DFS NASCAR: TicketGuardian 500 Contest Analysis

There was a reason we were all very excited for the race in Phoenix and it was a show. The new aero package in full effect with 750 horsepower and full downforce on a track with six different lines around gave us the passing galore we were expecting. Most of the race was decided on the track though there were still some pit penalties and on the very first lap of the race there was a start violation as Chase Elliott beat pole sitter Ryan Blaney to the start/finish line was isn’t allowed and therefore had to do a pass-through penalty down pit road. In the end, Kyle Busch nailed down his first win of the Cup season and a weekend sweep for the first time this year.

DraftKings

Large-Field GPP

The “$150K Slingshot” contest had a three dollar entry fee with a 20-entry max for the 59,453-entry contest which paid winnings to the top 14,640 finishing spots. All 36 drivers in the field were played in this contest including the two drivers making their Cup debuts in Quin Houff and Bayley Currey. The top play of the contest was not a shock in Kyle Larson given the speed he showed in practice and his P31 starting spot for the race. He was one of two drivers over the 40-percent owned barrier with the second being Daniel Suarez at 40.92-percent, for basically the same reason that Larson was up that high as well with a P28 starting spot and running just outside the top-10 in practice. The late pivot in the GPP lineup for Clint Bowyer put the third-highest owned driver in the lineup at 36.5-percent in this contest while the guy that was swapped out for him in Aric Almirola was played on 11.79-percent of the lineups mainly due to the bigger position differential upside that Bowyer had; the two finished with nearly the same amount of points. The pole sitter, Ryan Blaney, was played on just under 35-percent of rosters which isn’t shocking given that it’s a GPP and people are going for laps led bonuses. The pre-race favorite and the guy that owns this track, performance-wise, Kevin Harvick, was played on 30.8-percent of rosters which is a high ownership rate but not for a guy that’s won four of the last five and seven of the last 13 races at the track overall. Nine guys were in the 20-percent range leading off with Chris Buescher and Kyle Busch at nearly the same rate and clearly the 28 percent and change that played Kyle Busch were pretty much guaranteed of cashing with his 144.75 points. Eleven drivers were rostered between 16.6-percent and 10.2-percent with Chase Elliott and Martin Truex Jr. MTJ being that low-owned also makes him the value play in this contest for the driver that scored the most being on the least number of lineups.

Large-Field Cash

The “Single Entry $1 Double-Up” had 1,149 entries and paid twice the entry fee to the top-500 places. With this being a cash lineup, you’d expect the ownership to go up for certain guys, and they did…big time. The top-three owned drivers in the GPP were also the top-three owned drivers in this one, they were just owned at a higher rate. Kyle Larson paced the ownership at 63.5-percent which again isn’t a shock wit the low downside and high upside he possessed. Daniel Suarez and Clint Bowyer both cracked the 50-percent barrier at 59.4 and 52.7 respectively again because of the positional differential they were both capable of. One of surprises of the contest was seeing hometown driver Michael McDowell owned at 43.6-percent especially since his record at the track was far less than stellar in prior races. The two biggest favorites of the weekend, Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick, and pole-sitter Ryan Blaney were the only three rostered in the 30-percent range with Busch leading the way at 37 then Harvick at 32.8 and then Blaney at 30.9. This time there were 11 total drivers played on between 26.2-percent and 10-percent of rosters instead of how they were spread out in the GPP contest. Chris Buescher and Matt DiBenedetto led the way and the drivers starting P2 and P3 in the grid, Chase Elliott and Denny Hamlin brought up the rear of the pack. Aric Almirola, Brad Keselowski, and Martin Truex Jr. were all play on between 7.5 and 5.5-percent of lineups with Truex being the lowest owned of the three.

Optimal Lineup

The best score possible on the DraftKings was a whopping 407.75 while using the full $50,000 salary allotment. It consists of four of the favorite drivers of the week and rounded out by two cheap drivers that both went for 34 points. The whole lineup provided a value of 8.15 bolstered by Kyle Busch’s huge 11.8x value even while costing $12,200. Even though Aric Almirola outscored Clint Bowyer 60-56, Almirola cost $1,200 more than Bowyer so the value just wasn’t there to play him.

