This is going to be a significantly shorter write-up for the South Carolina Education Lottery 200 on Sunday. The reasoning is twofold; 1. The DraftKings Contests are terrible. Seriously, the $1 Happy Hour contest pays out $250 to first place. The Slingshot pays out less than $1,000 to first. So unless you’re playing the $8 or $33 contest, there just isn’t much excitement for this slate. The second reason this is going to be a shorter write-up is because we have too many drivers making their debut at Darlington in this race, and they’re doing so without practice. This isn’t a track that is friendly toward first timers. NASCAR hasn’t run the Trucks at Darlington since 2011. For that reason, I don’t want to invest my usual bankroll on Trucks. Last weekend was a great weekend to fade Xfinity and Cup series for DFS, while Trucks got most of my DFS attention. This week it’s the opposite. So I’ve made enough reservations for me to spread nine lineups across a few contests, mostly including single-entry contests. I’m also not playing Cash games at all. I’m playing a few GPP’s and then putting more money into the Cup race later tonight.

The stages and laps are exactly the same as yesterday’s Xfinity race. We get 147 for 200.8 miles in 45-45-57 lap increments. While we do have a field with a lot of inexperience, we do have the returns of Greg Biffle and Trevor Bayne for the Truck race. Bayne is well known for winning the 2011 Daytona 500 at the ripe age of 20. He’s been out of racing as a full-time driver the last two years, and he picked a hell of a week to return. Greg Biffle is a veteran with plenty of experience. He is the 2000 Truck Series champion and he’s very good at Darlington. Plus he’s in the 24-truck that has been very good this season. We also get David Ragan in a truck this weekend. He’ll be in the 17-truck, which I don’t believe has been run this season, but it’s still decent equipment. Again, I can’t reiterate this enough, play this race very light. A majority of the field has never raced with the Lady in Black and this could get messy even for drivers with experience. Expect a good portion of the field to get their Darlington Stripe. The Driver Pool is going to look thinner because this just isn’t a great race to go heavy. But if you have any questions regarding drivers not listed below, by all means, come ask my opinion on them in the NASCAR DFS chat leading up to lineup lock.

Driver Pool

Sheldon Creed ($10,100; Starting P2) Always the ultimate GPP play, Creed has won two of the last three races posting 70+ DraftKings points in each of those two wins. He’s a good candidate to get early laps led if he can beat Brett Moffitt off the start. He’s been finding his way to the front in several races lately for dominator points and he has an easy path on Sunday. Given that Moffitt is priced down today, it’s not a terrible leverage play to go with Creed who is more expensive and may carry less ownership.

Austin Hill ($9,900; Starting P3) Hill was a favorite target of mine on Saturday after he started 26th in the Xfinity series and finished inside the top ten. Hopefully that can carry over to success on Sunday, but there’s still risk and the path to the front won’t be easy behind Moffitt and Creed. He’s still a very good driver who has yielded solid results the last few races and $9,900 is a bit of a discount for him.

David Ragan ($9,700; Starting P34) Ragan has experience at Darlington, just not in a Truck. The Cup level resume isn’t great, but in the cinematic classic, Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos once said “You consider failure experience?” and Loki replied with “I consider experience experience.” He also has a ton of PD on his side so he will be chalk and seems like a must-play in Cash games, which I won’t be venturing into.

Matt Crafton ($9,300; Starting P10) This is a great price tag for Crafton who is no stranger to being priced up at $10,000. In six of his last eight races in 2020, he’s finished fourth or better so the momentum is there and he actually has experience in a Truck at Darlington. In six races he never finished worse than 14th and in the last Darlington Truck race in 2011 he finished fourth. Now, it’s worth repeating we can’t put much weight in previous history. There’s no practice and as we saw with Johnny Sauter at Gateway a week ago, previous history doesn’t matter. But Crafton is a very experienced driver and well worth exposure on Sunday as he’ll be one of the more composed racers.

Brett Moffitt ($8,900; Starting P1) Moffitt is a guy I’m considering playing in all three of my lineups today. This price is a joke. He was $10,000 each of the last two weeks for Daytona and Gateway. $8,900 makes absolutely no sense for a guy who is on the pole for Sunday’s race. And he hasn’t finished worse than third in his last three races. He ran the Xfinity race on Saturday, but didn’t finish unfortunately due to an oil leak. This is arguably the cheapest Moffitt’s been all season and I’m hoping to be heavier on him than the field.

