The NASCAR Xfinity Series DFS picks are here for this weekend’s action from Atlanta Motor Speedway! Both the Cup and Truck Series playoffs are underway, but the Xfinity Series delivers a couple more races before the playoff action kicks off. 

Christopher Bell dominated last weekend’s race at Darlington. Ryan Truex won the week prior at Daytona. Those are two wins that could’ve potentially gone to full-time Xfinity Series drivers with playoff aspirations. With three races to go, the opportunities are running short.

 

 

 

Let’s take a look at the Focused Health 250 DFS picks for Saturday afternoon’s action from Atlanta Motor Speedway!

Focused Health 250 DFS Picks & NASCAR Lineups

NASCAR returns to Atlanta Motor Speedway for the second time this year. While this is a playoff race for the Cup Series race on Sunday, this is just another regular season race for the Xfinity Series. We do typically consider this a race for anyone to win, although given how the previous races have gone, it seems like it’s Austin Hill’s to lose.

We will not have practice for this race. Similar to Daytona and Talladega, there’s no sense in having a practice session and potentially seeing these drivers wreck their equipment. So we only have the qualifying sessions on Saturday for both series. 

Qualifying for this race will start at 11:00 AM ET and the race goes green around 3:00pm ET. So we’re taking an early look at the Focused Health 250 DFS picks and will have updates once we know the starting order.

This race will have 163 laps broken into 40-40-83 lap stages. We do have to slightly adjust our lineup building process for this race. Where it differs from Daytona and Talladega is that we can actually lean into dominator points a little more.

This race isn’t a direct copy of a natural superspeedway. Atlanta Motor Speedway is a mile shorter than Daytona and Talladega and isn’t as wide. Chaos? Yeah, we’ll still see a wreck or two. This is the NASCAR Xfinity Series we’re talking about. But we do want to squeeze in win equity, a potential dominator, while maybe targeting three drivers offering PD that can score well at low ownership.

 

 

 

Top-Price Focused Health 250 DFS Picks

Austin Hill – DraftKings: $10,800

He had an awful performance at Daytona two weeks ago. The circumstances were a bit fluky. He had an unapproved adjustment and had to drop to the rear after starting on the front row. And on the opening lap he was involved in a wreck with some back markers. That’s the nature of NASCAR DFS sometimes.

For this week, we once again lead off with Hill at the top of the Focused Health 250 DFS picks. Hill is routinely in the NASCAR Xfinity Series DFS driver pool whenever we go to a drafting track. Since Atlanta was re-configured prior to the 2022 season, we’ve seen Hill win here three times in five races while grabbing an additional runner-up finish along the way.

A couple weeks ago ahead of Daytona, we acknowledged that he has three wins at the world center of racing. But for Atlanta, we don’t just have win equity with Hill. He’s led a total of 206 laps over the last five races here, which is impressive for a drafting race. If you want leverage, you can definitely fade him as he’ll be trendy.

Chandler Smith – DraftKings: $9,300

We’re going to break up the monotony of repeating all the drivers that appeared in the Daytona Playbook a couple weeks ago. Sure, you’ll see some familiar faces below. But I do want to add some new names for the Focused Health 250 DFS picks.

I still think I’ll find a way to play Sheldon Creed ($9,800) and A.J. Allmendinger ($9,500). But Chandler Smith has looked fine in these drafting races as well. Smith actually finished second in this race earlier in the year, so we do have some win equity to consider.

Smith also finished top five in both Daytona races this year. For this reason, and because of the win two weeks ago for the next driver in this article, I actually feel like the Toyota’s and Joe Gibbs Racing are alive for another win.

Ryan Truex – DraftKings: $9,200

It’s highly unlikely we capitalize on Truex twice in three weeks. But it’s not even the win at Daytona two weeks ago that has me bullish on him, but it certainly helps.

Truex has run three Xfinity Series races at this new version of Atlanta and he’s finished top 10 in all three races including top three results in 2022 and 2023. It sucked to not have had exposure two weeks ago at Daytona, but let’s change our tune a bit for the Focused Health 250 DFS picks.

Truex has just three career wins and two of those have come at Dover. But in general, he has plenty of experience and has the luxury of driving for Joe Gibbs Racing. There are rumors he may have a full-time opportunity after getting two wins this year, but a solid run in this race on Saturday would certainly help his resume.

