Kubota Tractor 200 DFS Expert Picks & Lineups: NASCAR Truck Series Playbook

What an exciting weekend for our NASCAR DFS lineups we have on our hands. Both the NASCAR Cup and Xfinity Series kick off the Round of 12 for their respective playoffs. Meanwhile, the Craftsman Truck Series will go green for this race Friday night. It’s the final race of the Round of 10 for the trucks.

As fate would have it, Layne Riggs didn’t collect a win at all in the regular season but, as a non-playoff driver, he’s won the first two races in this round. Can he go for three straight or do we see one of the top tier drivers lock in their spot in the Round of Eight? Here are the top plays and lineup building strategies as part of the latest Kubota Tractor 200 DFS picks!

Kubota Tractor 200 DFS Picks & NASCAR Lineups

Kansas Speedway rarely disappoints. This is one of your standard 1.5-mile “cookie cutter” intermediates. But Kansas typically delivers some of the best racing we’ll see on any track. We get a nice blend of passing and cautions, but overall, the multiple grooves allow drivers to put their truck/car anywhere on the track to be competitive. We should see some tire wear for this race so that’s another element that just makes this track so damn good.

This is also one of the very rare tracks where we see the trucks race twice a year. With a smaller schedule in comparison to the Cup and Xfinity Series, we don’t often see the trucks make two visits to any one spot in a year. So we have a nice sample size and data set to look at when considering who has been great here in the past.

We have 134 laps on tap for this race. The stages are broken into segments of 30-30-74. They should be able to make it the first two stages with just one pit stop at the break. However, we should expect some drivers to take chances and get off-cycle to gain track position.

134 laps will likely give us between 85-90 dominator points. That’s not much for an intermediate track, but we are previewing the Craftsman Truck Series and they tend to run fewer laps than the other series. But we still take a two-dominator approach with our NASCAR DFS tournament lineups.

This past spring we saw Corey Heim get the win with an additional 33.7 dominator points while Zane Smith finished second with 24.8 dominator points. In this race a year ago we saw three drivers finish in the top eight and lead over 30 laps with at least 14 dominator points to their credit. That was a race where a more balanced approach with three dominators was likely the way to go because Christian Eckes, the winner, only led two laps. I would say all my lineups will account for at least two dominators for this race.

As always, I’ll provide updates in RED with the final driver pool at the bottom of the article once we know the starting order.

Kubota Tractor 200 at Kansas Speedway DFS Picks

Corey Heim – DraftKings: $10,500

As mentioned at the top of the article, Heim won this race in the spring after starting P13. He actually had no trouble at all moving up from P13 as he won the first stage and was second in stage two. He boasted a 146.6 driver rating for that race.

Overall, Heim has finished fourth or better in his last three races at Kansas and he’s found ways to get to the front each time. The results on the comparable intermediates have been great as well. He led 18 laps and finished third at Vegas earlier this year, and he was second at Texas. He led 72 laps at Charlotte over Memorial Day Weekend but finished outside the top 30 for some late-stage nonsense.

Either way, it’s another week with Heim in play. But he’s not the only familiar face we’ll see…

Update: Chalk monster incoming as he starts P33 and doesn't need dominator points to flirt with 70 points in a top five effort.

Christian Eckes – DraftKings: $10,300

Similar to Corey Heim, Eckes also has a win on his resume at Kansas. As discussed, he only led two laps in that race, but a win is a win at the end of the day.

Eckes hasn’t really flashed the dominator upside at this track like Heim has. But the finishes are still on his side. He finished third in this race in the spring with 11 laps led, but even going back to his time with ThorSport and KBM, he has three top five finishes.

He finished sixth at Vegas this year with seven laps led, finished fourth at Texas with 31 laps led, and he started P35 and finished 10^th at Charlotte with 37 laps led. I would definitely prioritize Heim for this race, but Eckes cannot be slept on.

Ty Majeski - DraftKings: $10,000

He's a good play with top five equity and has a great chance to collect early dominator points. For that reason, I am adding him to the Playbook as a tournament play because there's a clear path to 50+ fantasy points on DraftKings.

Nick Sanchez – DraftKings: $9,800

Sanchez doesn’t have the win equity of the other two, but he does have some win juice. This past spring, he started P31 and finished sixth with a 99.3 driver rating. In this race a year ago he registered a 125.8 driver rating after starting P2 with 43 laps led.

Sanchez has always thrived on the larger intermediates while with Rev Racing. The affiliation with Spire Motorsports has paid off well. He finished third at Texas earlier this year with 16 laps led, he got the win at Charlotte, and was even second at Darlington, a track notorious for its tire fall off.

Sanchez also comes in with some momentum following back-to-back top five finishes at Milwaukee and Bristol so he lines up as a solid play if you’re looking to go underweight on either Heim or Eckes.

Mid-Price Kubota Tractor 200 DFS Picks

Rajah Caruth – DraftKings: $9,000

Caruth locked himself into the playoffs earlier this season with an impressive win at Las Vegas with 38 laps led. After that, the results were a bit inconsistent with just 15 laps led since that Vegas win.

