Ambetter Health 302 DFS Expert Picks & Lineups: NASCAR Xfinity Playbook

We have just four races left in the 2024 NASCAR Xfinity Series season. We officially kick off the Round of Eight portion of the playoffs at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. It was a bit disappointing seeing Parker Kligerman get screwed in Charlotte last week. It’s another bad look for NASCAR and their officiating, but we won’t dwell on it too much as we have another slate on Saturday to attack. Luckily for this race, we will have practice and qualifying on Friday so we’ll have nearly 24 hours to finalize our builds as opposed to building them on the fly. Here are the Ambetter Health 302 DFS Picks on DraftKings for Saturday’s race!

Ambetter Health 302 DFS Picks & NASCAR Lineups

NASCAR heads to Sin City this weekend, a track that usually gets two races every year. Vegas is a 1.5-mile intermediate tri-oval. It is very similar to Kansas Speedway, a track this series visited just a handful of weeks ago. But it also draws comparisons to other tracks like Charlotte and Darlington.

We should expect the best cars to qualify very well here. This is going to be one of those races where we can likely predict who will be fast based on practice times in addition to tire fall off. With each passing year, Vegas does become more and more of a tire wear track in my opinion.

We have a bit of an odd number of laps for this race. 201 total, in fact. Stages will be broken into 45-45-111 lap segments so it’s another good race to consider multiple dominators.

This race in the spring certainly played out as such. John Hunter Nemechek led 99 laps and won after starting P12. Chandler Smith started P2 and led 74 laps and finished third. Even in this race a year ago, Riley Herbst (Vegas native) won while leading 103 laps. His teammate, Cole Custer, led 62 laps and finished third. So we don’t need to overcomplicate things for this race. It’s a typical 1.5-mile tri-oval and we have enough laps to consider at least two dominators, possibly three if you aren’t diving too deep into the value plays to open up salary. 

The Xfinity Series will have a full practice session late Friday afternoon and then qualifying will be at 7:00pm ET. Check back for updates in RED Friday evening for the finalized driver pool for the Ambetter Health 302 DFS picks.

Top-Price Ambetter Health 302 DFS Picks

Cole Custer – DraftKings: $10,800

I’m not completely sold yet on Custer, but he’ll be on my radar Friday evening. I actually have a little more confidence in the next two drivers. But at the same time, Custer is the reigning Xfinity Series champion so I can’t disregard him for this race.

Custer finished second in this race back in the spring. On top of that he finished fifth at Texas, third at Darlington-1 (with 21 laps led), second at Darlington-2, and he was the runner-up at Kansas just a few weeks ago with 48 laps led.

My own personal feelings can be pushed aside because he’s run well on the comparable tracks and he was great at the higher speed tracks with a win at Pocono and then he was second at Indianapolis. Overall, this is a good spot for him heading into the weekend.

Update: He was fast in practice and qualifying and he starts P2. If building 20+ lineups don't rule out the idea of playing Jones and Custer together in some lineups. But Custer certainly has dominator potential.

Justin Allgaier – DraftKings: $10,500

Allgaier has not had a great time in the playoffs, but a strong enough regular season puts him in good position as he is 18 points above the cut line. But this is a 1.5-mile intermediate and Allgaier is more than capable of getting a win here.

Oddly enough, Allgaier doesn’t have a win here, but in half of his 20 races here he’s finished in the top five. He was a chalk monster this past spring when he started P36 and grabbed a top 10 finish. Moreover, he even managed to lead 11 laps.

Allgaier has been fantastic at the intermediates this year. He finished third at Texas with 117 laps led, won at Darlington-1 with 119 laps led, and he won at Michigan. He’s had some bad luck at a couple tracks this year where he’s wrecked out. All in all, he’s wrecked in six of 29 races this year, which is a bit high. But the equipment is top notch, and he can put up a big score on Saturday.

