The final iRacing contest is upon us on Saturday at 3 pm ET as Fox brings us one more race before these guys head back into their Cup cars next Sunday. The race is at a new track for nearly every driver in this field as the last Cup race held at the track was in 1996 and so there are only three drivers in the field that have ever run a car of any kind on the track in a race format. North Wilkesboro is the venue for the race and it’s one of the most historic tracks in the NASCAR family of tracks as it dates back to the first season in 1949. It’s a short track nestled in the rolling hills 80 miles north of Charlotte and it’s a unique layout in size and the physical track form. North Wilkesboro is a ? mile track (.625 miles) which sandwiches it between Bristol and Richmond perfectly. The banking in all four corners is 14 degrees with the tilt on the straightaways being three degrees. So that covers the size being unique as the only ? mile layout but the other thing that makes this track different than any other is that the straightaways are actually not level. The back straight runs uphill while the front stretch runs downhill between the exit of turn 4 to the entrance of turn 1 and that’s because they didn’t grade the farmland before they built the track.
The field this week is smaller than the previous five iRaces with just 28 cars in the field due to it being a short track but also because some key Cup teams don’t have their drivers in the race with no active Hendrick drivers, no active Penske drivers, no active Chip Ganassi drivers, and no active Wood Brothers driver either. So there are some guys that haven’t raced in the virtual races yet that are there this week and some less experienced guys as well making this an interesting field.
Playbook
Timmy Hill (DK: $12,500 FD: $15,000)
Without Byron in the field this week, Hill becomes the top play as if he wasn’t in previous weeks… He has one of the two wins in iRacing in the field this week and has the most top-fives with five and five top-10s with his worst finish being at P11 at Talladega. Hill will be starting in the rear at North Wilkesboro as he finished second at Dover and that ups his position differential quite a bit for DK but he’ll need another top-five finish to pay value on FanDuel with the $15K price tag.
Denny Hamlin (DK: $11,000 FD: $11,500)
Hamlin is the other driver with the win in the field as it came all the way back at Homestead in the first race. He’s been a strong play when he’s not crashed out or his daughter turns off the monitor on him as he has four top-10s and a 5.2 positive PD mark. The pricing is nearly equal on both sites making his value equal as well. Expect him to get quite a bit of practice time in on the track this week, as he’s a heavy preparer in this format as he is in the Cup series, and in an interview, he gave over the last two weeks he said that he actually drivers the virtual car the same way he drives the actual Cup car so expect his preparation to follow suit.
Christopher Bell (DK: $10,500 FD: $8,400)
Bell came out of nowhere last week at Dover to finish second in what was his best finish of the iRacing season to this point as he finally found his groove. This week he will be starting in the rear due to that high finish at Dover and that leads to an upside in PD on DraftKings. Bell has been a very good driver in his real-life racing career at short tracks and thus should be able to build on the momentum of last week for a potentially strong finish which he’ll need to maximize the value on that site without getting points for PD on FD.
Ryan Preece (DK: $10,000 FD: $12,000)
Preece is coming off his worst finish of the last six races which might knock his ownership down a touch even for a guy with four top-10s in the six races. Preece is now the laps led leader in the field with 78 without Byron in the race and so that could help him a bit depending on where he manages to qualify for Saturday. He will need to lead laps to make up the value on either site, especially FanDuel where PD is no longer a factor for one more week.
Garrett Smithley (DK: $9,700 FD: $11,000)
Smithley is a guy that just keeps performing, though not always in a sexy way, but the floor is an important part of lineups as well. Smithley has three top-fives and five top-10s in his six races while posting the second-best average finish in the field at 7.8 which is about one spot better than where he starts. His price for the kind of floor is attractive on DK but he’s also well in play on FD as he’s put up 45 or more points both of the last two races which puts his value in range as well.
Kyle Busch (DK: $9,100 FD: $9,600)
Busch was really quite good at Richmond a few weeks back and had a solid run at Dover last Sunday moving up seven spots for a top-15 finish. His record as a short track driver in an actual race car is phenomenal and he has an ability to figure things out quickly on the track. Busch still continues to be a solid price on both sites and has shown some nice upside in recent weeks but he’s not necessarily a lock yet.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. (DK: $8,800 FD: $10,000)
Jr. spearheaded the movement to get this track on the road, excuse the pun, to where it is now with a resurfaced racing surface, and potentially being added to the Cup schedule again in the next few years. He also is one of the three drivers that have actual on-track experience here, granted it was in the modified series, but still, it’s on-track experience. While he hasn’t had the best of luck in the last few races, he is still one of the better iRacers in the field and the price has come down some since the start of this section of the season because of those bad breaks but that makes him a nice value this week at a favorite track of his and the sentimental favorite.
