We have officially reached the Round of Eight in the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs and we had plenty of excitement and drama from last weekend’s action at the Charlotte ROVAL. Sure, Shane Van Gisbergen got the win in easy fashion for his fifth road course victory of the season. But it was a cut off race and plenty of drama unfolded especially at the finish where we witnessed Ross Chastain and Denny Hamlin wreck in the final turn, then throwing their cars in reverse to cross the finish line. Hamlin was actually upset his team didn’t give him updates on the playoff standings. Once Hamlin passed Chastain, that put Joey Logano into the next round over Chastain. Considering Logano has won two of the last three NASCAR Cup Series championships, Hamlin didn’t want to see his former teammate eligible in the next round.

Alas, we turn our attention to Las Vegas, a race that Logano won a year ago to advance to the championship race in Phoenix. So, it’s one of the more predictable races, especially in the Round of Eight. A win this weekend means the remaining playoff drivers don’t need to be too concerned about Talladega and Martinsville leading up to Phoenix in a few weeks. Let’s take a look at the top NASCAR DFS lineup picks for Sunday’s South Point 400!

 

 

 

Las Vegas Motor Speedway

Las Vegas Motor Speedway is another one of those pesky “cookie cutter” 1.5-mile intermediate tracks that soak up a good portion of the NASCAR schedule each year. The good news is that we just raced at Vegas’ most comparable trac, Kansas Speedway, two weeks ago. Kansas is a multi-groove intermediate with moderate tire wear. Vegas features decent tire wear when you consider the surface wears down with each passing year in a windy desert. It feels like with each passing race we gradually see a little more tire wear as time passes.

We can also look at other intermediate tracks as well that feature tire wear and banking. So Charlotte, Darlington, Homestead, and even Michigan come to mind when looking at data for comparable tracks that use the same aero package.

A new round of the playoffs allows us to reset and recalibrate. Eight drivers remain. In this round we have Vegas (an intermediate track), Talladega (a high variance superspeedway), and Martinsville (a short, flat track). So there’s a little something for everybody in this round. And a win at any race in this round locks a driver in for the championship race in Phoenix for the season finale. 

In the NextGen era, specifically since 2023, these tracks have been the bread and butter for Hendrick Motorsports. This track is a good opportunity for Kyle Larson or William Byron to lock in a win to secure their spot to race for the championship. But that obviously doesn’t mean we discount other drivers. The remaining eight playoff drivers are from the three biggest teams in the sport. Larson, Byron, and Chase Elliott represent Hendrick Motorsports. Denny Hamlin, Christopher Bell, and Chase Briscoe hail from Joe Gibbs Racing. And Team Penske is once again back in the fold with the only two drivers to win a NASCAR Cup Series Championship in the NextGen era: Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano.

Vegas usually delivers some exciting racing. Earlier this year we saw Josh Berry get his first career NASCAR Cup Series win at this track so we’ll see if Sin City can deliver once again. Here are the latest NASCAR DFS picks for the South Point 400!

 

 

 

NASCAR DraftKings and FanDuel Scoring Trends

The scoring trend charts are rather surprising for this week’s preview. Sure, there are the usual positions starting deeper in the field. However, there isn’t the usual allotment of starting spots offering 40+ fantasy points on DraftKings. That’s not to say we completely avoid position differential. We still need at least three position differential drivers for this weekend’s action on DraftKings.

The P2 starting spot obviously sticks out. The charts above are based on the last five Vegas races and three of those winners started P2. In the Spring of 2024, Kyle Larson started P2 and won with over 64 dominator points. Two years ago, again Kyle Larson started P2 and won with just under 64 dominator points. In the Spring of 2023, William Byron won after starting P2 with over 70 dominator points.

For what it’s worth, the last six winners at Vegas all started within the first five rows. So getting exposure to one or two drivers that qualify well may pay dividends if they can soak up most of the dominator points.