Chandler Smith – DraftKings: $10,200

Smith has actually been arguably the best and most consistent driver the last handful of races in the playoffs. He sits eight points above the cut line so he isn’t as safe as Allgaier, but if he keeps up his trends he’ll find himself in a better spot after this race.

Smith has finished top five in each of the last six races. Even amidst the varying track types, he’s still finishing very well and that includes his top three results at Kansas where he led 114 laps.

Smith even led 74 laps in this race in the spring. This round, and the championship race in Phoenix, do cater to Smith’s strengths if he can simply just continue to finish well. He’s been great on the short, flat tracks as well so he’s a legitimate threat to be crowned champion by the end of the year.

Sheldon Creed - DraftKings: $10,000

The king of second place cracks the Playbook post-qualifying. In fact, he didn't even post a qualifying lap. We're staring down the barrel of Sheldon Creed chalk as he'll start dead last. So the floor is good but there are drivers in this range with higher ceilings because they're more likely to lead laps.

He pairs nicely with Brandon Jones lineups. Jones is cheaper and can lead laps while Creed is more affordable and can be a PD play with top 10 upside. And maybe you can squeeze in another driver to lead laps. Overall, he's a good cash game play because of the floor and we don't say that often about Creed.

Austin Hill - DraftKings: $9,800

A poor qualifying effort has Hill starting P17, by far the deepest of the remaining playoff drivers. It wasn't so much that the car was slow. Rather, when he was coming out of turns 1 and 2 on his qualifying lap he drove through a portion of the track that's a bit more bumpy and it basically ran his car higher than he wanted to down the back stretch. Essentially, the car was driving him after he missed his mark. 

Hill was top 12 in speed during practice and knowing the rest of the playoff drivers are likely to grab more playoff points in stage 1, Hill likely needs to strategize for late points or to possibly win. Overall, he's not a bad PD play among the more expensive drivers.

Mid-Price Ambetter Health 302 DFS Picks

A.J. Allmendinger – DraftKings: $9,200

Allmendinger does have a win at Vegas on his Xfinity Series resume from back in the spring of 2021. He started P10 in that race and led 44 laps. He also led 20 laps in the fall of 2021 and then 32 laps in the spring of 2022, and in both races he finished top 10.

Now this year hasn’t gone as well as previous years for Allmendinger. He doesn’t have a win on his resume, but the good news is that he’s alive in the playoffs, even if he sits 18 points below the cut line. It’s hard to imagine he has much win equity. However, Shane van Gisbergen was eliminated last week and that may allow Kaulig Racing to allocate more attention and resources to Allmendinger’s car.

Update: Dinger starts P9 and has a manageable price tag. With a top five finish he's providing 43 fantasy points on DraftKings. Add in some dominator points, and he can get between 45-50 points.

Jesse Love – DraftKings: $8,800

Love is another playoff driver that still has some life as we kick off this next round of the playoffs. Love is 12 points below the cut line so across the next few races he could ‘point’ his way into the championship race.

Love wasn’t great in the first Vegas race earlier this year. To be honest, he’s mostly been great in any drafting race. But he finished top 10 in both Darlington races and the more recent race at Kansas. So there’s potential for a good finish.

The concern? He tends to qualify the car pretty well. He’s only started outside the top 20 just twice all year, and in 20 of the 29 races this year he’s started P12 or better. If we don’t view him as a candidate to lead laps, we likely aren’t getting of ton of position differential here.

Update: Love actually laid down a solid qualifying lap when you consider he had some tire rub the entire way. I don't think he would've landed the pole necessarily, but the rub likely cost him a couple starting spots. The car wasn't great in practice but they did make some good adjustments in qualifying to put down a good lap.

Brandon Jones – DraftKings: $8,500

Jones is as risky as ever as the disappointing run with Jr. Motorsports marches on. But Jones has been decent in his career at Las Vegas. He’s finished 11^th or better in nine of his last 10 races at Vegas and he’s only wrecked once in 15 races here.