Landon Cassill (DK: $8,500 FD: $10,200)
Cassill is another driver who is just kind of there each week but keeps producing good finishes fairly routinely. He’s got three top-fives and three top-10s in the six races but the issue is the negative position differential he’s posted overall at -4.8 per race. At Richmond, Cassill did finish top-five which is encouraging given the length of track and design of this one. The DK price is more comforting than his FanDuel salary but with another top-five, he could also reach value there as well.
Erik Jones (DK: $8,000 FD: $8,000)
Jones has been a great play for half the races in the iRacing with three top-10 finishes and strong position differential marks in those races. Bristol saw him have technical difficulties but at Richmond, he drove from P24 to P7, and last week he had a top-five after starting P31 in the race. Short tracks have been a good variety of track for Jones in his Cup career and his iRacing stint so this weekend figures to be another solid showing for Jones and his ownership continues to be surprisingly low given his upside.
Tyler Reddick (DK: $7,800 FD: $7,700)
Reddick hasn’t been being talked about all that much this year or in the iRacing schedule but he’s been an interesting guy to watch on the shorter tracks the last several weeks. He’s moved up a minimum of five spots a race at Bristol, Richmond, and Dover with a combined 22 spots moved up in those three events. Reddick is squarely in the mid-tier salary-wise on both sites making him intriguing on another short track this week to round out the middle of the roster for your DFS setups.
Bobby Labonte (DK: $6,700 FD: $6,500)
Labonte is one of the two drivers to race in a Cup race on this track before it wasn’t put on the schedule anymore. He’s also continued to be a solid PD bet in the iRacing realm despite no notable finishes though he has finished all three 1-mile or shorter tracks in either 13th or 14th place while moving up a combined 25 spots in those three races. Labonte could rely on his experience on the track, if he can remember that far back as it was at least 24 years ago, to help his cause once more at a sub-$7K price tag on both sites.
Cole Custer (DK: $6,300 FD: $5,000)
Custer may not have joined the Pro Invitational Series party until Talladega but he’s put together two solid races with a P26 at ‘Dega and a very good P12 at Dover after starting P36. He’s one of the younger guys who has picked up the iRacing stuff pretty easily and in his Xfinity series experience he’s been good at short track racing typically making him an intriguing under-the-radar cheaper play this week, especially on FanDuel at just $5K of salary.
Jeff Gordon (DK: $6,000 FD: $3,000)
Gordon got very excited when he heard that North Wilkesboro was on the docket for this weekend’s iRace and immediately said that he’d likely be running the race. Well turns out he is partaking in his second Pro Invitational Series race with the other being Talladega. That previous race didn’t go so well as he got stuck in the catch fence and had to be virtually towed to pit road. That being said though, he was the winner the last time the Cup cars raced at this North Carolina track so why not take a flier on him having better luck at a track he had good runs at in his early Cup career. The price on FD is remarkably low and allows you to get another higher-end salary guy in without an issue.
Ross Chastain (DK: $5,800 FD: $7,000)
Chastain’s time to run with Cup drivers is coming to an end this week as he won’t be in the 6-car next weekend as Ryan Newman takes back over and the 42-car vacancy was filled by Matt Kenseth so there’s a sentimental play here. Chastain finished better than where he started at both of the short tracks that have been raced at in the last six races but hasn’t had much luck elsewhere including last weekend when he started on the pole and then finished P17. Chastain still wants nice momentum to carry over to the restart of the Xfinity Series season and at his price on DK, he’s worth a nice back of the lineup spot this weekend.
Ty Dillon (DK: $5,600 FD: $5,000)
Dillon moved up 11 spots at Richmond but at Bristol and Dover, he was caught up in incidents that cost him better finishes. He has been a guy that has typically done better at short tracks in his Cup career in general so this is another shot to get him in a lineup for not much money and hope for another Richmond type performance but there is some risk that he gets into another accident issue on Saturday.
JJ Yeley (DK: $5,400 FD: $3,500)
Yeley is a guy that I mentioned on the podcast last week as a complete bottom of the barrel play for Dover and it turned into a very solid play with a second-straight top-20 finish and another 33-plus point showing on Fanduel while scoring 32 or more points in both races on DK. Those point totals bring 6x value on DK and nearly 11x value on FD at his price level and this week shouldn’t be any different as he’s shown he can move up through the field well. Yeley should be a low-owned guy again who could provide nice value and a shot to get a higher priced driver into another spot in the roster.
Joey Gase (DK: $5,000 FD: $4,000)
Gase finished P24 at Dover and had a top-20 at Talladega with an average of a positive four PD mark in those two events. If he can nab another top-24 finish he should have another solid day on both sites in terms of DFS value of at least 5x. The floor and upside here are limited but the value return is tough to look past if you’re trying to get as many top-end drivers into a lineup as possible.