Sunday’s FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan represents the last “normal” race before the playoffs start in two weeks. Considering that the post-Olympic break has so far been filled with two variant-laden road courses and next week will be a complete crapshoot, as Daytona normally is, Michigan is the best shot for drivers who haven’t clinched a spot yet to take things into their own hands and lock themselves into the chase for the Championship.
Last year at Michigan, it was a doubleheader weekend with the adjustments made for Covid and that involved inverting the top-20 from Saturday for Sunday’s event so we’ll have to take Sunday’s results with a bit of a grain of salt. That being said, we still saw a lot of the same trends from the previous four races at the track hold up for Sunday’s race in terms of single-dominators for laps led and place differential trends as well. Please listen to the podcast here and read the Track Breakdown here as they are designed to be complements to the analysis in the playbook to create the full view for the weekend’s slate.
Average Points By Starting Spot
These charts show the average points scored for each site based on starting spots over the last five races at this track regardless of the driver in each starting spot. It’s a way to see strategy and not necessarily a hard and fast rule to set lineups by.
Playbook
Kyle Larson ($11,500 DK / $14,500 FD / P1)
Larson on the pole you say? At a track he’s won at three times in his career you say? Yep, have fun the rest of the field with how fast the 5-car has been all year regardless of track and package. He’s the odds on favorite to win and should be the odds on favorite to lead the most laps too.
Kyle Busch ($10,800 DK / $13,500 FD / P7)
Busch has already won twice this year in this package including once at a similar track, Kansas, and by the way has been good at Michigan of late as well being one of three drivers with four top-fives in the last five events here. There’s some PD here with a shot to lead some laps.
Denny Hamlin ($10,400 DK / $11,500 FD / P9)
Hamlin was in a spot to nab his first win of the season last weekend before getting spun out with 1.5 laps left. Hamlin has been remarkably consistent this year and in the last five races in this package he’s posted the eighth-best average finish and the fourth-best mark in Green Flag Speed over the last 10 similar races while also ranking fourth in average finish at Michigan recently. All of that sets him up for another solid day on the track.
William Byron ($10,200 DK / $11,000 FD / P18)
Byron has an average finish of 17.6 here in the last five races and if we just look at that, why’s he in the playbook? Well that’s due to one bad wreck out as he has produced three top-15 finishes, including a top-10 in that same span. Byron also ranks in the top-11 in both average finish in the last five similar races and Green Flag Speed in the last 10 550-horsepower races. The price is higher than we’re used to consistently see Byron at and he does need a P5 finish at these salaries to hit value.
Kevin Harvick ($10,000 DK / $12,000 FD / P8)
How is a guy that’s won here four of the last five trips to Brooklyn and has seven top-fives in the last 10 races priced as the fifth-most expensive driver on the board? I would say it’s because he hasn’t been dominant this year but he does rank second in average finish in the last five races in this package this year and is still top-five in Green Flag Speed in the last 10 races in this package. Starting P8 puts him in prime position to nab his first win of the season and we can certainly expect the notes from last year to hold weight well for this year too.
Brad Keselowski ($9,800 DK / $10,300 FD / P20)
If there’s a driver who wants to win here more than Keselowski, it’s hard to find them. Kes being from Michigan and wanting to be the first Michigander to win at the track is a well known theme at this point. He could still win from P20, Harvick did it last year, but in fairness he doesn’t have to win to hit value as as long as he finishes P7, he reaches 50 DK points and hits 5x. The speed and finishes have been there in this package for him to do that too as he ranks fourth in average finish and seventh in Green Flag Speed in the last several races in this package.
Joey Logano ($9,600 DK / $10,500 FD / P19)
Average finish of 8.2 and four top-10s with a starting spot mid-pack should be enough reason to play Logano alone, but wait Matt, I thought we shouldn’t be playing Logano in the 550-package? Well, funny you should ask, at least in this aside we’re having in my head, the 22-car ranks 10th in Green Flag Speed in the last 10 similar races and is always one to perform better when bragging rights for Ford is on the line.
Martin Truex Jr ($9,400 DK / $13,000 FD / P5)
Truex has been very good at this 2-mile speedway with a 5.6 average finish in the last five races and has historically moved up several spots a race to get there. Now he’ll roll off in the top-five and hope to stay there to hit value. The problem with that might be that he’s been only so-so so far this year in this package and only has 12 top-10s total in 27 points races this year, well below his normal mark. Knowing that intermediate tracks will be a key to winning the title, we could see him use this as a way to dial things in for the playoffs and that’s frankly what we’ll need from him for DFS as he remains a GPP play for the risk that he’s just so-so again.
Chase Elliott ($9,200 DK / $12,500 FD / P2)
In his career at Michigan, Elliott has been a force with nine top-10s in 10 races including three runners-up, all to Kyle Larson, and his average finish of 7.7 is second only to Kevin Harvick. However, this year intermediate ovals haven’t necessarily been his bread and butter and looking at the last several, he’s gone backward much more frequently than he’s moved up or led laps. Even when he’s started up front, he’s dropped back several spots. If he can lead a bunch of laps and finish top-five he can hit value but he more fits GPP builds than Cash ones this week.
