NASCAR DFS: Xfinity 500 Track Breakdown

As the PGA used to deem the PGA Championship “Glory’s Last Shot,” that too is what Martinsville is on Sunday. It’s the last shot to make the Championship Four and there’s a possibility that two drivers will point their way in depending on the outcome of the Xfinity 500 (yes the Cup race is sponsored by Xfinity).

It’s the second race at the Paperclip this season and the first race was an action-filled race with a lot of bump and runs and lead changes and intensity that is bound to be higher with all of the stakes that are involved in this race. Martinsville Speedway is known colloquially as the Paperclip because of the shape and way the track appears from aerial views. It’s a half-mile flat track with tight corners and straightaways that tend to allow for two groove racing. They have been putting traction compound on the outside groove of the corners to try and get multiple grooves there as well. That has helped the passing a bit with the last two races producing at least six drivers with double-digit place differential though in the last five races there have been at least seven drivers a race to move up at least six spots throughout the race.

Manufacturers have been pretty well split here recently as a short track doesn’t really lend itself to highlighting any one manufacturer’s advantage over another.

Strategy Notes: It’s a short track so laps led will be a massively important stat this week on both sites as the 500 trips around the shortest track in NASCAR can be clicked off quickly and it tends to be tough to pass for the lead here. As was mentioned above, there is also room for position differential here but less so than just straight up finish position. Checking out the Finish Spot Ranges by Starting Spot Ranges will show you that generally drivers are finishing around where they start which makes sense since at least 29 drivers a race don’t move up even a handful of spots.

For programming notes or content schedule, check out my Twitter @theselzman, to see what it looks like for this week and updates as the weekend progresses.

Core Drivers By Tier

Tier 1 - Martin Truex Jr.

• Truex has won the last two races at Martinsville and dominated in both of them.

• He has the best Average Driver Rating, Laps Led per race, and Fastest Laps per race in the last four race.

• He’s coming in feeling very confident and needs a win to get into the Championship.

Tier 2 - Kurt Busch

• Busch needs a win to make the Championship and has three finishes between 6-10 in the last four races.

• His 8.3 average finish in the last four races ranks fifth in the field while his 32.5 quality passes per race are the most in the field.

• He finished P9 here in the July race and rallied to finish P7 at Texas last week to give some good momentum.

Tier 3 - Ryan Newman / Chris Buescher

• This is more of a team selection as both drivers for Roush have done really well here in the last four races.

• Newman has two top-10s and a top-15 and Buescher has three top-15s while both have average finishes inside the top-15.

• They are starting P21 and P28 respectively and offer quite a lot of PD upside.

Contrarian - William Byron

• A lot of news has been made by Byron this week with his new Crew Chief for next year being announced and his Pit Crew testing positive for Covid.

• Even with that he finished P13 at Texas and has two top-10s in the last two Martinsville races.

• He’ll get overlooked this week behind all three of his teammates but he finished runner-up in this race last year and P8 after starting P15 here in July.

Fade - Erik Jones

• Jones just hasn’t figured this track out yet.

• His finishes have either been crashing out or simply going backward several spots.

• He’s finished inside the top-20 three times (17, 20, and 20) but in all three occasions, he started 13th, 8th, and 13th.

Last Four Races At Martinsville

Tier 1

Tier 2

Tier 3

Tier 4

Top-20 Drivers Over Last 8 Martinsville Races

Momentum

This shows the last five races of the season and the driver’s stats so we can see who is coming in hot and who’s coming in cold.

Tier 1

Tier 2

Tier 3

Tier 4

Team

Finishing Ranges By Starting Spot Ranges

Price Changes

These tables show the difference in pricing for each driver from the first race here in March to the race this weekend. A positive in the difference column means they are more expensive this time while a negative shows they are cheaper.

Weekly Rankings

Race Hist, Recent Form, Track Hist, Type Hist are all ranked on average finish position over the last four races at the track, five races this season, eight races at this track, and similar races respectively. The Avg. Rating and Top-15 % columns are ranked on those categories in the last four races at this track. The L8 PD column ranks the position differential over the last eight races from best (most positive) to worst (most negative).

Tier 1

Tier 2

Tier 3

Tier 4

DFS Value Averages

We have taken their points scored over the last two and five races on each site and averaged those out and then divided that average by their salary divided by 1,000.

Tier 1

Tier 2

Tier 3

Tier 4