 

 

 

NASCAR DFS Picks & Strategy: South Point 400

 

South Point 400 Top Tier DFS Picks

Kyle Larson – DraftKings: $12,500 | FanDuel: $14,000

In more recent versions of the NASCAR DFS Playbook, Larson has been mentioned but we also discussed how he hasn’t been as dominant of late. He hasn’t won a race since Kansas-1 and that was five months ago. That’s not to say he hasn’t contended. He finished second at Indianapolis and was the runner-up last week with 27 laps led. Two weeks ago at Kansas he only led one lap and finished 6th, which was an incredibly underwhelming performance.

Perhaps he can shift gears at Vegas. As we’ve already mentioned, he’s kicked ass at this track in recent memory. He finished 9th here this past spring but still led 61 laps. He’s led 60+ laps in six of his last nine races at Vegas. He’s a driver where I’m happy to lean into the track history and pay up for the dominator potential. As we enter a new round of the playoffs, he’s only four points above the cut line and a superspeedway is on the schedule next week. That’s a track where he knows other drivers in the playoff picture fare better than him. So he’s probably looking to win this race so he doesn’t have to worry about Talladega or Martinsville and he can focus solely on Phoenix in three weeks.

William Byron – DraftKings: $10,000 | FanDuel: $12,000

Byron is a previous Vegas winner in the NextGen era with four top five finishes to elevate his average finish to 6.3 at this track since the start of the 2022 season. He was the fastest among all the playoff drivers in several metrics in practice. Now we just need that speed to translate to Sunday’s race.

Byron finished 4th in this race in the Spring with 10 laps led and he was the runner-up at both Darlington-1 and Charlotte with 240+ laps led in each race. His two wins on the season don’t really highlight how good he’s been this year. Specifically on the higher speed intermediates he’s been great and should be on our radar for this race as the car looks dialed in based on Saturday’s practice session.

Joey Logano – DraftKings: $10,200 | FanDuel: $11,500

Logano is tricky. This might actually be a good spot to fade him because ownership may come in high. But there’s no denying the track history. A year ago he was eliminated from the playoffs following the Charlotte ROVAL race. However, he was re-instated after Alex Bowman was disqualified from that race. Logano went on to win at Vegas and locked himself into the championship race at Phoenix. In the span of a week, he went from being eliminated to qualifying for the championship race. Pretty wild scenario!

Logano has 24 career Cup Series races under his belt at Vegas. In 10 of those races, he’s led at least 25 laps and he’s won four of the last 13 races at Vegas, including two of the last three Fall races. Even this past spring he started P2 and led 40 laps which just further adds to the appeal of that starting spot.

The arguments made above certainly make Logano look like an appealing play. And he certainly is, but on the comparable tracks this year he’s been nothing special. He finished 15th in the first Vegas race where he led 40 laps. He finished 14th at Homestead, 13th at Darlington-1, 20th at Darlington-2, and he was 17th at Charlotte. The track history and the narrative from a year ago weigh pretty heavy. But we don’t need to go overboard with exposure here based on his success on the comparable tracks this year. Logano’s car was rather slow in practice but you know the rest of the playoff field doesn’t feel particularly secure that he made the Round of Eight.

Chase Briscoe – DraftKings: $9,700 | FanDuel: $11,000

Joe Gibbs Racing flat out dominated the qualifying session. Their three playoff drivers each qualified P1, P2, and P3. Hamlin won the pole and Chase Briscoe will start on the front row next to his teammate. Christopher Bell qualified P3. I am of the mindset that I prefer Briscoe and Bell over Hamlin. Hamlin has a great shot to lead laps early, but the practice speeds did fall off on the longer runs and he made note on the radio that they needed to make adjustments. And the adjustments may have worked as they helped him win the pole. But we still don’t know how good the car may be in the longer run.

At least with Briscoe and Bell we see from the practice-to-qualifying table above that they had sustainable long run speed and they have strong track position for this race. Briscoe has really flipped a switch in the playoffs. He finished fourth in both Kansas races this year but he also dominated the second Darlington race with over 300 laps led. He won here twice in the Xfinity Series and he’s exceeded expectations in his first year with Joe Gibbs Racing. I love the discount we get off the chalkier options above, but I want almost equal exposure to Briscoe and Bell while being slightly underweight on Denny Hamlin.

