider – Now above, I wrote up several drivers offering PD but we haven’t touched on many value options to save salary. I’ll likely be lighter on these guys, but they’re still on my radar. I love the starting spots for Derek Kraus and Tanner Gray. But we do need to acknowledge they come with bad luck. But they’ll be cheap sources for PD if they can crack the Top 20-25. I originally wasn’t going to play him, but Timmy Hill at just $5,000 starting P34 is worth throwing into some lineups as a true salary saver. And if you want to take a gamble on Austin Wayne Self, you’ll hear no quandary from me. There is a ton of chalk and AWS likely gets overlooked because of his starting spot. But he’s a decent road ringer. He finished 11^th here last summer and has three Top 15 finishes in four races at Bowmanville. If he somehow finishes tenth that’s 6X value. If he just holds his position he’s on the brink of 5X value. Some bigger name drivers that I’m interested are Christian Eckes and Chandler Smith. Obviously I prefer Eckes over Smith, but if I’m looking at “game script” for this race it feels like they could finish not too far ahead of where they start. Ben Rhodes and John Hunter Nemechek are worth looking at strictly in a GPP. However, with Sheldon Creed and other drivers coming up right behind them it’s no guarantee they dominate the race. If you want to dabble in the other GMS drivers here, given the successful history of GMS at road courses, then look at Chase Purdy, Raphael Lessard, and Zane Smith. Purdy offers the most PD upside, but Lessard is the sneaky driver I like the most and have him in the few GPP lineups early Friday morning.

Core Plays