Double-Header on Saturday! The Truck Series Playbook is already live so give it a read. Similar to the Truck series race, we have another Cup driver in fantastic equipment for the Xfinity race. Martin Truex Jr. steps into the star car for Joe Gibbs Racing, and the entire NASCAR DFS community is baffled by his price tag, but we’ll touch on that in a bit.

This is Atlanta. The track is pretty damn old, it smells like the cretaceous period. It’s going to eat up tires so you’ll see most of the field pit for fresh tires under caution. Fresher tires mean you can easily gain five seconds per lap on cars with older tires. We have 163 laps broken into 40-40-83 segments and the competition caution is lap 20.

Driver Pool

Noah Gragson ($11,500; Starting P30) Gragson has a pair of top tens at Atlanta and while he hasn’t had the greatest luck to start the year, he’s offering a ton of PD today starting 30th. Gragson has top five upside and he easily eclipses value with that. A couple weeks ago at Las Vegas he drove his car from 34th to a top five finish. If he runs clean, he’s an elite play. No driver is exempt from a wreck and Gragson’s had his share of bad luck to start the season. We still can’t avoid him this week.

Martin Truex Jr. ($11,300; Starting P18) His price tag truly makes zero sense. There’s no way he shouldn’t be the most expensive driver in the field. He just won at Phoenix last week at the Cup level. He’s a previous Cup series champion. He’s a mile-and-a-half wizard. Kyle Busch is on the front row for the Truck series race and he’s $14,000. MTJ is offering PD and with the competition caution in play, he could be leading laps in no time. Even if he didn’t get any dominator points and he finished third he’s still returning value. It’s stupid how underpriced he is. Add in a potential win and dominator points and 6X value seems like his floor. It’s baffling how cheap he is on this slate.

Austin Cindric ($10,900; Starting P1) Obviously for less than $1,000 more the safer plays are Gragson and Truex given their PD upside. However, I made a vow last week to mention Cindric in every Playbook this year and while I’m not including him for the sake of having him here, he’s the class of the field outside of Truex. He’s won two of the five races this year, has four top fives, and he’s great on 1.5-mile tracks. He’s never won here, but last year he started on the pole, won the first two stages, led 68 laps, and 41 fastest laps. He’s also led at least 25 laps in each of the first five races to kick off this year. The tough part will be the price tag and he’ll have Truex storming through the field in a very competitive ride. I’m still mixing Cindric in a couple builds to get some shares.

A.J. Allmendinger ($10,300; Starting P3) We should at least touch on the guy who won last year’s race. He’s Pockrass’ pick to win today’s race as well. He’ll definitely need to win and get dominator points, but in last year’s race he won after starting 30th and led 37 laps. He looked great at Homestead a few weeks ago, a track that similarly wears on tires, and he followed it up by winning at Vegas, another 1.5-mile intermediate track. Ownership numbers may be a little softer honestly given Gragson, Truex, and Cindric but Allmendinger could score another win at Atlanta. Update: AJ Allmendinger will go to the rear and be scored from P3 for multiple tech inspection failures.

Ryan Sieg ($9,400; Starting P35) I’m a little surprised by the price tag, I figured a driver starting P35 of Sieg’s caliber would’ve been priced up, similar to what DraftKings did to Tyler Ankrum in the Truck Series. But this is a great spot to target Sieg. A top 15 returns value. He can easily get his ride into the top 12. The concern is if he can avoid scrubbing the wall or getting in a wreck as evidenced by his four finishes outside the top 25 this year. I would be hesitant to use in Cash games, but he’s very much in play for GPP’s.

Justin Haley ($9,200; Starting P13) I like Haley from this spot in GPP’s and don’t think he’ll have a ton of ownership. At the two intermediate tracks so far this year, Haley finished eighth at Vegas and seventh at Miami. His price tag is elevated because he’s offering slightly more PD this week and a top five will result in 5X value. Kaulig’s cars have been very fast to start the year and Haley’s looked pretty impressive so far. Even if he doesn’t lead laps he might be able to get some fast laps to help aid the value. Restrict exposure to just GPP’s this weekend.

Michael Annett ($9,000; Starting P27) Annett’s always a favorite of mine as I’ve included him in many Playbooks and today we get him in arguably the safest spot to play him. He normally starts about 10-15 spots higher and DraftKings screwed the pooch with his price tag today. He’ll need a Top 12 to return value, which he’s done in his last two races here at Atlanta. He’s viable in Cash and GPP contests.

Josh Berry ($8,200; Starting P22) Berry’s pulling double duty on Saturday as he’s also running in the Truck Series race. Berry’s looked really good through the early races so far this season finishing 11th and seventh at Miami and Las Vegas respectively, and those are tracks that can draw comparisons to Atlanta. He’s held up on his own with JR Motorsports and he only needs to move up ten spots and finish 12th for 5X value. He’ll hit roughly 5.5X value if he can get up to tenth.

Alex Labbe ($7,300; Starting P36) It was a tossup between writing up Ryan Vargas or Labbe and we’ll take the discount, and more PD from Labbe. Labbe was a good PD target last week at Phoenix and he was running pretty well, getting up to 16th at one point before wrecking, but he had an average running position of 23rd. If he finishes in the Top 20 he’s hitting over 5X value. We can at least hang our hats on the fact that he’s finished in the top 20 twice before.

David Starr ($5,900; Starting P38) I don’t love playing Starr especially now that his price is on the rise, but I’ll take a stab because I don’t love a ton of the value plays this week. I’m mostly hoping he can yield a similar result to what he did at Homestead. No, I don’t want him to ruin Noah Gragson’s day once again, but if he can finish in the Top 25, I’ll take it and run. Finishing 25th would give him 5X value and if he can somehow crack the top 20 (highly doubtful) then he’ll be just shy of 7X value. That’s likely his ceiling, so let’s just pull for a Top 25.

Blaine Perkins ($5,500; Starting P25) Perkins had a pretty good run at Phoenix last week. It wasn’t great, but it was serviceable. The equipment has been outstanding as we’ve seen Tyler Reddick utilize it marvelously. Perkins started 28th and finished 24th. Given his price tag he finished just shy of 5X value. The lack of experience here is a little concerning, but we’ve seen crazier things happen lately at Xfinity. So, if he can somehow finish in the Top 20 he’ll give you value once again. I’m not souring too much on him based on last week.

Tommy Joe Martins ($4,900; Starting P15) I know DraftKings dropped TJM’s price tag simply because he’s starting P15, but he’s rolling with three finishes in the Top 20. For Tommy Joe, that’s pretty good. He’s a strong driver, but he has some bad luck and sub-par equipment. Regardless, he’s still underpriced and worth a look in GPP’s. He can actually afford to lose a spot or two and still give your lineup some value. He doesn’t have the best resume at Atlanta, but he’s on a solid run right now.

Core Plays

High End

Mid Range

Value Options

Noah Gragson

Ryan Sieg

David Starr

Martin Truex Jr.

Michael Annett

Blaine Perkins

 

Josh Berry