Intro to DFS NASCAR for 2019

So you’ve found yourself in the NASCAR section on Fantasy Alarm and are wondering “what’s this all about?” or “isn’t this the sport with all the left turns?” The answers to both are a fun and exciting DFS game and yes, they turn left…a lot.

Much like every other DFS game out there, there is a strategy to it that can help you optimize your winnings, or chances of winning. If you’re new to the game, then welcome, and if you need a refresher this is a great place to start as well.

The Basics

NASCAR DFS is offered through DraftKings and FanDuel and is a salary cap game just like MLB, NBA, NFL, PGA, and NHL. Six drivers make up a team on DraftKings, while five do so on FanDuel and they have to fit under the $50,000 budget on both sites, giving you an average of $8,333 per driver to spend on DK and $10,000 per driver on FD. The driver’s salaries will change from week-to-week and track-to-track based on a myriad of things, but the top drivers will generally always cost the most ($9,500+ on DK and $11,500+ on FD) while the worst drivers will generally always cost the least ($5,500 or less). Picking which drivers you should play is a strategy we will get to shortly.

In the meantime, we need to learn what goes into the scoring for each driver to begin with. There are slightly different things that drivers get or lose points for depending on the site on which you’re playing on:

For DraftKings finish position is scored from first to last with first place gaining 46 points, second 42, and then third-40^th getting 41 down to four points losing a point per spot. Position differential is simply the difference between where are driver starts the race (qualifying position) and where they finished meaning you can lose points here. If a driver starts 15^th and finishes second, they get 13 points, but if they start 15^th and finish 28^th, they lose 13 points. Any time your driver runs the fastest lap time for that lap regardless of position in the field, you get a half a point for that, they can add up but are unpredictable in general. Laps led is also pretty self-explanatory as if your driver leads a lap, you get a quarter of a point. The Laps led and Fastest laps are also known as dominator points.

FanDuel is similar in their points breakdowns but there are some differences. Finish positions are given 43 for first, 40 for second, and then 38-1 for third-40^th. Position differential is worth half as much here as it is on DK but it’s still the most valuable additional point value of all the categories. Both the laps completed and the laps led are worth the same amount so on FanDuel it’s critical to pay attention to those drivers that finish the most laps since you’re getting credit for that.

Example: Martin Truex Jr. leads 100 laps of a 367-lap race, runs 50 laps as the fastest car on the track and finishes fourth after starting 14^th. He would garner 100 points for that race on DraftKings, a great total. On FanDuel in that same example MTJ would put up 88.7 points which is also a very high score.

Starting Roster Construction

Now that we have the basics out of the way, it’s time to figure out what stats go into starting to build a roster. Obviously you can’t just stack your roster with all to top guys and expect them to fit. So we need to decipher what are the key stats to look at each week.

Every week during the season you will see a Track Breakdown be published on Thursday’s for the upcoming race that week, it will have a general breakdown of the track as well as how that week’s drivers have fared in the past on that specific track and similar ones. The key data to focus on for the beginnings of your research are these:

1. High quality finishes (Wins, Top-5s, Top-10s)
2. Average position differential
3. Laps led
4. Average running position/top-15 rate
5. Rating

Those are good benchmarks to see how solid a guy is at the track over the long run and pretty well excludes one dominant or lucky race. Wins certainly help too but since only one driver wins each week yet five finish in the top-five, simply finishing close to the top is well worth focusing on. Average running position and top-15 rate are two metrics that describe where drivers spend their time during the green flag portion of the race. To calculate average running position, the position for each driver for each lap of the race are added up and divided by the number of laps run, meanwhile the top-15 rate is the percentage of laps spent by that driver running in the top-15 position on the green flag laps. Driver rating is a tool to see how good, comprehensively, a certain driver is or has been at a certain track. It is similar to a QBR in the NFL or WAR in MLB. Mike Forde has a great write up on NASCAR.com breaking down the calculations. If a guy is pricey but doesn’t show well at the track, he may be worth fading that week whether or not he’s coming in on a roll.

As the week moves into Friday and Saturday, practices and qualifying sessions will happen, which is your chance to see what the drivers are actually working with in terms of a car that week. The first practice is almost always spent focusing on qualifying trim and thus it is hard to glean any helpful info from it, other than the general feel of the car and how happy the driver is with the product. Qualifying is the one shot the team has to lock in their starting spot for Saturday night’s or Sunday afternoon’s race, a poor run here isn’t really the end of the world, and most of the time can be a big advantage. Saturday holds two practice sessions including the final one known as happy hour. Both of those sessions offer plenty of chances to see how the cars are running and what work still needs to be done to race trim in time for Sunday.

A few important things about practice sessions. Long run times are thing to focus on. Sure everyone can look at the running order and see where the guys they are targeting ran for their fastest laps of the session. But that won’t tell you much of anything. Paying attention to the five- and 10-lap averages, and what laps they were run on, are vitally important to seeing who has the long run cars and who doesn’t. Most of a race is run under green flag conditions, so having a roster of cars that gain ground or increase leads in those conditions is what you should aim for. The second important thing to focus on for practices is: who feels comfortable in their car and who doesn’t, who is looking for the groove and who has found it. Those little things will give you drivers who can spend the race pursuing the lead versus ones who are simply trying to hang on to spots and finish their day without crashing.

Building Your Lineups

After taking the previously listed items into account, it’s time to come up with your rosters you will actual enter into the contests. Like with all the other DFS sports, there are cash games and GPP or Tournament contests. Cash game are those of the double-up and 50/50 variety where generally about half the field wins money but never more than doubling your entry fee. GPP or tournaments have much bigger fields and much smaller cashing percentages, but the payouts are at a minimum double your fee and can go all the way up to $1,000,000 for the winner.

It is important to note the kind of contest you are entering because roster construction changes based on it.

Now typically you can keep the core of your roster relatively the same, playing three of the same drivers in both cash and GPP lineups, however the rest should be adjusted depending on track type and contest type.

Generally speaking the pole winner (qualified P1) should not be played in a cash game lineup no matter how dominant they’ve been at that track simply because there is more chance they under-produce than over-produce given there is no where for them to gain positional points from. However on short tracks it’s perfectly acceptable, in fact it’s encouraged, to play the pole sitter in a cash lineup since passing is far harder on short tracks and racking up laps led points is easier.

The things that separate a cash game play from a GPP play are generally discrepancies in practice and qualifying times, track history and showings that particular week, and if they’ve been on a roll coming into the track but haven’t done well historically there.

Example: Kyle Busch at the first Dover race of the year will show that he’s won multiple times in the last few years, however a further breakdown of his history shows that he doesn’t finish better than 31^st in that race whereas all of his good performances have been in the Fall race there. That means that in the first race he’d be a GPP play, if you were to play him, and a better cash play in the second race at Dover.

The last thing to consider is the price point the driver is at that week. If two guys have similar stats and times, go with the cheaper option to open up the rest of the lineup possibilities.

We will always break down our choices for each race and if you have any questions posting in the chat is always a great idea, or reaching out on Twitter at @theselzman works as well.