 

 

 

NASCAR DFS Picks: Mid-Tier Drivers

Tyler Reddick – DraftKings: $9,200 | FanDuel: $10,000

Five Toyota drivers qualified in the top eight and Reddick is one of them. Both 23XI Racing drivers were eliminated from the playoffs at the ROVAL so both Reddick and Bubba Wallace are focused on just winning races over the next few weeks. Bubba at least has a win at Indianapolis this year while Reddick has uncharacteristically made zero trips to victory lane in 2025.

Reddick finished as the runner-up in the 2024 Spring race at Vegas. A year ago he qualified on the front row but was caught in a wreck after leading nine laps. This past Spring he led 34 laps but finished 24th. A solid run would go a long way for Reddick and his family as his son has been in the hospital lately and Reddick has even acknowledged that’s where his head has been at, and rightfully so. But the 45-car for 23XI Racing was top six in a handful of metrics in practice and the Toyota camp looks ready to be competitive on Sunday.

Ross Chastain – DraftKings: $9,000 | FanDuel: $9,500

Chastain got bounced from the playoffs last week and hopefully he isn’t out for too much blood with Denny Hamlin. Chastain has won a playoff race each of the last two years when he was no longer a playoff driver. He won the championship race in Phoenix two years ago (Ryan Blaney wasn’t happy about that) and he won at Kansas last year after he had been eliminated. So Chastain is still chasing wins, which we obviously love to see.

Vegas is actually his best track in terms of average finish in the NextGen era. At 5.4 he carries the best average finish among all drivers, and he’s finished 7th or better in all but one race since 2022. There is some potential for him to lead laps, but a large majority of his laps led at this track came during the 2022 season. But he did lead 14 laps here in the Spring.

Chastain’s lone win this year came at Charlotte, which does draw some comparisons to Vegas and he’s a previous Kansas winner. He’s even emphasized in the past that he would prefer to get a win at a track like Darlington than Daytona. He’s solid on the intermediates and still races hard despite no longer being eligible for the championship.

Brad Keselowski – DraftKings: $7,600 | FanDuel: $7,800

At this point in the article, we’ve touched on plenty of drivers that had speed in practice and thus It translated in qualifying because a lot of the NASCAR DFS picks so far start pretty far up front. Brad Keselowski does not. In fact, in this price range it was between Kez and Kyle Busch for the PD recommendation and I’m no longer allowing myself to recommend Kyle Busch.

Keselowski wasn’t anything special in practice but at least his teammates qualified well and Keselowski is an experienced driver even if he has regressed since joining RFK Racing as a driver and owner. Brad won here three times while with Team Penske and he started P27 here in the Spring and finished 11th. Even a couple weeks ago at Vegas he started outside the top 30, similar to Sunday’s race, and he finished 8th. He’s affordable and offers PD and this article is short on PD options thus far. You just hope this isn’t one of those situations where he’s fighting to stay on the lead lap all day.

Ty Gibbs – DraftKings: $7,400 | FanDuel: $7,500

Ty Gibbs has raced here in the Cup Series six times and doesn’t have the greatest resume. In five of those races, he’s finished outside the top 20. But he did finish 5th here in the Spring of 2024. He’s a previous winner here in the Xfinity Series but that first Cup Series win has eluded him for a couple seasons now.

Gibbs laid down the fastest single lap in practice and was top 10 in the longer run metrics. But the results in 2025 aren’t great for a Joe Gibbs Racing driver. If it weren’t for his last name, he’d probably be out of a ride by now as the expectation is to win multiple races if you’re a JGR driver. The car and equipment are still great and it’s a phenomenal price tag for a driver who is capable of finishing in the top 10 and accumulating dominator points along the way. Because of the variance in his results, I can’t recommend him for cash games but he’s very much in play for our NASCAR DFS tournament lineups.

