The NASCAR Cup Series heads back to Atlanta but with a new name as it has been re-branded as EchoPark Speedway! The Amazon portion of the broadcast schedule is in the past and now the NASCAR Cup Series can be seen on TNT, and they better bring their A-game because Amazon Prime was great to watch.

The exciting part of this portion of the schedule is the In-Season Challenge, and if you haven’t submitted your bracket well by all means you can do so by clicking right here. 32 drivers going head-to-head in a March Madness style tournament. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday night (in addition to watching UFC). Fortunately, we tend to know what’s in store for a race like this so let’s dig into the NASCAR DFS picks and plays for the first Saturday night race of the season!

 

 

 

For the second time this year we’re heading to Atlanta Motor Speedway, now called EchoPark Speedway. NASCAR continues to make two trips to Atlanta even though the races have been hit-or-miss. They’re either great or we sleep through it. If there’s a saving grace for Atlanta getting two races in a year, at least the second race isn’t in the playoffs like last year.

EchoPark Speedway Trends

But alas, here we are. I will avoid sounding like a broken record and describing the track. We all know Atlanta was ripped up and re-configured following the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series season. It’s no longer the track where tire management matters the most. It’s now a 1.5-mile intermediate that incorporates some drafting and has certain characteristics similar to Daytona and Talladega. For DFS we’ll take a look at some trends above from the five most recent races at this track.

The thing I like about the trends table is that it focuses solely on the five Atlanta races since the start of the 2023 season. It will always be difficult to identify any consistencies. Just look at the starting spot for the winner. Over the last five races the winner has come from P1, P7, P18, P23, and P32. For as many comers and goers as there are (64% of the top 10 finishers have started outside the top 12), we still see that nearly three-quarters of the laps are led from a driver starting inside the top 10. So let’s take a look at how the races translate for DFS on DraftKings and FanDuel.

 

 

 

NASCAR DraftKings and FanDuel Scoring Trends

The polesitter has fared rather well as you can see. The score is largely inflated because Joey Logano won from the pole in 2023 with 140 laps led. But it’s not out of the realm of possibilities for the polesitter to lead at least 25+ laps and possess some win juice. This is a sort of “drafting” race after all and the track position matters.

But perhaps when we look back at the Trends table up above, we can see why the drivers starting P18-P34 score so well. Each of the last four races at Atlanta have seen at least 10 drivers gain double-digit place differential. For a drafting race, that’s a pretty big deal.

Now the general belief for these races is that you can leave salary on the table and try to get creative with maybe two drivers starting in the top 15, two more starting P16-P26, and then two other drivers starting deeper in the field. It’s no exact science and we are really throwing darts when constructing lineups. But you certainly don’t want to load up on too many drivers starting inside the top 10.

There’s a reason they aren’t having practice for this race. Teams don’t want to risk just practicing/wrecking in the draft so we’re only getting qualifying this weekend. Practice speeds wouldn’t have mattered anyway. So we get the starting lineup and go from there. For Cash games, you probably want to aim for PD and start drivers starting outside the top 25. For GPP’s, you need to get the winner/dominator and the other drivers that move up and score well. Here are the guys I’m looking at to take us to victory lane Saturday night.

 

 

 

NASCAR DFS Picks & Strategy: Quaker State 400

For full disclosure, every week I write up about four-to-six drivers ahead of qualifying because I may like them prior to knowing where they start. And it also just helps lighten the workload a bit over the course of a weekend. This week those drivers include Joey Logano, Chase Elliott, Kyle Busch, A.J. Allmendinger, John Hunter Nemechek, and Justin Haley. I do try to give their teammates some love as well because for a race such as this, it’s not a bad idea to put teammates in a lineup as they’ll be working together in the draft.

 

Quaker State 400 DFS Picks

Joey Logano – DraftKings: $10,700 | FanDuel: $13,500

For what it’s worth, I thought about highlighting all of Team Penske for this race. And they represent three of the four most expensive options on DraftKings this week. Since February 2022 (the beginning of the NextGen era and the introduction to new Atlanta), Ryan Blaney has the best average finish among the field at 6.7 and he has four top five finishes in seven races. Even Austin Cindric has been solid at Atlanta if the finishes don’t stack up. He led 92 laps in this race a year ago and led 47 this past spring. We know the Penske cars and all the Fords excel in the draft.