So obviously the issue with Jones is that he is largely unreliable. But despite the shortcomings with JRM, he’s finished top 10 in his last two races here with the organization.

He finished 10^th at Darlington-1 and then second at Charlotte and we just saw him finish sixth at Kansas-2 a few weeks ago. As long as he doesn’t qualify too well for this race, he can potentially be a viable DFS play for our lineups that can exceed 5X-6X value.

Update: The car is stupid fast. I can't believe it honestly. In practice he laid down the fastest single lap and was top five in 10-lap averages. And he backed it up with a great qualifying effort. I will say that the best course of action would be to just match the field in terms of exposure or be underweight. I'll like play him in just four or five of my 20 lineups because this is still Brandon Jones we're talking about. He is on the pole so if he leads laps and finishes well he has a good chance of being optimal.

Taylor Gray - DraftKings: $8,300

Gray was announced as a new driver next year for JGR after a successful season in the Craftsman Truck Series. So the price tag is perfectly fine and he's in a JGR car for this race as well starting P13. He dropped the second-fastest single lap and the third-best 10-lap average in practice.

Value Ambetter Health 302 DFS Picks

Ryan Sieg – DraftKings: $7,800

Sieg is a similar play to Brandon Jones. To be honest, he’s shown up with speed at plenty of intermediates this year. Most of the time, strategy gets in his way and he doesn’t tend to finish where he runs on average.

However, he did finish seventh in this race in the spring and he was the runner-up at Texas where he was so close to getting his first career win. He also grabbed a top 10 at Charlotte over Memorial Day Weekend.

He likely qualifies inside the top 20, but outside the top 10 so we have some PD that’ll likely be on the table. But at the end of the day, this is a track position kind of race and Sieg does take risks to improve his position even if it’s a detriment to his fantasy outlook.

Update: He qualified P10 so that's not ideal. I will likely be laying off here and pivoting to other drivers in this range.

Anthony Alfredo – DraftKings: $7,200

Alfredo is risky as well, but you get the sense that as long as everything goes well for him, there’s no reason he can’t finish in the top 15, right?

In the first Vegas race he started P37 and finished 16^th as he nearly put up 50 fantasy points on DraftKings. He grabbed a top 10 at Texas and then was 14^th at Darlington-1 and 16^th at Charlotte. He even managed to finish fourth at Michigan over the summer and most recently he started P20 at Kansas and finished 15^th.

The qualifying spot is going to be a key factor here. But he does have some top 10 equity if you are okay playing him at low ownership if he starts in the teens.

Update: He starts P18 and we can certainly work with that as he can sneak into the top 12.

Daniel Dye - DraftKings: $7,000

He's a little more expensive than I'd like but Dye showed a lot of improvement in the Truck Series and even managed to make the playoffs. He's in a Kaulig car for this race and starts deeper in the field than Josh Williams. This should be a top 20 car and if he can finish around 18th-20th he's paying off the price tag.

Myatt Snider – DraftKings: $5,600

Here’s a guy we haven’t seen very much this year. Truth be told, Snider has only run a single race this year and that was way back at Martinsville in the spring. He started P34 and finished 19^th.

The good news is that he did that in the 07-car for SS Green Light Racing. And he’ll be back in that car for this race as well. Snider is a decent driver who has previously driven for Richard Childress Racing, RSS Racing, Jordan Anderson Racing, and even Joe Gibbs Racing. But he’s always had funding and sponsorship issues.

But he’s a previous winner at Homestead and a few Xfinity Series drivers have gone to him for advice on higher tire wear tracks. But we can’t look past the equipment. It’s not great, but the qualifying spot likely suffers because of that and he’s capable of getting it into the top 20 if it all holds up.

Update: He's not a lock given the equipment but he starts very deep in the field and that gives him a good enough floor for cash game consideration.

Ambetter Health 302 NASCAR Xfinity Series DFS Driver Pool