Everyone loves a good longshot bet, right? Especially one at 150-to-1 odds.
We’ve seen two road course races thus far during the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season–Circuit of the Americas and Sonoma–with the third coming up this weekend at Road America. And with limited cars and parts for the NextGen car, it’s pretty clear which teams and drivers are the fastest on this track type this year (hello, Trackhouse Racing!) and that probably won’t change, especially this weekend.
It’s also pretty clear which teams are struggling, and that honor goes to (surprisingly) Joe Gibbs Racing–and, by extension, 23XI Racing. Essentially, the Toyotas. Looking at the Green Flag Speed metric, no Toyota cracked the top 10 at COTA (Martin Truex, Jr. was best at 14th-fastest), and at Sonoma, it was the same story (Denny Hamlin was best at 12th-fastest).
With that being said, there is a driver within the Toyota fleet that has shown better-than-expected speed but has run into some bad luck. That driver? Bubba Wallace.
Bubba Wallace Top Toyota +15000
Yeah I don’t care how awful Bubba is on road courses, 100/1 to beat 5 other drivers is WAY too long.
Even better tho, CZR has it 150/1
He did it at Indy RC last year. He was teens finisher on road races last year. And has shown good speed this year at COTA and Sonoma. https://t.co/mwqG4FZUM9
We were used to mid-20s or mid-30s finishes out of Wallace when he first got into the Cup Series, but last season, his first in a Toyota with 23XI Racing, he (very surprisingly) came home 14th at Sonoma, 13th at Indy Road Course, and 14th at the Charlotte ROVAL.
Flash forward to 2022 and the finishes say that Bubba is struggling once again–he was 38th at COTA and 36th at Sonoma–but those numbers don’t tell the whole story. The #23 Toyota had suspension issues at COTA and an engine failure at Sonoma.
So let’s look at Green Flag Speed. At COTA, Bubba ranked 22nd in that metric, and then at Sonoma he was 14th-best in that metric, which ended up being the 2nd-fastest out of all Toyotas.
That’s why it was a bit surprising to see Caesars offering Bubba Wallace Top Toyota at 150-to-1 odds. This implies a less than 1% chance of happening, although it’s been clear that the Bubba and his #23 car are nowhere near that much slower than the rest of the Toyota fleet on road courses this year.
Plus, all Wallace has to do on Sunday is finish ahead of five other drivers. Not only could this potentially happen on speed alone, but a few pit strategy calls at the end of the race (which we have seen happen at Road America before) could easily put Bubba as the top Toyota once the checkered flag waves.
For full transparency, I’m not expecting to win this bet, but I couldn’t pass up 150-to-1 odds on a driver to beat out just five other competitors. I’d honestly go down to 75/1 or so on this bet and still feel comfortable. Even looking at just practice times, Bubba was the 3rd-fastest Toyota at Sonoma and the 4th-fastest Toyota at COTA.
Tailing
Model has Bubba finishing top Toyota 2.04% of the time
The NASCAR Cup Series is at Sonoma Raceway today for the Toyota/Save Mart 350. There are 110 laps scheduled for this race and this is the second road course event of the season. For this article this weekend, it is very condensed, as you will see. I didn’t write up any drivers but my projections are here as well as the optimal lineup according to those projections. Good luck and enjoy the race!
P.S. Join my private DraftKings contest today by clicking here. It’s only $5 to enter and is limited to 100 spots.
Optimal Lineup According to Jordan’s Projections
The optimal DraftKings lineup for Darlington on Sunday according to my Projections is:
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.
One of the best motorsports weekends of the year is upon us, as we have the F1 Monaco Grand Prix, the Indianapolis 500, and the Coca-Cola 600 all on the same day this Sunday. When it comes to the NASCAR, unfortunately, there were several drivers that had issues during practice, which means we’re stuck with yet another super chalky week of DraftKings DFS strategy. However, we have 600 miles to run on Sunday evening, and with how these 1.5-mile track races are going, we could see plenty of mayhem, so that opens the door to taking alternative strategies away from the chalk.