I’m basically leaning into Logano as an option that maybe just goes a bit under the radar. We’ve correctly targeted Cindric at the drafting tracks, and regarding Blaney, he’s shown up with an absolute rocket but run into some bad luck. We haven’t really had much to work with in regard to Logano, who has won two of the last three NASCAR Cup Series Championships.

Logano hasn’t forgotten how to race in the drafting tracks. He’s still an elite option in this type of race. He led 83 laps here in the spring and he’s won two of the last five Atlanta races. In terms of dominator upside and the chance to lead laps, Logano seems like a good candidate to possibly get up front for a long green flag run in the middle of the race while still scoring a good finish. And keep in mind, in the three “drafting” races so far this year (Daytona, Atlanta-1, and Talladega) Logano has led a total of 150 laps between those races. He just doesn’t have a good finish to show for. I’ll definitely lean into the upside with all three, but I may be prioritizing Logano for this race.

Writer’s Update: Obviously Logano, and Penske for that matter, showed up with fast cars. The Penske boys and their affiliate partner all start in the first two rows of this race. So I have two notes on that. The first being that Logano won’t be at an ownership discount. Yes, he’s on the pole and that’s risky because he crushes your lineups if he wrecks. But he has a good chance to lead several laps and win. The second note I need to make is that we can’t stack Penske. In this kind of race, stacking three of the first four cars is nonsensical because it’s very likely that one or two lose points through PD by going backward. I’d say play one of them and look elsewhere for PD or organizational stacks.

Chase Elliott – DraftKings: $9,800 | FanDuel: $13,000

The theme of the Playbook is zigging while others zag this week. Like above, I think a pro-Logano approach can pay off big time this week even though all the Penske boys are in play. William Byron might be the trendy Hendrick play for a race like this. He’s won here twice and in recent NASCAR DFS Playbooks, we’ve touched on his ability to run up front and dominate races, even if he isn’t going to victory lane.

But Elliott is also a previous winner at “new” Atlanta as well, even if his win did come back in that weird 2022 “transition” year for the whole field. It may be worth mentioning, Elliott hasn’t led a lap at Atlanta since that year.

But we’re here to highlight the positives, not the negatives! In his last six races at Atlanta, Elliott sits just behind Ryan Blaney in average finish at 10.5 but only one top 10 to show for it outside of the 2022 season. But I like how Elliott is trending heading into this race. I’m trying to remain objective because this is a race with a little more variance.

In a race like this you should have no trouble stacking up some Hendrick drivers but I am leaning into Elliott a bit more as NASCAR’s most popular driver hasn’t been to victory lane in a hot minute.

Writer’s Update: Hendrick stacks are still viable especially with Elliott and Byron starting further back. I tend to not play Larson in these kinds of races. Bowman is strictly a GPP option because of his starting spot.

Denny Hamlin – DraftKings: $9,500 | FanDuel: $10,500

These next two Joe Gibbs Racing drivers will not come at an ownership discount. In fact, you can probably look to their much cheaper teammates if you need GPP leverage. But Hamlin is a former three-time Daytona 500 winner and he starts P33.

Hamlin enters with outstanding momentum have finished in the top three in his last three races (he did skip Mexico City though). Hamlin has an average finishing position of 18.1 in the NextGen era at Atlanta so that looks great when you consider his starting spot for this race. Just this past spring he started P37 and finished 6th while his teammate, the next driver in the article, won the race.

Joe Gibbs Racing stacks are in play and on the table for tournaments, but Hamlin might be a guy you just play in cash games alongside the field.

Christopher Bell – DraftKings: $9,200 | FanDuel: $9,500

Bell likely isn’t crushing your lineups with a bad finish but he likely isn’t needed in cash games. There are 40 drivers in this field and he starts P28. Does he offer PD? He certainly does! But there are also plenty of spots where he could cost you points so whether you play him in cash games is entirely up to you.

For tournaments he’s certainly in play especially after he won this race after starting P32 in the spring. In total, Bell has finished fourth or better in three of the last seven races in Atlanta. In the other four races he’s finished 19th or worse so there is a wide range of outcomes.

But again, we just mentioned in the Denny Hamlin section, a JGR stack is on the table with Ty Gibbs and Chase Briscoe offering less PD since they start P16 and P10 respectively. You can play all four or just pick three. Entirely up to you but you know they’ll be pitting together at some point and working in the draft so it’s not a terrible strategy.

