NASCAR DFS Ambetter Health 400 Playbook & Top Picks

The second race of the 2024 NASCAR Cup season is on Sunday, February 25 in the Ambetter Health 400. Atlanta Motor Speedway has been a fixture on the NASCAR schedule since 1960 but it’s never looked like this. Since being redesigned in prior to 2022, it’s been electric, and somewhat unpredictable racing. Even though it’s still a 1.5-mile layout, it’s halfway between a plate track, like last week’s Daytona, and an intermediate, like next week’s Vegas race. Just what does that mean for NASCAR DFS on DraftKings and FanDuel? How are we building Fantasy NASCAR lineups? Who are the top drivers for the Ambetter Health 400 at Atlanta? All that plus race strategy and the preview podcast below!

Ambetter Health 400 DFS Trends

While Atlanta has been a staple of the schedule, we’re not using any data from prior to 2022. Why? It was a completely different track and racing style. It’s incomparable. So when looking at data or noting stats for this week, we’re not doing anything but the last four races.

In those four races, the first thing that stands out is the two pole wins we’ve had. For a “plate” track that’s highly unusual. The second trend is that the race leader has led the most laps in three of the four races. That almost never happens at Daytona. The last thing that pops in the trends right off is the nearly 10 drivers a race to post a double-digit positive position differential. There’s a lot of moving through the field that can happen here as most of the race is spent in a pack, like Daytona. One other interesting note is that nearly two-thirds of the laps led in the last four races have come from drivers starting in the top-10.

NASCAR DFS Strategy For Atlanta

When we couple the trends above, and the race histories at the redesigned Atlanta, we get a pretty coherent strategy. Just what is that strategy?

Don’t stack the back.

As we mentioned on the podcast this week, Ryan Stevens mentioned on Twitter, that in the last four races drivers starting in the back quarter of the field don’t typically land in the optimal lineups. You’ll see below that some of the spots in the back have scored well on average, but there are simply better plays, on average, closer to the front. Winning lineups at Atlanta have had the laps led leader in them as well as the drivers most successfully moving up. While you’d think that drivers starting in the back would fit the second criteria, when looking at drivers starting P30 or worse, they rank no better than P25 in average finish.

So all told we’re looking to lock in the laps led leader(s) and drivers that can at least nail down a top-15 if not top-10 finishes. Thanks to the single-car qualifying at Atlanta mattering we can bank on drivers in the top-10 being the ones to lead the most laps while guys starting inside the top-25 being the PD plays we want to build around. The chart below shows finish ranges for the last four races based on starting ranges. For example, the “5” that’s shown for starting range 1-5 and finish range 1-5 means that over the last four races at Atlanta, five drivers who started in the top-five also finished there.

DraftKings Scoring Trends At Atlanta

The following chart shows the average scores on DraftKings by starting spot regardless of the drivers in those spots and how they got there. It’s designed to show the raw strategy at this track rather than driver-specific scoring.

FanDuel Scoring Trends At Atlanta

The following chart shows the average scores on FanDuel by starting spot regardless of the drivers in those spots and how they got there. It’s designed to show the raw strategy at this track rather than driver-specific scoring.

Top Tier Driver Plays

Joey Logano

It’s another fast car for Logano this week. He’s on the front row for the second-straight week and he’s pulled off a win from the pole here before. Even though we don’t typically see the pole-sitter do well at Daytona, he was up front with 10 to go last week before being caught in a wreck. This should be another week with Logano up front for awhile leading laps and challenging for the win late. However, if he doesn’t lead laps, the value will be tough to find.

Ryan Blaney

Blaney has a history of starting well here and holding on for solid finishes. That’s what we’re looking for again this week. He has the speed to run up front this week, perhaps not at the start but in the middle of the race. As long as he can finish top-10, like he’s averaged in the last four races here, and lead about 40 laps, like he’s average a race, there’s value.

Chase Elliott

Elliott is at his home track hoping to end his long winless streak. It’s a track he’s won at before and owns the best average finish in the last four races here — 6.7. He’ll start P28 this week meaning he’s got some work to do to nail down another good finish but does have a ton of PD upside. Expect him to be a popular high salary target for that reason in cash games. Those in GPPs might look to avoid him as a leverage play over the field.

Mid-Tier Driver Plays

Erik Jones

This one is simple. He’s starting dead last and is a free square for PD. Especially given his history at Atlanta in the last four races. Jones has picked up, on average, 11 spots of position differential. The reason he’s starting last was because he saved the car from wrecking during qualifying, which does mean they’ll need to tighten the handling, but given how well he ran at Daytona and here previously, there’s plenty of faith they’ll be just fine.

Michael McDowell

From the driver starting dead last to the pole sitter. McDowell earned his first ever pole with his qualifying effort on Saturday. It’s the second-straight race on the front row for McDowell and the speed this week should give him a leg up in leading a chunk of laps early. The downside here is that if, or when, he drops back in the field the negative PD points will start to eat into the laps led points he nabs.

Daniel Suarez

Suarez has three top-six finishes in the four races at the redesigned Atlanta. The fourth finish was P29. As long as he avoids the wreck(s), he should have the speed and skill to race his way back up to the top-10 once more. The speed was there for him in Daytona too. This price point is nice to slot him in in either cash or GPP builds and the upside is for both build styles too.

Corey Lajoie

I’m aware that 823 words ago I said “Don’t stack the back” and yet here’s another driver starting in the back. The issue with avoiding Lajoie here is that he’s used to starting in the back and is quite successful from that spot. In the four races since 2022, Lajoie’s average starting spot is 30.5 while his average finish is 15.3 with an average running position inside P19. He’s coming off of a P4 at Daytona and all nine career top-10s have come at plate tracks including a P5 and P4 here starting P33 and P31 respectively.

Value Tier Driver Plays

Josh Berry

Sure there are more PD friendly plays in this value tier, we’ll mention a couple, but Berry is feeling like an under-the-radar option in this range. He ran well in his only trip here last year in the Cup series. Berry will roll off P14 in the field which is close enough to the top-10 to feel comfortable with him nabbing one if he keeps the 4-car clean. Ford looks strong here this week so getting a cheap, under-the-radar one into builds isn’t a bad idea.

Justin Haley

Haley has four top-22 finishes here and three top-15s. Granted, he’s never started this far back in the pack, but there’s a first time for everything. Haley’s a known plate racer and there’s no reason to doubt he won’t have a shot at a top-20 by the time the checkered flag waves.

Daniel Hemric

This is a Malin special. Hemric had a bit of a rough go of it at Daytona last week but has a great history at this track in the lower series since stepping down from the Cup series. He is in a Kaulig car which we liked for their general speed last year and if he keeps it clean, he should have a shot at a top-20 finish.

Driver Pool

The following drivers make up the pool of drivers I’m using to build lineups on both sites. The drivers above are included in the pool and are my favorites in each salary tier.

Player Pool

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Stacks

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