However, he’s trending in the right direction for this race. Caruth finished fourth at Nashville, was top 10 at Pocono and IRP, and even last week he finished third with nine laps led.

The speed on the comparable tracks has been there for Caruth and his teammates. In the Nick Sanchez section we gave some praise to Rev Racing for the speed they’ve shown on the intermediates with the Spire Motorsports affiliation. Well Spire is the organization Caruth drives for and while he modestly finished 13^th at Kansas earlier this year, he’s run better than where he’s finished at the comparable tracks aside from Vegas.

Ben Rhodes - $8,700

These next two recommendations are a pair of playoff drivers below the cut line. It feels odd that Rhodes has had such a tame season. He’s a two-time Truck Series champion after all, but if we’re being honest, he’s definitely struggled at times this year.

He currently finds himself a dozen points below the cut line. That’s not the worst, but he has some work to do and desperately needs a strong finish. Sadly, Kansas isn’t his greatest track. He’s typically run well here but can’t quite follow through on the finishes. In 13 career races here, he has just five top 10 finishes and just two finishes in the top five.

He did finish in the top five at Darlington and Charlotte, but wasn’t particularly exciting at Vegas, Texas, or Kansas earlier this year and he didn’t do himself any favors last week at Bristol by finishing 27^th.

So track history and performance on intermediates may not necessarily be on his side. But he at least knows he needs a good run if he wants to stay alive for a third championship.

Matt Crafton - DraftKings: $8,200

Crafton has been a consistent mid-range play all year. Tonight is no different as he starts P26 and once again possesses top 10 upside. And if that's the case he can put up 50+ fantasy points which would be great at this price tag.

Daniel Dye – DraftKings: $7,500

As things stand right now entering this race, Daniel Dye is seven points below the cut line and the poor showing last week at Bristol certainly didn’t help his cause.

The good news for Dye is that he’s moved up and performed well on the comparable intermediates this year with the exception of Vegas back in March.

Dye grabbed top 10 results at Texas and Kansas in the spring but really came into his own at the shorter, flat tracks. Kansas is far from that, but there’s a little extra motivation for him in this race because he does need a strong day to move on to the next round. I can’t necessarily predict a win, but the equipment is somewhat comparable to what Christian Eckes drives.

Update: Dye starts P10 so that takes him out of cash games, but still believe ownership will be light enough to make him viable in tournaments. But overall, I likely prefer him more for Saturday's Xfinity Series race.

Value Price Kubota Tractor 200 DFS Picks

Kaden Honeycutt – DraftKings: $7,200

Honeycutt was a bit of a chalk bomb last week at Bristol. He started P36 and we all fell in love with the position differential. Unfortunately, he was caught up in a wreck and finished 35^th, crushing both our hearts and our NASCAR DFS lineups.

But we pick ourselves up and start anew at Kansas. Honeycutt just so happened to start P23 here in the Spring and he grabbed a top five finish. The only other comparable track he’s run this year was Charlotte, but again he started P9 and held his track position and finished seventh.

This is a good price tag for a driver who has posted 40+ fantasy points on DraftKings a few times this year so while he’s become a regular household name in this Playbook, DraftKings seems unwilling to adjust the price tag despite the upside.

Update: Very aggressive qualifying spot at P6 so this is largely a play for large-field tournaments.

Brenden Queen – DraftKings: $7,000

Brenden “Butterbean” Queen is back in the 1-truck for TRICON and it couldn’t come at a better time! We only have a two-race sample size to work with regarding Butterbean. He started P26 at North Wilkesboro and finished fourth and then started P12 at Nashville and finished 19^th.

So we have one great result and one forgettable result as well. But he’s cheaper for this race than he was for the previous two and the equipment is still top notch. This is a truck from the same garage as Corey Heim, Taylor Gray, and Tanner Gray.

So far this year, Christopher Bell drove this truck to a top five at Vegas. Brett Moffitt drove it to a top five at Kansas. Colby Howard even finished seventh at Darlington in the 1-truck. So if that’s the kind of upside we’re getting in this then how can we possibly avoid this play? Well, if Butterbean qualifies this truck in the top six like William Sawalich has for the last three races then we’ll reconsider. For now, he’s firmly in play.

Connor Mosack – DraftKings: $6,700

I’m giving you all a break from featuring Timmy Hill and Bret Holmes but I’m sure they’ll make the driver pool table for Friday’s race after qualifying. Mosack is affordable and he’s back in the 7-truck for Spire Motorsports.

He’s only driven six races this year; three for Niece Motorsports and three for Spire Motorsports. He actually qualified this truck P5 in the spring race at Kansas but finished 30^th. However, he bounced back and finished eighth at Charlotte and then was 15^th at Pocono.

Overall, Mosack has top 20 potential and even in this truck he’s got top 10 upside at an affordable price. It’s the same team that Rajah Caruth drivers for, and Nick Sanchez’s organization has an affiliation with Spire. They tend to bring fast trucks to these intermediate tracks so keep an eye on him during practice and qualifying on Friday.

Kubota Tractor 200 Craftsman Truck Series Driver Pool