 

 

 

NASCAR DFS Picks: Value Drivers

Carson Hocevar – DraftKings: $7,000 | FanDuel: $7,200

I’m once again willing to play Carson Hocevar but this is strictly a GPP only recommendation for Sunday’s race. The two drivers priced above Hocevar on DraftKings, Austin Cindric and Josh Berry, will make the player pool below. But Penske may have slightly missed the setup and in general, the Fords didn’t look impressive as a group. Berry did win here in the Spring, but he did not have the best car at all that day.

If everyone else is targeting the deeper PD options, I’ll go with Hocevar who had decent speed in practice, but just didn’t back it up in qualifying. Hocevar’s track history at Vegas isn’t great with just one top 15 finish in four Cup Series races. However, despite finishing 30th in the Spring race this year, he finished top 10 in the first two stages and had an average running position of 16th.

Admittedly, the results on the comparable tracks aren’t great this year. He’s had his share of run in’s with other drivers and has some spells with bad luck and he comes into this race with back-to-back finishes of 29th. Perhaps that lowers ownership a bit, but I like the upside for this race if the field flocks to PD starting further back.

A.J. Allmendinger – DraftKings: $6,600 | FanDuel: $5,800

Allmendinger has been very underrated this year on the intermediate tracks. I was on board two weeks ago at Kansas and early on he was running in the top 12 and flirted with the top 10. But the play didn’t pan out because he wrecked and finished 36th.

But we’re a week off from racing at a road course so the price is back down and ownership should be lower as well. In the first Vegas race this season he started P18 and finished 8th. The next week at Homestead he qualified P10 and finished 7th. He also grabbed a top five finished at Charlotte and Darlington-2.

He’s a veteran who can manage his tires and has is capable of just running a clean race and stealing a top 10 result. We obviously aren’t loading up and going overweight on NASCAR DFS value plays. We want to spread exposure around so we aren’t killing all our lineups in the event they wreck. But Dinger is one of my top value recommendations for the South Point 400 NASCAR DFS picks.

John Hunter Nemechek – DraftKings: $6,200 | FanDuel: $5,500

This is another week I’m willing to lean into Legacy Motor Club with a slight lean to JHN over Erik Jones. JHN carries the better track history over the last couple seasons. In this race in the Spring of 2024, he started P27 and moved up five spots to finish 22nd. A year ago in this playoff race he started P26 and finished 9th. And this past Spring, he didn’t have the greatest run, but he gained 10 spots after starting P30 and finished inside the top 20.

He got caught up in a wreck at Kansas a couple weeks ago and has been running a bit cold. But he finished top 10 in the first Kansas race this year and let’s not forget the run both he and Jones had at Darlington to kick off the playoffs where they both finished top five.

When we look at what he did during his tenure in the Truck Series and Xfinity Series after his first stint in the Cup Series, he grabbed a Truck Series win at this track in 2021 and he even won the Spring Xfinity Series race here in 2024 as a one-off race with JGR. For this race he really doesn’t have win equity, but he just needs to avoid carnage and keep the car clean because he can certainly move up based on his comfort level at this track.

Justin Haley – DraftKings: $5,300 | FanDuel: $3,500

My head is telling me to finish off this article with Todd Gilliland but my gut is telling me to go with Justin Haley. Gilliland comes in on a nice little run. For a NASCAR DFS value play he’s returned 40+ points in three straight races. Both drivers offer position differential, but Haley looked better in practice. And that’s not necessarily a surprise because Haley typically looks good in Group A’s sessions with the better track conditions.

Justin Haley has an average finish of 17.0 at Vegas since the beginning of the NextGen era. This past Spring he started P33 and finished 14th. For this race he’ll start P27 and still has similar upside. He backed up that top 15 finish with a top 10 at Homestead, a top 15 at Texas, and he finished 18th just a few weeks ago in the second Kansas race this year. I like both Haley and Gilly for Sunday’s race, but Gilly’s never registered a top 20 in the Cup Series at Vegas.

 

 

 

NASCAR DFS Optimizer & Lineups Picks This Week

Player Pool

$ Tier {{pos.alias}}

Stacks

{{stack.team.name}} {{player.name}}
DraftKings {{player.fantasy.price.value[8]}}-
Fanduel {{player.fantasy.price.value[6]}}-