 

 

 

NASCAR DFS Picks: Mid-Tier Drivers

Kyle Busch – DraftKings: $8,800 | FanDuel: $12,000

We don’t need to beat around the bush (pun intended). This guy is having a pretty bad year. He has just one top five finish to show for himself and most weeks, at the tracks with less variance, there’s no speed in the 8-car. But this week? We lean into the variance.

Atlanta is not as heavy with the draft as Daytona or Talladega. But this is a 1.5-mile track that still incorporates that into the racing nowadays. For all his flaws, Busch has the sixth-best average finish at Atlanta since the re-configuration. He’s finish 7th or better in four straight races here and he’s led 65 total laps in the last three Atlanta races.

Sure, he’s absolutely frustrating to roster at times because of his short fuse and the equipment this year has been bad. But Atlanta has become a track where drivers can change their fortune and win their way into the playoffs. This race and Daytona might be his best shot, but he’ll have to work his way through the field Saturday night.

Carson Hocevar – DraftKings: $7,900 | FanDuel: $8,000

Hocevar starts P30 so he’s right in our wheelhouse for what we want from a driver in this type of race. He offers PD and he’s an aggressive type of driver than can, and should, move up and score well in this race.

Now we all are still waiting for some kind of retaliation from Ricky Stenhouse Jr. regarding their run-ins with each other over the last handful of weeks. I’ll be honest, I don’t see that happening tonight. Drafting races aren’t where you get retaliation because of the increased risk and danger of seriously hurting another driver. If you want retaliation, you do it at a road course or a short track, and it just so happens the upcoming schedule seems perfect for Stenhouse’s revenge.

Hocevar has been a PD gem in his three career Cup Series races at Atlanta. In all three races he’s gained 15+ spots of PD and he even finished as the runner-up this past Spring. For DFS, you can lock him in for any kind of format and he’s a driver I may take a firm stand on and try to get an excess of leverage. And that could certainly crush me but I’m mostly looking to have a little fun tonight.

I do want to add a note on Bubba Wallace because he will make the player pool below. I may be slightly underweight on him tonight. Full fade? Absolutely not. But I just think he’s an okay play. He has two top 10 finishes in his last three races here but DFS players know he thrives in drafting races. So that might push his ownership up a bit to a point I may want to look elsewhere and gain leverage. He’s a perfectly fine play and makes a ton of sense, but I prefer Hocevar in this range if the field is still concerned about Stenhouse retaliation.

Josh Berry – DraftKings: $7,200 | FanDuel: $6,800

It should give us all significant pause to consider Berry, but we do need to at least entertain the idea of rostering him. We touched on Team Penske to kick off the player pool, but we also need to remember that Berry starts P2 and he’s in the affiliate Penske car for Wood Brothers Racing.

Berry started P3 here in the Spring and managed to lead 56 laps but he finished poorly. He even led a dozen laps at Talladega. We don’t really have much to work with in terms of the overall results because he’s never jumped off the page as a drafting specialist the way Bubba Wallace, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., or Justin Haley do.

But we do know the car is good enough to run up front in the draft. Those Fords, and specifically the Penske cars, historically crush it in the draft because they’re at an aerodynamic advantage. So while the field looks to either Logano, Cindric, or Blaney as a primary dominator we should sprinkle in some shares of Berry to get a little different.

Trackhouse Racing

All of Trackhouse Racing qualified outside the top 30. The single-lap qualifying speed doesn’t worry me. They’ll mostly be running in the draft so what they did during qualifying is largely irrelevant. The pricing for all four drivers ranges from the mid-tier on down to the value options and punts. How would I rank them in Cash games?

  1. Ross Chastain
  2. Daniel Suarez
  3. Shane van Gisbergen
  4. Connor Zilisch

Chastain and Suarez are arguably interchangeable, but Chastain starts three spots further back. Suarez has that memorable win at Atlanta and he’s become a solid drafter and superspeedway racer while with Trackhouse. And Chastain has a win at Talladega under his belt. This is just how I would personally rank them for cash games but they’re all on the table because of the floor they provide. Now what am I doing in tournaments?

