Road America DraftKings NASCAR Picks, Projections, & Strategy Breakdown

We’re Road Doggin’ (credit Garage Guy Chase) for America’s birthday at Road America (fitting, isn’t it?) this 4th of July, and NASCAR’s gift to us fantasy players is this shit sandwich of same day qualifying. Yum. Oh, and to make matters worse, the whole session turned into a joke since teams were trying to save their tires for the race later to use as scuffs, and/or some drivers getting caught on track during cautions because of stalled cars.

My plan for today? Severely limit my DFS play and get ready for Atlanta next week.

William Byron earned the pole this morning and you can check out the full starting lineup by clicking here. Kurt Busch was fastest in practice on Saturday, and you can click here to see those results (but keep in mind that we didn’t learn much of anything during that session). Be sure to check out the Algorithm Predicted Finishing Order (click here) for this race, it can be very helpful for not only DFS but also betting lines–which, by the way, you can see my betting card for today by clicking here.

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Road Course Speed Report & Loop Data Driver Averages

Just because this is the fourth road course race of the season doesn’t mean that we have extremely relevant data to look at for the year. In the first road course event this year (at Daytona Road Course), it turned into a wreckfest with about half of the field having one issue or another. And then at Circuit of the Americas, it was another shit show with a bunch of rain ruining that race. The third road course race in 2021 (at Sonoma last month) is about the only “normal” one, so that’s the most recent and most relevant data we have.

Below you will find the driver average charts and statistics that I have used for most of this season. In the two years prior to 2021, there were only five road course races that we can analyze: one race here at the Daytona Road Course in 2020, two races at the Charlotte ROVAL (2019 and 2020), and then a race at Sonoma and a race at Watkins Glen, both held in 2019. For Road America, I’d recommend focusing more heavily on Watkins Glen and Sonoma data and then also considering the ROVAL data we have–Daytona and Charlotte–just not as heavily.

DraftKings Strategy & Dominators for Road America

We don’t have much time between qualifying and the race so let’s just get to the bullet points, shall we?

• This race is SHORT. There are only 62 laps scheduled for the Jockey Made in America 250 at Road America, with Stage breaks scheduled for laps 14 and 29. And if Saturday’s practice was any indication, this race could easily turn into one filled with wrecks. I’m going to conservatively guess we’ll have 45-50 green flag laps, but it could very well be less than that.
• So with 62 total laps, that’s 15.5 DraftKings FPTS for laps led and with 50 green flag laps, we’re looking at 22.5 DraftKings FPTS for fastest laps. In other words: NOT MANY DOMINATOR POINTS. We’re focusing on place differential and finishing potential big time this week.
• We honestly didn’t learn a lot from practice other than there could be a lot of wrecks today. I still expect the same drivers that are typically very strong at road courses to be the ones to beat in today’s race, even though those guys didn’t exactly shine in practice.
• Road America is an old racer track that eats up tires. Still, since this is a 4-mile road course and crew chiefs can get away with strategy calls for track position, don’t be surprised if we see some this afternoon. In the Xfinity race on Saturday, though, guys on old tires eventually slipped back quite a bit, so it’s probably not going to work out for whoever gambles today (*cough* Ross Chastain *cough*).
• Attrition, it’s usually not the most fun thing for a NASCAR Fantasy player, but we might see it today. There were plenty of wrecks in the lone Cup practice session on Saturday, and we saw the same thing in the Xfinity race as well. Don’t be afraid to get off of the chalk today.

Dominators

These are the potential dominators for Sunday’s race at Road America, and are listed in the order of likelihood according to my projections:

• Kyle Larson
• William Byron
• Austin Cindric
• AJ Allmendinger
• Martin Truex, Jr.
• Chase Elliott
• Kyle Busch

Some “surprise” dominators that could happen on Sunday include: Tyler Reddick, Ross Chastain, and Alex Bowman.

Optimal Lineup According to Jordan’s Projections

The optimal DraftKings lineup for Road America according to my Projections is:

• Chase Elliott
• Kyle Busch
• Kevin Harvick
• Austin Dillon
• Chase Briscoe
• Erik Jones

Confidence Rating = 8.0/10. Just so much chalk, it makes me want to puke. But that’s what we’re dealing with today. Chase Elliott and Kyle Busch can both win this race and they both start in the rear. Bleh. A similar lineup that ranks high in my projections is: Chase Elliott, Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin, Austin Dillon, Chase Briscoe, and Ricky Stenhouse, Jr.

GPP / Tournament Picks

AJ Allmendinger ($9,000) – We basically have two Road America ringers in the field this weekend: AJ Allmendinger and Austin Cindric ($8,300). Since Cindric starts a couple spots worse than Dinger, and also comes with a $700 discount, I think a lot of DraftKings players are going to gravitate toward the #33 Ford. And while I do like Cindric and have plenty of money on him this weekend when it comes to actual betting, I like the pivot to Allmendinger here, who can also win this race, and is in a better position early to potentially lead more laps than Cindric.

Erik Jones ($6,600) – There’s so much chalk in this sub-$7,000 price range, that the contrarian in me has to find a different route for tournaments–just like I did last week at Pocono when I pivoted to Austin Dillon off of Cole Custer to cash out over $10k. This is a very similar situation: my projections have Erik Jones right there with Austin Dillon and Chase Briscoe–the chalk guys–and slightly above the rest of the cheap chalk like Ryan Newman, Ryan Preece, Bubba Wallace, and Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. Yes, Erik Jones isn’t in great equipment, but he’s still finished 14th, 16th, and 11th in the three road course races this season. An attrition race could possibly bump him into the top 10.

Cash Core Drivers

Chase Elliott ($10,600) – So much chalk. Chase Elliott is the best road course racer in the NASCAR Cup Series and he’s starting 34th. The #9 Chevrolet didn’t look blazing fast in practice on Saturday, but there’s no doubt that Chase will be there at the end. Obviously there’s some strategy in going underweight with him in tournaments, but it doesn’t make sense to do in cash games.

Kyle Busch ($10,100) – Rowdy destroyed his primary car in practice after laying down the (then) fastest lap, so in an effort to preserve the backup car as well as the scuffed set of tires, the #18 team decided to half-ass it in qualifying. So Kyle Busch is going to be officially starting from dead last in 40th, which makes him the obvious cash play of the day, especially with such limited laps scheduled (making place differential and finish points more important). Busch is great road course racer on “traditional” road courses and won the Xfinity race here yesterday.

Jockey Made in America 250 at Road America DraftKings Driver Projections

The following chart takes into account the very basics: the starting position and the projected finish of each driver. The projected finishes are averaged from six different ranking systems. Also factored in are projected laps led and fastest laps for each driver. You can click the headers below to sort the chart by that attribute. By default it is sorted by average projected FPTS.