 

 

 

Mid-Price Focused Health 250 DFS Picks

Riley Herbst – DraftKings: $9,000

I’m honestly stunned at this price tag. I fully acknowledge that Herbst is definitely a high variance play, but he’s a very good drafter. He may not have the wins or average finish of Hill, but he does drive very well in the draft.

Herbst won the first stage in this race last year but was caught up in a wreck later on. And this past spring he qualified P4 and was top three in each of the first two stages but ultimately finished 15th. And it’s worth mentioning that in the first three races at “new Atlanta” he finished ninth or better in all of them.

So again, the running position and speed in these races is always there. There’s a reason he gets called upon to run a few superspeedway races in the Cup Series each year. He finished fourth at Daytona two weeks ago and was sixth earlier this year. The kid is a good drafter and he’s driving with more confidence after getting two wins in the last calendar year.

Parker Kligerman – DraftKings: $8,800

Going to channel Cris Collinsworth for a brief moment… “Now here’s a guy who was also in the Playbook for Daytona.” But so be it. It’s an early NASCAR Xfinity Series DFS preview and he’s been logging better finishes of late. He even started P12 and finished third at Daytona a couple weeks ago.

If you pay attention to Kligerman leading up to these drafting races, he’s typically very pleased with the setup and speed in his 48-car. He also comes in with momentum as he makes his playoff push. He’s finished 13th or better in six straight races.

Kligerman hasn’t finished worse than 19th in his three races at the new configuration for Atlanta. Last year he finished fourth and eighth in the two races at this track so I do like the play for tournaments. I don’t think he’ll offer enough position differential for cash games.

Sam Mayer – DraftKings: $8,500

The Sam Mayer chalk came through for those who took it a couple weeks back. He started P38 and finished 13th at Daytona. Mix in some dominator points and he came close to 60 fantasy points on DraftKings.

Mayer’s having a pretty good year. He won at Texas and Iowa, but he’s also wrecked in six of 23 races this year and his top 10 rate is under 50% on the year. But I’m willing to recommend him for the NASCAR Xfinity Series DFS picks.

Mayer finished 11th here in the spring but was top 10 in both Atlanta races last year. The success hasn’t always translated at Daytona and Talladega but if he’s simply more comfortable at Atlanta then we can still buy into that narrative. Similar to Riley Herbst up top, his running position has been better than the finishing results.

 

 

 

Value Focused Health 250 DFS Picks

Shane van Gisbergen – DraftKings: $7,200

SVG has really come into his own and he’s fully invested in getting better on the ovals. Sure, his three wins in the series have come on road courses, but he’s performed better on the ovals as the season progressed.

He got off to a good start finishing 12th at Daytona in February and the next week he was third at Atlanta. But late in the summer he finished fourth at Indianapolis and seventh at Darlington.

This is a bit of a gut call. He is getting promoted to a full-time Cup Series schedule next year with Trackhouse Racing. The results at the Cup Series level this year haven’t been elite by any means, but remember, Kaulig kind of sucks in the Cup Series nowadays. I do think his Xfinity Series ride is good enough for a top five finish.

Parker Retzlaff – DraftKings: $7,100

We leaned into Retzlaff a couple weeks ago for Daytona, and as fate would have it, he wrecked. So yeah, that definitely sucked. But Matt and I did jokingly say he was a viable play for the Cup Series race and the kid was in position to make a push for the win. He just happened to push the wrong driver to the win and he ultimately finished seventh.

But overall at Daytona, Retzlaff has finished seventh or better in three of four races. The results at Atlanta aren’t too bad either considering he grabbed a top five finish here in the spring race.

I’ve said this before, but it’s surprising how good he is on these tracks because he comes from a short track background. But having a teammate like Jeb Burton, and an owner like Jordan Anderson, has certainly paved the way for him to be a contender in drafting races.

Jeremy Clements – DraftKings: $6,500

Clements doesn’t have much win equity but let’s remember he did shock us all by qualifying for the playoffs a couple years ago with a win at Daytona. Clements finished 15th in both Atlanta races in 2023 and he finished sixth in this race back in February.

The nice thing about Clements is that he usually doesn’t qualify as poorly as the rest of the drivers in the value tier. That largely takes him out of cash game consideration. However, for our Focused Health 250 DFS picks, that makes him a good tournament candidate at low ownership.

 

 

 

Focused Health 250 NASCAR Xfinity Series DFS Driver Pool

The NASCAR Xfinity Series DFS driver pool will be published early Saturday afternoon once we know the starting order for this race.