Optimal Lineup According to Jordan’s Projections
The optimal DraftKings lineup for Charlotte on Sunday according to my Projections is:
Kyle Larson
William Byron
Ross Chastain
Ricky Stenhouse, Jr.
Brad Keselowski
Corey LaJoie
DraftKings NASCAR Picks for the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte
Photo Credit: Sean Gardner/Getty Images
Cash Game Plays (Safe)
Kyle Larson ($11,300) – Larson hit the wall hard in practice on Saturday evening, and while he didn’t destroy his car and force his team to get the backup car out, he wasn’t able to make a qualifying lap so he’ll start back in 36th. This season, we’re not seeing the dominant Kyle Larson from last year, but he’s still a consistent top 5 threat and good for 10-20 fastest laps on a regular basis. He had the fastest single lap in practice this weekend and the 2nd-best five-lap average.
Brad Keselowski ($6,600) – I hate writing up Keselowski this season, especially as a cash game play, but I don’t think you can pass up this extremely low salary and his 35th-place starting spot. Kez has finished in the teens for most of the races this season, and if he does that again on Sunday night, he’s going to easily hit value at this price point. That chalk tastes good, doesn’t it? I hate these weeks.
Corey LaJoie ($4,900) – LaJoie would’ve likely been a cash game write-up even before qualifying since DraftKings decided to price him with the back markers this week, but with LaJoie now starting in the dead last position of 37th, it’s going to be extremely hard to build lineups without including him. When he hasn’t had issues in races this year, Mr. Stacking Pennies has actually been a top 20 finisher in a lot of races. It’d be very surprising if LaJoie isn’t in the optimal lineup on Sunday.
Tournament Plays (Risky)
Kyle Busch ($11,100) – It’s not extremely comfortable building a lineup with both Kyle Larson and Kyle Busch in it since they’re the two highest-priced drivers on the slate, but it could end up being the winning move. There’s obviously a strategy move open here to pivot off of Larson to Busch, but I actually like playing both together. Denny Hamlin is on the pole for Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600, but Kyle Busch has higher dominating potential, plus a little bit of place differential room since he starts back in 4th. At similar tracks this year, Rowdy has been in the top 5 in fastest laps in most of them, and Charlotte is a great track for Kyle Busch, as he has five finishes of 4th or better in the last seven races here.
Ross Chastain ($9,800) – Could Chastain be classified as a cash game play for the Coke 600? In some people’s minds, absolutely. Do I care that I’m classifying him as a tournament play on Sunday? Absolutely not. These super chalky weeks just make things frustratingly weird, so anything goes. Anyway, Chastain is Chastain. We know he’s going to have a fast car like he does every week, and he starts back in 22nd so he has place differential potential, too. Like Kyle Busch, Chastain has been a fastest lap machine on similar tracks this season and Sunday night at Charlotte should be no different.
Chris Buescher ($6,700) – If you’re looking to pivot off of Brad Keselowski ($6,600), I really like his teammate, Chris Buescher, who starts 19th. Buescher is quietly putting together reliable finishes on a weekly basis, including results of 16th or better in five of the last six. And here at Charlotte, Buescher has three top 10s in the last four races, although those were, of course in a different car. Still, a 12th-place finish out of Buescher on Sunday night gets you 38 DraftKings FPTS, and for Keselowski to match that he needs a 20th-place finish from his 35th-place starting spot.
Stacking Dennys Podcast with Jordan & RotoDoc
Charlotte Coke 600 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.
The NASCAR Cup Series is at Darlington Raceway for “Throwback Weekend” and the Goodyear 400. Darlington is one of the most unique race tracks on the circuit. It’s 1.366 miles in length and the two corners are significantly different from each other. In addition to trying to find the right setup balance for the turns, tire management is also a major factor at this track, as “The Track Too Tough To Tame” eats up the Goodyears like it’s its job.
Jordan is going LIVE on YouTube on Sunday morning to build DraftKings lineups and answer questions about the race. It is planned to start at 11:30 am ET. Visit his YouTube channel (click here) on Sunday at that time and tune in!
