NASCAR DFS Echopark Automotive 400 Playbook & Top Picks

The NASCAR Cup Series turns it’s attention to Texas Motor Speedway for the Autotrader Echopark Automotive 400. As surprising as this is, it’s just the second pure intermediate race of the season so far. What does that change for DFS? What drivers are top plays for DraftKings and Fanduel? Is the strategy different than other races this year? And what can we expect from Texas in terms of actual racing on this much-maligned track in the Fort Worth area? This is usually a fairly straight-forward track, but can we expect anything different at practice and qualifying on Saturday, let’s dive into to this week’s NASCAR DFS Playbook.

Texas Motor Speedway Race Trends

The table below shows some of the key stats over the last five races at Texas, the most recent three (Race 1, 2, 3) are the Next Gen races. There are a few things to note for the Cup races in that span. Firstly, moving up into the top-10 happens fairly infrequently here as 70-percent of top-10 finishers have started inside the top-12. The other thing to note is the general lack of drivers leading over 100 laps in a race. It’s happened thrice in five races with one of the times being just 111 laps. If we’re looking to get the race winner in our lineup(s), the winner has come from P1-P9 in the starting grid 8-of-the-last-11 races here while the other three winners have started P18-P24. Lapping can happen here if a few cars have the setups so much better than the rest but otherwise cars finishing laps down are more likely to be due to accidents rather than purely being lapped.

Practice And Qualifying Results For Echopark Automotive 400

Below is the practice and qualifying results from Saturday morning. It’s sorted based on qualifying order. It’s meant to show who may move up and who may drop back from their starting spots based on the difference between practice speed and qualifying spot.

DraftKings Scoring Trends at Texas

The following chart averages the points scored based solely on starting spot over the last five races regardless of driver or car in those starting spots. It’s designed to show the strategy in play at Texas though it’s not a hard and fast rule to live by.

The thing that stands out for DraftKings is that the top-10 is dominated by laps led leaders while the rest of the high-scoring spots are drivers who didn’t qualify where they ran in practice and moved up.

Fanduel Scoring Trends at Texas

The following chart averages the points scored based solely on starting spot over the last five races regardless of driver or car in those starting spots. It’s designed to show the strategy in play at Texas though it’s not a hard and fast rule to live by.

What sticks out for FanDuel is, similar to DraftKings, laps led makes a difference in the top-10 but other than that drivers who can stay on the lead lap and move up a bit can post better than average scores on average.

NASCAR DFS Strategy For Echopark Automotive 400 at Texas

So, with everything above taken into account, how are we building DFS lineups this week? We’re looking for that laps led dominator. In general there’s been one here, though we should look for a second given how the intermediate package in the Next Gen car has played out. Once we have that sorted out, we need drivers who can finish in the top-10 to really rack up the points. The trick with that is not just getting drivers inside the top-12 and hoping they all stick, they won’t. We need to look at drivers who may not have qualified where we expected them to and those who may have qualified inside the top-20 but should have the speed to hold that spot. In general looking at tracks like Vegas, Charlotte, and Kansas are comparable to Texas plus this year keep in mind that this aero package has been used at Phoenix and Bristol along with Vegas.

Top Tier Driver Plays For Cup Race

Kyle Larson

Larson is on the pole again… I know shocker. It’s the third straight race he’s leading the field to green. The speed in the 5-car is clearly good, not only based on qualifying but also because of practice. The only question mark for Larson is does he lead enough laps to make up for him dropping back in the field, which has happened here often. Even being the pole sitter at Texas, he’s still better suited for GPP builds for the chance he goes backward and doesn’t exactly dominate.

William Byron

Byron won this race a year ago and is in that kind of form again this year. The speed in the 24-car has been undeniable across multiple track types. He has top-five speed once more this week while starting P6 in the grid. That should give a tad bit of PD upside with a shot at laps led and win equity. The other thing that gives him big upside? He’s posted the best average finish here in the Next Gen car at 3.3 and is tied with the best average finish in the 19 similar races too. Sure, the races in the intermediate package have been questionable for him, but Texas is arguably his best intermediate track.

Tyler Reddick

Reddick nearly won at Vegas several races ago and racked up 39 fastest laps in the process. He has similar speed in his 45-car again this week. The difference? He’s starting P4 this time instead of P18. The speed and the closeness to the front should give Reddick a shot at leading a chunk of laps mid-race and be a threat late to win. 

Mid-Tier Driver Plays For Cup Race

Chase Elliott

It’s no secret that Elliott has been off since basically the beginning of last year. However, if we look at some of the metrics, he’s been faster than he’s getting credit for. In the Next Gen car at Texas he’s nabbed two P11 or better finishes here including last year when he started P29 and finished P11. The practice speed was a bit all over the map but there are flashes of top-10 speed in the 9-car before he qualified P24. If he can mirror last year’s run here, there is PD upside and value in this price and perhaps leverage over the field with disappointing results behind him.

Ross Chastain

Chastain has been electric in this package and at Texas. He finished P2 here last year and three-straight top-fives at similar races. If we extend the look at similar races we’ll notice Chastain has five top-fives in eight races. The speed in the 1-car was very solid at practice on Saturday before qualifying worse than he should’ve. He should be capable of a top-five finish if everything breaks his way on Sunday which gives us nice overall value.

Ty Gibbs

Gibbs is on the outside pole and ran the fastest single lap in practice. The lap averages were great too. The last two weeks at the short tracks haven’t been great at all for Gibbs but perhaps, a return to the intermediate package gives him a shot at his first Cup win. Gibbs may get beat off the line by Larson, but he should hold his spot and lead chunks of laps pretty easily in his own right which is nice value in the mid-tier.

Brad Keselowski

As was stated on the podcast, if you gave that a watch/listen, Keselowski has been very solid here in the Next Gen era with a 6.3 average finish. He’ll be starting a bit further back than we’d have liked at P22, especially with questionable practice runs. Perhaps the iffy practice will keep players off of Keselowski but the average finish and history at similar tracks in this car is good enough to feel safe with him in either format.

Daniel Suarez

This is a pseudo home track for Suarez being that it’s one of the easier ones for his family to get to. That’s shown with his finishes here. In the Next Gen races, since 2021, he’s finished no worse than P12. In the last five races he’s averaged a P16 finish and only failed to move up or hold position once, and that race he dropped back just two spots. Suarez flashed top-10 speed at practice before qualifying P20 so there should be a pretty good argument for him moving up several spots come Sunday’s checkered flag.

Value Tier Driver Plays For Cup Race

John H. Nemechek

Nemechek has been fast several places this year including a P22 at Vegas and a P6, in this package, at Bristol. Granted, Bristol is a completely different track, but the speed was still there. At practice on Saturday he appeared to get faster the longer the run went which is a good sign. Starting P30 there is solid PD upside for him if the practice speed holds true. Oh yeah, he’s also finished P22 here both Next Gen races he’s run and moved up in each one.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

Stenhouse has a couple of top-15s in the last five races at Texas. Granted the rest are iffy. However, he does appear to have top-20 speed in the car this week and if he can keep it clean, a big if for Stenhouse, we could be seeing a decent return on PD points and finish points here. Stenhouse should only be used in GPP builds due to the bust chances.

Ty Dillon

It’s not sexy for sure, but he’s literally the cheapest driver on both sites and has a decent finish history here. The car has been questionable this year in terms of race speed, but if he keeps it clean and avoids some chaos, he should move up a handful of spots. All we really need him to do is finish, but finishing P30 or better is value.

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