My apologies in advance if this write-up is a little brief. While I do love plate racing at Talladega and Daytona, this track is far from our favorite for DFS. The general strategy is to stack the back of the field as we saw trending on social media this year for superspeedway races. I do three GPP lineups per race and call it a day. I’ll save my bankroll for another week and if I make a little coin, then great.
The nature of “pack racing” and drafting means the field drives in large groups at high speeds. Naturally, this leads to chaos and big wrecks. Sure, sometimes we get the rare clean race at Daytona or Talladega that doesn’t see a big wreck until maybe the very end. But don’t be surprised if we get a lot of single file, green lap runs this weekend, especially for the Xfinity and Cup series. A lot of drivers will look to survive the first 90% of the race before they get aggressive and go for the win later on.
Talladega is the biggest track on the NASCAR schedule. It’s high-banked and 2.66 miles long. This race is Saturday afternoon so we get a nice doubleheader with the Trucks and Xfinity during college football, so hopefully you have a setup that offers multiple TV’s. We only have 113 laps for this race and if we account for all the cautions we could see then we might only have 70-80 dominator points available in this race. So targeting PD, finishing position, and drivers that’ll avoid the Big One will be key. I wouldn’t even try to focus on looking for dominators. Obviously, you can leave money on the table this week if you like your build. It’s really about getting six drivers that can survive and finish the race.
This week’s driver pool will be thinner than normal because of the general nature of superspeedways. Truly, nobody is off the table. Matt and I preach you can make an argument for all drivers, but we’re lighters on those starting too high. I’ll be in the chat ahead of both the Truck and Xfinity series to answer questions regarding lineups and why some drivers may not have made the Playbooks. Truthfully, if you built a lineup with one or two drivers in the top 20, with four drivers outside the top 20 I’d have a hard time saying ‘no’ to it for GPP’s.
Overall, I don’t love this slate. The pricing and starting spots aren’t very fun and on non-superspeedways we’ve seen this field look like they don’t know what they’re doing. It’s a perfect slate to go light and be disciplined.
Driver Pool
Kaulig Racing – Let’s group these three drivers together, shall we? We’ve got Justin Haley, notable superspeedway wizard, along with Jeb Burton and A.J. Allmendinger. Kaulig Racing always runs well, and together, at superspeedways. They finished 1st, 2nd, and 4th at Daytona at the end of August with Haley scoring the win. At Talladega earlier this year they finished 1st, 3rd, and 8th with Burton scoring the win. All three drivers are on the table and they’re possibly worth a Kaulig stack if all three can once again finish the race clean, but my concern is their pricing. They’re the three most expensive drivers on the slate so a solid run by each will be required if you do stack this team. Playing all three together only leaves you with $18,800 left for your final three drivers
The Rest of the Best – So a common theme at the top of the slate is that from $8,200-$10,000 we have some pretty solid drivers: John Hunter Nemechek, Noah Gragson, Harrison Burton, Daniel Hemric, Austin Cindric, Justin Allgaier, Riley Herbst, Josh Berry, Sam Mayer, Brett Moffitt, and Brandon Jones. They’re all worth consideration (as is everyone in the field), but they’re all starting in the top 16. It’s okay to play one or two of these guys in the same build, but you don’t need to squeeze in and force more. We want to target PD and we don’t have too many drivers in this range offering that.
JJ Yeley ($8,100; Starting P38) Yeley’s an obvious play in Cash and GPP contests. He’s only $8,100. Any other week, I’d say avoid the 99-car for BJ McLeod Motorsports, but this is a superspeedway and Stefan Parsons managed to finish 13th at Daytona in February in this ride. And Yeley finished 13th at Daytona in sub-par equipment back in August.
Alex Labbe ($7,500; Starting P32) Another affordable driver offering PD. That’s what we like to see, right? Labbe grabbed a pair of top tens here in 2020 and has never finished worse than 25th at Talladega. Obviously we want more than a top 20 out of him, and it might be worth mentioning he has three straight finishes of 30th or worse at Daytona. Here’s to hoping the good fortune at ‘Dega continues.
Garrett Smithley ($7,300; Starting P35) Smithley surprisingly gets some very strong runs at superspeedways. In his last three races here he’s finished 8th, 12th, and 10th. He hasn’t raced at Daytona in two years but he’s scored a couple top tens there as well. In cash games, Smithley will be popular and for good reason. He’s cheap and offering PD on a track where poor equipment doesn’t matter as long as everyone can properly fire the engine. At this price range, we can also consider Jason White who is $100 cheaper starting P34. White’s had some success at Daytona this year with a couple top 15 finishes.
Ryan Sieg ($6,900; Starting P17) Sieg is the “nice” play of the day for Xfinity. Say what you will about him, but he has an average finish of 15.56 at Talladega and he’s run clean in all nine races here. I’m hoping I didn’t just jinx the guy but four finishes in the top 12 in his last six races here including a runner-up finish one year ago in this exact race.
Joe Graf Jr. ($6,300; Starting P40) Starting the guy starting dead last at a superspeedway race is certainly going to be popular. But he can’t kill you with negative PD and at this price tag he doesn’t need to do much to hit value. And given the chaotic nature of this race he could very well finish in the top 15. It’s worth mentioning, in eight superspeedway races at the Xfinity level he’s wrecked five times and has never finished in the top 30 at Talladega. But this track was made for bucking trends. Joey Gase, fresh off an awful crash a week ago, is also in play for today’s race. He’s just $200 cheaper than Graf starting on the back row as well.
Tommy Joe Martins ($5,500; Starting P18) Tommy Joe wreaks of bad luck and the starting spot might be a little too high. But in his last three races at Talladega he hasn’t finished outside the top 15 and he’s had decent success at Daytona as well. In eight career races at superspeedways he’s only wrecked once. Which is odd since he seems to find a way to wreck at every other track. Regardless, keep exposure to just GPP’s. He’s not worth consideration in Cash games.
Landon Cassill ($5,400; Starting P21) I can’t imagine too many people will be playing Cassill today and I’ll have him in one of my three builds. The starting spot is right in the middle of the field, which obviously puts him at risk if there’s an early wreck. But in five races at Talladega he’s never finished outside the top 20 here and he has a couple top tens here as well. He doesn’t have the same success at Daytona, but I do think Cassill’s a nice leverage play that most of the field could avoid.
David Starr ($4,700; Starting P28) I wish he was starting a little further back, but P28 is perfectly fine. Starr still offers PD and has done surprisingly well in his career at Talladega. In his first two races at Talladega he wrecked, but those were both over TWENTY years ago. Since then he’s run clean in his last six races here finishing in the top 18 in five of those races. He grabbed a top 15 at Daytona earlier this year so I’d love to see a similar result this afternoon.
Core Drivers
I will not be offering core drivers this weekend given the nature of superspeedways. You can safely play drivers offering position differential in Cash games, but the Truck and Xfinity series have routinely shown that they don’t know how to drive so I don’t believe with a ton of confidence that there are core drivers you can feel safe about in these two series.