NASCAR DFS Pennzoil 400 Playbook & Top Picks

NASCAR heads west to Las Vegas Motor Speedway and the Pennzoil 400 for the third race of the 2024 NASCAR schedule. It is the first true intermediate race of the year which means we’ll get a different style of racing than we’ve had previously.

Pennzoil 400 Race Trends

The Cup series has been racing at Vegas since 1997 and the track shows that. It’s never been repaved and that’s changed the racing over time at LVMS. The other thing that’s changed the racing at Vegas was the introduction of the Next Gen car two years ago. With that in mind, we’re using data from the last four races here for the table below.

Race trends show key stats as follows:

Las Vegas NASCAR DFS Strategy

Las Vegas is a challenging track filled with all sorts of hazards like bumps, the wind, two different feeling corners, and tire wear. All of this will make it so that track position and long-run speed in cars is vital. Like is typical at other intermediates, there are multiple grooves on this track, perhaps as many as three, and depending on where the car is it depends on how important handling is. The lower on the track the bigger the bumps but the more room you have to handle them. Higher on the track the wind and tire wear become bigger problems because of the wall and less room for dealing with getting loose. So with all of the track concerns, high winds, and tire wear, how are we building our lineups?

In the Next Gen races at Vegas, we’ve seen the top-10 starters lead the vast majority of laps. As the chart above shows, 67% of laps led have come from top-10 starters. So when we’re hunting laps led we’re looking for two drivers starting in the top-quarter of the field. For GPPs we could get away with one dominator builds, but if you don’t hit the dominator it drastically reducing your shot of winning.

While track position is king, mainly because last year we only saw seven of 20 top-10 finishers starting outside the top-12, passing is possible here with nearly six double-digit PD movers a race. So we’re looking for drivers starting outside the top-15 for big PD upsides and we need cars with good long-run speed at practice, results below, because there aren’t typically a ton of cautions here to re-rack the field and making passing in chunks easier.

Pennzoil 400 Practice and Qualifying Results

The results below, shown in qualifying order, show how each driver’s best lap(s) ranked for each category. The average column shows the average of all practice categories compared to qualifying spot. The idea is to see how each driver’s long run speed stacks up compared to where they’re starting the race in the hopes of finding not only position differential plays but also the drivers who could hold their starting spot based on speed.

DraftKings Scoring Trends At Las Vegas

The following chart shows the average scores on DraftKings by starting spot regardless of the drivers in those spots and how they got there. It’s designed to show the raw strategy at this track rather than driver-specific scoring.

FanDuel Scoring Trends At Las Vegas

The following chart shows the average scores on FanDuel by starting spot regardless of the drivers in those spots and how they got there. It’s designed to show the raw strategy at this track rather than driver-specific scoring.

Top Tier Driver Picks

Kyle Larson

Aside from wrecking out in a race here, the other three have been great to Larson. The 5-car has a win, and two runners-up finishes in the Next Gen car at Vegas. His car is that fast again as he ranks first in each long run speed categories. Larson will start second and is likely the popular pick for laps led dominator and winner, but we can use that for a bit of leverage.

William Byron

Remember the leverage I mentioned? Here’s where it comes into play. Byron has been every bit as good as Larson here in the Next Gen car including a win with two other top-seven finishes. Byron has dominated races here too, in fact his 256 laps led here are the most at any tracks he’s raced on in the Cup series. The speed was just a tick behind Larson’s but we get a bit more PD with Byron so six and one half dozen the other. He’ll save some money with just as much upside as Larson.

Joey Logano

Logano may have had questionable practice speed in the 22-car but the qualifying speed wasn’t. He’s on the pole for his sponsors namesake race for his second pole here in the Next Gen car. The last time he was on pole he wrecked out but assuming he keeps it clean, the pole position has been fruitful for leading laps here and generally producing good finishes. Logano has had speed in the car each of the last two races but wrecked out before finishing. There is also a theory I have, that’s not been fully proven, but when a driver’s in the booth for race call that weekend they tend to do better — Logano called the Xfinity race on Saturday.

Mid-Tier Driver Picks

Ross Chastain

If you watched the Grill vs. Grille for this week, you’d have seen my pick of Chastain. So it shouldn’t be a shock he’s getting a write-up. Chastain has been great here with three top-fives in the last four races and is coming off a solid P7 at Atlanta. Chastain also won at Nashville a year ago which is a tire wear, intermediate that is partially comparable to Vegas. If he moves up to a top-10 finish with some fastest laps, that’s all we need.

Tyler Reddick

Reddick has three top-eight finishes in the last four races here and is showing top-seven speed on long runs in practice. The Toyota contingent was generally fast at intermediates last year and then add in the tire wear and Reddick should have a speed advantage late in runs. Reddick has PD and depending on how pit cycles run, he could lead a handful of laps as well.

Bubba Wallace

Wallace was fast at Kansas in both races a year ago and was quick at other intermediates as well. That speed has made it’s way to Vegas with him starting P5 and running well at practice. Like his teammate above, the Toyotas tend to show up well at these length of track and that has to have Wallace feeling pretty good, as does the track position he’ll start with.

Value Tier Driver Picks

John Hunter Nemechek

He’s not run here in the Cup Series in the Next Gen car yet, but he is getting a lot of track time. JHN is in the Xinfity race on Saturday, and while the cars drive differently, knowing how the bumps and wind are effecting the track is important. He’ll start P27 but seemed to have a long-run car in practice running as well as P20 in long-run speed. If he nabs a P20 he’s close to value.

Chase Briscoe

Sometimes in the value tier we have to get weird. Briscoe is that weird choice. He’ll roll off P6 and at a track where track position is king, he has it. While most of the results here haven’t been good for Briscoe, he does have a P4 in the Next Gen car and has typically been better at the tracks where tire wear is key. If he doesn’t hold a spot in the top-12 there’s no value here so be careful.

Noah Gragson

As we mentioned in the podcast above, which you should listen to if you haven’t, Gragson did well in the tire wear tracks in Xfinity. That includes Vegas. The starting spot isn’t great but the practice speed was solid, though he was in the faster first group. We don’t need him to do a lot  at his price either so perhaps the rough start to the year or the down SHR team will keep him a bit under owned.

Justin Haley

Haley had a steering part issue during qualifying and didn’t run a qualifying lap so he’s starting in the back. That’s free PD. Sure, he’ll likely be popular because of that but the speed was better in practice than that starting spot. Not to mention that he’s started P28, P28, and P27 in three of the four Next Gen races here and he finished P17, P14, and P8 respectively in those races.

Driver Pool

The following drivers make up the pool of drivers I’m using to build lineups on both sites. The drivers above are included in the pool and are my favorites in each salary tier.

Player Pool

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Stacks

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