NASCAR DFS: Daytona 500 Track Breakdown

It’s officially here, the Daytona 500 weekend and the start of the 2022 NASCAR season! Yeah, the Clash kicked things off, sort of, but this is the first points race of the season and the one all the drivers want the most. It’s always fitting that the Super Bowl of NASCAR follows the actual Super Bowl just a week later for another marquee sporting event in the month of February.

This year the feel around the 500 is a tad different though as there are a lot of unknowns heading into the race; yeah I know that sounds odd. Unknowns at Daytona? Come on Selz, every race at Daytona is an unknown and the most volatile race of the year. Yeah, yeah, I know but hear me out. There is a new car this year, that’s never been raced in a full field, at full speed, in a pack, at these speeds. There are new drivers and teams that have never raced at Daytona or in some cases, at the Cup level at all. There is a shortage of parts and bodies for teams which means a lot of teams aren’t bringing backup cars, what does this mean for the race? How will the car perform in race conditions for 200 laps? See what I’m saying with a lot of unknowns?

For those who might be uninitiated to NASCAR DFS, giving this whole Freeview weekend a try, a couple of things. Firstly, check out Dan Malin’s Intro to NASCAR DFS article that is great at explaining the ins and outs of the sport. Secondly, let’s do a quick info session on the track layout and style of racing. Daytona international Speedway is a 2.5-mile track, tied for second-longest in NASCAR, with turns that are banked at 31 degrees, the second steepest as well. The front stretch is heavily banked as well, though not as much as the turns. Daytona is a track well-known for speed, among the fastest on the schedule, but it’s also known for it’s pack-racing style too. The cars, yes even the new ones, all have the same engine and aerodynamic setup on them which mean they will basically all have the same horsepower and top speed. That creates a situation in which all of the cars will be racing in one big pack, either in a long single-file line, or a side-by-side pack that sometimes goes three-wide. If one driver makes a mistake, a ton of cars get taken out in what is colloquially known as “The Big One”. And that can happen at any time. So how do we put together DFS lineups for this race? Well the strategy portion is up next.

Strategy Notes

Usually for a race weekend, we pay a lot of attention to practice speeds, both short and long run speeds, and qualifying positions. This weekend that’s not the case. It’s a literal dart throw this weekend and one in which practices won’t tell us much of anything. So what’s the strategy here then? It’s typically referred to as “stacking the back.” Most people this week will simply put together lineups that have the drivers who are starting in the furthest back 5-10 spots in the grid and just plug it in and wait for chaos, AKA they’ve stacked their lineup full of guys in the back of the pack. It’s not quite that simple though. There are stats, histories, and manufacturers that give drivers the edge over others, and starting spots can matter.

As you’re looking at the tables below, take special note of the drivers with the higher amounts of top-10 and top-15 finishes, those with the highest average PD (position differential) numbers, and most importantly, the drivers with the highest laps completed per race numbers. Why are laps completed most important? It means those drivers have been missing the big ones consistently and thus are on the track late in the race with a shot to win, or at least have passed a bunch of cars and thus will improve their DFS scoring by increasing PD and finishing position points.

As for “stacking the back”, the data from recent races indicates that it’s actually better to put one driver from the top-10 and the rest from spots 20-30 in the starting grid. Drivers in the very back of the field tend to bust more often than those starting 20-30 because the cars starting outside the top-32 are generally the back marker teams that get caught in the big wrecks.

Last 5 Race Stats

The table below shows the number of drivers to reach each stat-type over the last five Daytona races with Race 1 being the most recent.

For the tables below:

* The DFS Scoring Table: Race 1 is the most recent race in the sample size with Race 5 being the earliest. We are using the Last 5 Daytona races for the data.

* The Last 10 Similar table: The data is comprised of stats from the last 10 Restrictor Plate races across Talladega and Daytona.