  1. Shane van Gisbergen
  2. Daniel Suarez
  3. Ross Chastain
  4. Connor Zilisch

Look, I love Connor Zilisch. I’ve been impressed with his week-to-week development in the Xfinity Series. We know he’s elite on road courses, but he claimed his first “oval” win at Pocono last weekend as well. However, he’s really struggled in races that require drafting. He’s wrecked in all three races (Daytona, Atlanta-1, and Talladega) at the lower level. (Author’s Note: Zilisch actually had a great showing in Friday’s Atlanta-2 race. He finished fourth and led over 30 laps). Could he run a clean race and score well tonight? Sure, and if making 20+ lineups you should get exposure for sure.

It might surprise you to see SVG atop my Tournament rankings for Trackhouse. But he’s going to carry significantly less ownership than Suarez and Chastain. His resume isn’t particularly great and maybe I’m overthinking this, but he did start P30 and finish 23rd at Atlanta-1 earlier this year. We do need to play the numbers game a bit and SVG will come in with little ownership while Suarez and Chastain are likely over 25% in tournaments.

 

 

 

NASCAR DFS Picks: Value Drivers

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. – DraftKings: $6,900 | FanDuel: $6,000

The three drivers following Stenhouse are all going to be GPP-only options. Based on the structure of this week’s Playbook, there are plenty of viable cash game options as well and you can reference the player pool below if you need more.

Stenhouse starts pretty deep in the field so he’s perfect for cash games. He will be very popular but he fits the billing for a safe cash game option and if he busts, you’re still alive in cash games. Stenhouse starts P37 but he has an average finish of 16.3 in the NextGen era at this track. He’s also gained at least 10 spots of positive PD in five consecutive races here and he’s finished 14th or better in the last four races.

Again, you almost have to play him in cash games and ride the wave with the field because he isn’t killing you if he busts. But if he scores well then you likely really need him in your lineups. For tournaments you can look elsewhere and hope that he doesn’t return value. Here are some good tournament plays to consider if you pivot off Stenhouse…

A.J. Allmendinger – DraftKings: $6,100 | FanDuel: $5,000

Allmendinger might hate this style of racing, but that doesn’t mean he sucks at it by any means. He did not race at Atlanta with the Cup Series in 2024 but in 2023 he finished 16th and 3rd while earlier this year at Atlanta-1 he finished 14th after starting 12th.

Even during his weird tenure in the NASCAR Xfinity Series he finished 3rd and 10th in 2022, and then 13th and 3rd in 2024. In three of those races he led at least 25 laps.

I’m not so sure he’ll run up front for many laps here, but for a veteran driver he’s a bit too cheap for this race in my opinion. And I can’t say he’s a lock to finish this race, but I do like his potential for tournaments.

John Hunter Nemechek – DraftKings: $5,700 | FanDuel: $4,200

This is a drafting race and in the past, I’ve definitely leaned into Erik Jones because he’s shown incredible upside and a great ability to run inside the top 10 at these races. But like the approach we took with Team Penske to start the player pool, let’s highlight someone from Legacy Motor Club that might go under the radar.

John Hunter Nemechek has been a GPP gem this year. I don’t know if he’s trying to make a strong argument to replace Ty Gibbs in the 54-car or what, but Nemechek’s been solid at times in 2025. He’s coming off back-to-back top six finishes at Mexico City and Pocono. He also finished top 10 at Daytona and Atlanta-1 earlier this year.

Manufacturer stacking is a method when building out NASCAR DFS lineups so if you’re going the route of a Toyota stack, JHN makes for a nice option that may not draw a ton of attention in terms of ownership.

Justin Haley – DraftKings: $5,600 | FanDuel: $3,200

Haley’s in a weird spot within Spire Motorsports. He was once viewed as a building block for this organization. He even had Rodney Childers as his crew chief to start the year. But alas, Childers is gone, and Haley’s probably the number three guy at Spire after the season Carson Hocevar has had.

I mention this because he does need to start producing results. He has just one top 10 finish on the year. Luckily this is a track where he can excel at. Haley is pretty good on the superspeedway/drafting tracks. He was basically the “Austin Hill” of the Xfinity Series before Hill got bumped up to RCR at that level.

In the NextGen era, and since Atlanta’s repave, Haley has finished 12th or better in four of the seven races. Is he always a PD darling? Not necessarily because he’s started inside the top 25 a few times. But at the end of the day, he has a strong drafting resume/pedigree and should be in play as a value option once again. He starts P22 for this particular race so I’m still on board with him in tournaments.

 

 

 

NASCAR DFS Optimizer & Lineups Picks This Week

Player Pool

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