NASCAR DFS Playbook: M&M's Fan Appreciation 400

The Tricky Triangle. Pocono Raceway looms large this weekend. Not only in it’s length, 2.5 miles a lap, but also in the playoff chase. It’s one of only three “normal” tracks left on the schedule prior to the start of the playoffs. After New Hampshire there are 14 different winners so far with just two spots left in the playoff field. Hence how Pocono looms large on the schedule.

NASCAR DFS Strategy for Pocono

The last few years at Pocono it’s tricky, ha a fitting pun, to count on the stats given how the races were setup. They were double headers with inversions in the field between the two races.  With that said, the general strategy remained the same through those races in terms of how to build lineups for this track. Dating back to the beginning of 2017, only three drivers in total led more than half the laps in a race. So we’re basically going with one dominator builds and perhaps two who lead a big chunk of the laps. Also since then, the winners here have come from the top-five four times, top-10 six times and outside of the top-13 four times. That’s an interesting span of winners huh. There’s also between 3-6 drivers a race to finish in the top-10 that started outside the top-10 which means moving up is possible here, though we need a bit of chaos for that to happen. Lapping doesn’t happen that much here because of the length of the lap nor does it happen when drivers pit because pit stops still don’t take longer than running a lap under green. The biggest concerns for DFS are cars breaking down, or wrecking, and tire concerns given it’s a new tire this week. So in essence, we’re building lines similar to an intermediate track with less emphasis on laps led simply because there are fewer of them and track history suggests one guy won’t run away with it.

Practice To Qualifying

The following chart shows the drivers starting spots, single-lap, and 5-lap averages for practice. It’s designed to spot perhaps some positional differential plays and some budget plays that could be intriguing.

Stacks

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