Before we get to the picks, here’s a great tweet from RotoDoc detailing which drivers are better or worse at Darlington:
The 28 non-rookie full time drivers and how much better they are at Darlington than the average of all tracks on a year-by-year basis in incident-free Darlington races while in Cup since 2016 (max 9 races) pic.twitter.com/0v7VGBRmfh
The optimal DraftKings lineup for Darlington on Sunday according to my Projections is:
Chase Elliott
Kyle Busch
Ross Chastain
Kevin Harvick
Justin Haley
Corey LaJoie
DraftKings NASCAR Picks for the Goodyear 400 at Darlington
Photo Credit: Sean Gardner/Getty Images
First, let’s talk about the chalk: Both Chase Elliott ($10,600) and Kevin Harvick ($8,800) had issues in practice and didn’t even get a chance to lay down a lap in qualifying, so they will start from 34th and 35th, respectively. Honestly, with this happening, it makes me personally not even want to play DFS this weekend. Both of these drivers are capable of finishing top 5 on Sunday, so if you’re mass entering lineups, I think you should be around where the field is with exposure. Harvick should be higher owned because he’s at an affordable price point of $8,800, plus Kyle Larson ($11,000) is going to lower Chase Elliott’s ownership a bit. If you fade both of these drivers with your lineups, you’re essentially just hoping that they both have issues during the race, and that’s really not the best position to be in, but good luck if you do! In a qualifying contest or single entry contest, I’d be more likely to fade one or both of Elliott and Harvick just because in those contests their ownerships will be even higher.
Kyle Larson ($11,000) – As RotoDoc and I talked about on the Stacking Dennys podcast this week (listen below), we believe that this weekend has a good possibility of finally going to be Kyle Larson’s “breakout” race of 2022. We have yet to see the dominant Larson that we’ve come to expect after his 2021 year, but Darlington is a driver’s race track and he’s really, really good here. Over the last six races at this track, Larson has five finishes of 3rd or better and has led a total of 653 laps (or 108.8 per race). In practice on Saturday, the #5 Chevrolet had the best 15-lap average and ranked 5th-fastest in 10-lap average.
Denny Hamlin ($10,300) – Looking for a pivot off of the Chase Elliott chalk on Sunday? Look no further than Denny Hamlin sitting there at a $300 discount. Yes, Hamlin doesn’t have the place differential upside as Chase–he starts 12 spots further up–but if Joe Gibbs Racing brings the same type of speed to Darlington as they had at Dover last weekend…watch out. This is also why I like being overweight on Martin Truex, Jr. ($10,500) and Kyle Busch ($9,900) on Sunday. By the way, my projections really like Kyle Busch this week. Anyway, Hamlin has place differential upside at one of his best tracks and could get dominator points as well. He’s finished top 5 in four of the last five Darlington races (including two wins) and has ended up 6th or better in 11 of the last 15.
Justin Haley ($5,900) – The chalk play in the lower-priced driver range this weekend is Corey LaJoie ($4,900), and I don’t mind combining Justin Haley with him or even pivoting to Haley if the rest of your lineup build allows it. Haley is quietly putting together a great season (for him anyway), with finishes of 17th or better in seven of the last nine races overall. Here at Darlington, he has results of 28th and 25th while driving for Spire Motorsports, but that car in those years wasn’t as good (compared to the field) as his Kaulig car is now. Haley finished 4th and 14th in the Xfinity Series here at Darlington last season, for what that’s worth.
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.
The NASCAR Cup Series heads to Talladega Superspeedway this weekend for the second superspeedway race of the year–or third, depending on how you classify Atlanta now. Let’s split the difference and call it two and a half. Anyway, races at Talladega are fun to make lineups for because almost every driver is on the table to be picked, but are also frustrating because the race is so unpredictable.
Jordan is going LIVE on YouTube on Sunday morning to build DraftKings lineups and answer questions about the race. It is planned to start at 11:45 am ET. Visit his YouTube channel (click here) on Sunday at that time and tune in!
