2018 NASCAR DFS Payline Analysis: Pennzoil 400

For the second week in a row it was a dominant performance by one driver, the driver being Kevin Harvick. He led the most laps once again and won…once again and put up well over 100 points…again. Going into the race I liked both Harvick and Martin Truex Jr. about equally given their histories here and at the distance but let’s find out what the fields thought of them in a few different contests.

NAS $20K Brake Pad (Single Entry)

Entry Fee - $4

Total Prizes - $20,000  First Place - $1,000

Total Entrants – 5,945  Places Paid – 1,605

Top Score – 386.75  Money Line – 308.75  Fantasy Alarm Lineups – 281.25 GPP1, 157 GPP2, 352.5 Cash

The single entry GPP is a nice contest to enter most weeks because it keeps the same person from entering 20 of the same lineups and bumping up the money line. However this week 207 of the top 256 spots were made up of just two lineups played by different players using the same lineup. That being said there were still no drivers owned at higher than 50% across the field. Kevin Harvick was the highest-owned at 48.31% and it was next to impossible to cash without having him in the roster since his 132.5 points again totaled 2-3 drivers scores by himself. Martin Truex Jr. was just the sixth-highest owned driver at 35.34%, which sandwiched him between Kyle Larson at 36.53% and Aric Almirola at 34.45%. Since it was a GPP format, it’s not a shock that the pole sitter Ryan Blaney was the second-highest owned at just a tick under 40% and still showed well with his 41.25 point total. My favorite cheap play of the week, Chris Buescher, was apparently not a secret, as 23.11% owned him and his 44.5-point showing on their roster. Nearly 12% of lineups in this contest took a chance on Jimmie Johnson having a rebound day and they were rewarded with a solid 38.5-point outing from the seven-time champ.

NAS $5 Cup Contest (2 Entry Max)

Entry Fee - $5

Total Prizes - $300  First Place - $60

Total Entrants – 71  Place Paid – 12

Top Score – 374.5  Money Line – 319  Fantasy Alarm Lineups – 281.25 GPP1, 157 GPP2, 352.5 Cash

Just like in the bigger field GPP, Kevin Harvick was the highest-owned driver but this time he was at nearly 55% owned. Three other drivers cracked the 40% owned mark in Aric Almirola (42.25), Brad Keselowski (40.85), Kyle Larson (40.85) and each of those drivers also put up 47 or more points on Sunday. Interestingly both Ryan Blaney and Martin Truex Jr. were both on less than 29 percent of rosters in this small-field GPP with only five of the cashing lineups rostering Truex compared to all of them having Harvick. Just 4.23% of entrants took a shot on Jimmie Johnson this week after his disappointing week in Atlanta last week and none of those cashed. Once again my cheap play of the week in Chris Buescher was rostered 22.5% of the time, not changing much from the bigger field contest above. In an interesting twist, there was more roster diversity in the smaller field GPP than in the bigger single entry contest, which doesn’t typically happen.

NAS $5 Double Up

Entry Fee - $5

Total Prizes - $170  1^st-17^th - $10

Total Entrants – 39  Places paid – 17

Top Score – 385.75  Money Line – 352.5  Fantasy Alarm Lineup – 352.5 Cash

Cash games will always have higher ownership percentages than GPPs do. Simply the nature of how to construct the rosters for this format. I say that to preface these coming percentages. In the last two contests there was just one driver combined in better than 50% of lineups but now there are five including three at 74% or better. Kevin Harvick still leads the way at 79.5% but both Aric Almirola and Ryan Newman were near there too at 74.36 each. Ryan Blaney (58.9) and Martin Truex Jr. (53.8) round out those that topped the 50-percent mark. Again the field was onto Chris Buescher with 48.7% of the field rostering the $5,700 driver for Vegas. After Buescher however there is a precipitous falloff in ownership with the next highest being both Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin at 28.2-percent apiece. The ownerships fell from there allowing Joey Logano to be the best value with his 49.75 points being on just 5.15% of rosters, or two of the 39 in the field. Aside from the percentages being surprising, a few other things come to mind. There are eight lineups that decided against rolling with Harvick, all eight finished between 31-39 in the standings. One that did roster Harvick finished down there too but that’s mainly due to a few spots not helping him with Kurt Busch costing him 22 point and essentially cancelling out Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s point production. Also of note is that 10 drivers weren’t rostered at all but even Jimmie Johnson made one lineup in the field.

Optimal Lineup

The best possible lineup you could’ve have played for the Pennzoil 400 is:

The point total is in the upper 300s once again and again leaves money on the table with it being $800 under-budget. It clearly was going to have Harvick in it because you simply can’t get that high without his 132.5 points being in there. The optimal grouping of six had six of 10 40+ scorers from Sunday’s race including three of the four to go over 50. Again the extra salary of Martin Truex Jr. made him hard to fit into the top-scoring roster for the second week in a row. My two favorite cheap and mid-tier plays in Buescher and Newman both made this lineup along with five drivers mentioned in the playbook, with the only exception being Erik Jones. The closest anyone got in the contest I played was 386.75, just 1.25 point off a perfect lineup.