Ryan Blaney ($9,000 DK / $9,500 FD / P3)
The only hope for Blaney to hit value this weekend is for him to get dominator points. Just finishing where he’s starting won’t do it. Here’s the good news for Blaney though, he’s averaged 7.0 laps led and 8.7 fast laps per race the last five races here and he’s been very good in this package this year. In the last 10 races in this package, he ranks second in Green Flag Speed. Blaney is a GPP play for the hope that he can outrun Elliott or Larson up front.
Alex Bowman ($8,800 DK / $10,000 FD / P10)
So which one holds true with Bowman at Michigan this week? His average finish over the last five races here is 19.2 while averaging a -7.0 PD. On the other hand, he ranks second in average finish over the last five races in this package this year and eighth-best in Green Flag Speed in the last 10 similar races. If the recent trend holds true he could be in the running for a top-five but if his track history holds, it might be a rough day.
Aric Almirola ($8,300 DK / $7,000 FD / P23)
The joke with Almirola the last few years has been that you can’t play him outside of flat tracks, but this weekend that doesn’t quite hold true as he’s managed a couple of top-10 finishes in the last five races. This time though, he’ll try a different approach here as he usually starts toward the front and drops back, he’ll now try and move up from a P23 starting spot instead. Almirola also does have two top-20s in this package this year.
Christopher Bell ($8,100 DK / $9,200 FD / P28)
Being that he’s posted an average finish of 15.0 in his two Cup races here and ranks in the top-15 of Green Flag Speed for similar races, Bell is practically a free square for PD this weekend. The sites knew it and priced him up but if he can finish P15 or better, he’ll hit value.
Austin Dillon ($8,000 DK / $7,500 FD / P26)
Dillon tried his best to pick up points on his teammate Tyler Reddick last weekend but wound up losing out by a few and then wrecking out late in one of the two debacles at the end. Dillon has also been quite solid here at Michigan in the last five with three top-15s and an average finish of 16.4. The only way that Dillon can make the playoffs at this point is to either win here or Daytona or to push hard enough to out-point his teammate, making him a good play in the hopes the desperation moves pay off with a better finish.
Daniel Suarez ($7,800 DK / $6,000 FD / P30)
We’ve been talking a lot this season about playing drivers at places where they’re comfortable regardless of the outside stats against that play. Suarez this week is one of those plays. In the 99-car this year he’s been middle of the pack with average finish and in this package he ranks 29th in Green Flag Speed. Here though, his average finish in the last five races has been 14.0, a full 16 spots better than where he’ll start on Sunday. That’s nice PD upside and a guy that’s been doing better of late this season too.
Ryan Preece ($7,500 DK / $4,500 FD / P32)
Look, this price is high, at least on DK, but it’s another example of them adjusting prices based on starting spots and the same thing they’ve been doing for the last year and a half. That being said, the track history is good with two top-20s, including a top-10, while moving up 11 spots a race to get his 18.3 average finish. He will be a popular play for position differential and is essentially a free square on Fanduel.
Tyler Reddick ($7,400 DK / $8,500 FD / P14)
Reddick started in the same spot last year as he will for Sunday and wound up finishing P18. However, he has done well here in Xfinity and now this year in this package, he has the fifth-best average finish in the last five 550-horsepower races. Reddick will also drive in the Xfinity race on Saturday for extra track time. The price is toward the bottom of the mid-tier and means that he only needs P10 finish to hit value and prior to the debacle at Indy Road he posted four top-10s in four of the five prior races.
Chase Briscoe ($6,700 DK / $5,500 FD / P21)
Briscoe might have made more news in the last two laps of last week’s race than any time the whole rest of the year but that’s not why he’s in the playbook. He’s here because of his price and his starting spot and the fact that he has a couple of top-20s in this package this year. Briscoe needs a P15 finish to hit value and that’s certainly possible for him as hard as Ford pushes to do well at their home track.
Bubba Wallace ($6,400 DK / $6,500 FD / P15)
In this race last year, meaning the first race of last year’s doubleheader, he started P24 and finished P9. In this package this year, Wallace has managed a top-five and two finishes between 11th and 15th. While he’s starting a bit higher than we’d like, he could still offer some decent upside for GPPs as he only needs a P13 finish to hit 5x and P10 for 6x.
Erik Jones ($6,200 DK / $4,500 FD / P13)
The starting is representative of how well he did at Indy Road last weekend but that may be an advantage in GPPs. Him starting this close to the front might have some folks off of him but he has posted the 16th-best Green Flag Speed in the last 10 similar type races to this one along with three top-20s in the last five trips to Brooklyn. Let’s also keep in mind that even though he’s in the 43-car this year, that team finished P9 in the first race of the weekend last year.