DraftKings Fantasy Strategy To Profit At Talladega
Photo Credit: Chris Graythen/Getty Images
We’re trying to avoid “The Big One”–a large wreck that takes out 10+ cars–with our DFS lineups this weekend, and unfortunately, it’s something that is impossible to predict when it will happen. Notice I didn’t say if it will happen. It is extremely like that “The Big One” is going to happen on Sunday. These drivers are going full throttle, inches away from each other, and one or two are eventually going to make a mistake–and it’s going to cause a pileup wreck that could take out anywhere from 5 to 30 cars. Not joking.
While it can definitely be frustrating when your DFS lineups are ruined by something like that, it’s simply a way of life at these superspeedway race tracks (Talladega and Daytona). So now, you may be wondering then, “so how can you predict which drivers will be good picks on Sunday?” And honestly, you can’t.
What you can do with your DraftKings lineup, though, is strategically pick these drivers. DFS success at Talladega has a lot more to do with understanding game theory than it does which actual drivers you pick.
The most important thing you need to pay attention to for this race when building DraftKings lineups is starting position, and typically this is the type of formula I use to build a lineup:
Top 6 starting spot: sparingly, absolute max of one
Top 15 starting spot: one driver, maybe two
16th-30th starting spot: two or three drivers
31st-40th starting spot: remaining spots left
And don’t forget, it’s perfectly fine to let plenty of salary cap on the table. In fact, it’s encouraged!
Now you may be thinking, “But what about laps led points? And fastest laps points? Those are important in DraftKings!” And yes, they are. But not as important as finishing position and place differential at these big superspeedways. Plus, when it comes to fastest laps, they are completely spread out all over the board; it’s unlikely any driver has more than 10 on Sunday.
Now let’s quickly talk about finishing position and place differential for a second. Take a look at this chart below (click to make it bigger). It shows each driver’s base DraftKings scored by simply taking into account their starting position (top row) and finishing position (left column).
As you can see, it rarely pays off to take the guys starting up front!A driver that starts 35th and finishes 12th scores more DraftKings points than a driver starting 10th that finishes 2nd!
DraftKings NASCAR Picks for the GEICO 500 at Talladega
Photo Credit: Sean Gardner/Getty Images
Please note: I’m not going to waste my time or your time in this article talking about the “obvious” and chalk place differential plays this weekend, such as Ryan Blaney, Chase Elliott, Alex Bowman, Chris Buescher, Landon Cassill, etc. Instead, the picks below are the guys that I think are going to be under-owned compared to their upside, which makes them great GPP / tournament plays, in my opinion.
Harrison Burton ($6,500) – Nick and I talked about this exact scenario on the Stacking Dennys podcast this weekend (listen below). Harrison Burton hasn’t had a good finish all season long, and when you pair that with his 25th-place starting spot this weekend, his ownership in DraftKings isn’t going to be as much as it should. But the fact of the matter is you basically have a Penske Ford starting 25th, so the upside is definitely there. For what it’s worth, Matt DiBenedetto led at least one lap in this #21 Wood Brothers Ford in each of his four Talladega starts.
Todd Gilliland ($6,200) – I’m very curious to see what Todd Gilliland’s ownership is this weekend. Obviously I have him projected for around 15%, but it could end up being higher than that simply because this car was running so strong at Daytona earlier this year, plus the NASCAR DFS player base is starting to come around more and more on how good Gilliland is. As long as Gilly stays under 20% ownership this weekend, though, I really love going heavy on him. #GillyGang
Cole Custer ($5,600) – This guy is becoming a staple in my DFS articles whenever we come to superspeedways, simply because nobody is really playing Cole Custer. The guy did get 19.94% ownership in this year’s Daytona 500 (started 31st), but last year, Cole averaged 17.59% ownership on superspeedways despite starting between 25th and 28th each race. I like Custer’s price point this weekend, too, because if DraftKings players are digging down this deep into the pool, they’re more likely to roll with the drivers directly under Custer in price, who all start further back.
Stacking Dennys Podcast with Jordan & RotoDoc
Talladega GEICO 500 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.
Practice and qualifying for this year's Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway are scheduled to take place on Saturday evening, but the weather forecast...