FanDuel

Large-Field GPP

The “$100K NASCAR Intimidator” and it’s 21,450 entries is the basis for the large-field GPP ownership on FanDuel. Just like the DraftKings contests, Kyle Larson was the highest played driver in this contest at 48.2-percent because position differential is the biggest bonus scorer for the site unless a driver leads a massive number of laps, like Kyle Busch (29.3-percent) did on Sunday. About 10-percentage below Larson was Daniel Suarez who started three spots ahead of him in the grid and was a mid-tier price on the site. The prohibitive favorite for the race, Kevin Harvick, was played on 34.2-percent of rosters on Sunday but those that played him were rewarded with just a 4.32 value at his steep salary. Three drivers were within a tenth of a percent of each other in Kurt Busch (28.5), Joey Logano (28.5), and Clint Bowyer (28.4) all of them made the playbook with Busch and Bowyer being solid position plays having shown top-10 speed in practice. Ryan Blaney was rostered just under a quarter of the time at 24.6-percent and posted a respectable 77.6 points on the day. Another driver in the 20-percent range was Aric Almirola (21.1) who still crack a 7x value even at a $10,800 price tag this week. A guy that was talked about a lot on the podcast and in the playbook and practice notes, Chris Buescher wasn’t as popular on FanDuel, coming in at 18.8-percent in this contest with his 59.2 points bringing in nearly 10x value to the lineups he was played in. Two surprises in this one was Jimmie Johnson being played on 15-percent of rosters despite a bad recent history here and a so-so season so far and then Ross Chastain only being used on 5.1-percent of rosters despite a criminally low $3,500 price tag that was bound to bring massive value, and that’s what happened at 13.6x return with 47.8 points posted. One of favorite contrarian plays was Ryan Newman and he turned out to be just that with an ownership of 10.3-percent in a 12^th-place finish. The final driver to mention is Martin Truex Jr. who was rostered 12.5-percent of the time in this big money contest.

Double-Up Cash Contest

A 112-entrant, single-entry, two-dollar double-up is where the ownership rates come from where the top-50 spots were paid winnings. Once more, you guessed it, Kyle Larson was the most-played driver at a whopping 73.2-percent. Daniel Suarez followed next but nearly 15-percent lower owned at 58.9-percent for the same reason as Larson. Clint Bowyer was again the third-highest at 43.8-percent played and most winning lineups had at least two of those drivers in the set of five. Kevin Harvick was played on 38.4-percent of rosters while Kyle Busch came in just behind him at 37.5-percent with a clear 30.7-point advantage to playing the latter rather than the former. Some other favorite plays for position points in Kurt Busch, Aric Almirola, and Chris Buescher were all within eight-percentage points of each between 33 and 25-percent with Almirola being the better play of the three at 75.8 points after moving up to fourth and leading laps. Ryan Blaney was played 17-percent of the time which makes sense since FanDuel doesn’t give almost any bonus points for laps led so even with it being a shortish track there was less upside here than on DraftKings. The two home town drivers in Alex Bowman and Michael McDowell were played on 13.4-percent and 10.7-percent of rosters respectively which is a bit surprising given their bad history at the home circuit. Lastly, Ross Chastain was again lowly-owned at 7.1-percent despite him being essentially free to play on Sunday.

Optimal Lineup

Three of the top-four finishers of the race are in the lineup that scores 382.6 points and leaves $500 on the table. Like the DraftKings optimal it was played in the large-field GPP and it returned a value of 7.72 over the five drivers in the lineup. The drivers in the lineup also accounted for all but 15 laps led in the race between Kyle Busch, Ryan Blaney, and Aric Almirola. There were five drives on FanDuel to score more than 70 points and four of them are this lineup with the only one missing being Martin Truex Jr. who at $13,200 simply didn’t provide as much value as either Kyle Larson or Blaney and not as much as Busch. Matt Tifft made the lineup as the highest-scoring driver under $4,500