Greg Biffle ($8,100; Starting P20) For a guy with experience here, $8,100 is a nice price tag. But he is going to be incredibly chalky. He’s won here at the Xfinity level, and he’s won Darlington twice at the Cup level. He’s in the 24-truck which came close to being driven to victory by Sam Mayer last week at Gateway. Chase Elliott previously piloted it to victory lane at Charlotte earlier this year so the equipment is top notch for Biffle. Because of his chalk I may only limit him to one of my three lineups on Sunday.

Bayley Currey ($6,500; Starting P29) Currey steps into the 44-truck on Sunday for Natalie Decker. At Pocono and Dover, he logged a pair of Top 20 finishes with no practice and he’s starting P29 on Sunday. He also had a pretty decent race on Saturday in the Xfinity race. He started 30th and finished 24th but if there are an abundance of accidents on Sunday he could move up and get another Top 20 finish.

Norm Benning ($6,300; Starting P32) It’s one of those races this week where it’s not entirely outlandish to play Norm Benning. There is some risk here with Benning. He has only one Top 25 finish on the year, which is unfortunate. He tends to have some mechanical issues as well and is just never a good play for DFS. Today I’ll get a little exposure though. He has experience in the Truck series at Darlington although those races were almost a decade ago. In 2010 he started 32nd and finished 18th. In 2011 he started 34th and finished 26th. It’s quite possible that he gets lapped, but this is a long-term play where it only matters where he finishes. If it gets messy and other drivers can’t finish the race then Benning will benefit and move up improve his position that way. This is just a GPP play, no need to go crazy with exposure.

Codie Rohrbaugh ($5,100; Starting P33) Rohrbaugh always seems to find himself involved in a wreck and while I normally don’t play him I think he’s worth getting exposure to today. I think he’ll be more competitive than Benning at the very least, in the sense that Benning could just go out and do laps and still move up. Rohrbaugh has the ability to get this Truck in the Top 25, but again, with minimal experience there’s still risk.

Josh Reaume ($5,000; Starting P30) I’m not expecting a huge race from Reaume today. However, when he’s gotten behind a wheel this year he’s found a way to move up. He started 29th at Michigan and finished 17th. At Pocono he started 28th and finished 23rd. A Top 24 finish will get him close to 5X value so he’s in play especially since he can move up through the field simply by avoiding wrecks.

Other Drivers Worth Targeting:

  • Christian Eckes ($10,600; Starting P17)
  • Todd Gilliland ($9,100; Starting P15)
  • Trevor Bayne ($7,600; Starting P26)
  • Austin Wayne Self ($6,900; Starting P24)
  • Dawson Cram ($5,600; Starting P28)
  • Danny Bohn ($5,300; Starting P16)

Example Lineups

Note: The EXAMPLE lineups are meant to show different roster constructions that are made with drivers from the Playbook. These are not meant to be plugged and played.

DraftKings Cash Example

1. Greg Biffle ($8,100)

     a. Christian Eckes ($10,600) - Pivot

2. Bayley Currey ($6,500)

3. Matt Crafton ($9,300)

4. Brett Moffitt ($8,900)

5. Todd Gilliland ($9,100)

     a. Greg Biffle ($8,100) - Pivot

6. Trevor Bayne ($7,600)

     a. Codie Rohrbaugh ($5,100) – Pivot

 

DraftKings GPP1 Example

1. Sheldon Creed ($10,100)

     a. Brett Moffitt ($8,900) - Pivot

2. Matt Crafton ($9,300)

3. Greg Biffle ($8,100)

4. Austin Wayne Self ($6,900)

5. Josh Reaume ($5,000)

     a. Trevor Bayne ($7,600) - Pivot

6. Christian Eckes ($10,600)

     a. Todd Gilliland ($9,100) – Pivot

 

DraftKings GPP2 Example

1. Austin Hill ($9,900)

2. Brett Moffitt ($8,900)

3. Austin Wayne Self ($6,900)

4. Bayley Currey ($6,500)

     a. Josh Reaume ($5,000) - Pivot

5. Greg Biffle ($8,100)

     a. Matt Crafton ($9,300) - Pivot

6. David Ragan ($9,700)

     a. Todd Gilliland ($9,100) - Pivot