The Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway is a Crown Jewel race of the NASCAR Cup Series schedule. It follows the Crown Jewel races also happening on Sunday of Memorial Day weekend with F1’s Monaco Grand Prix and IndyCar’s Indy 500 earlier in the day. It’s NASCAR’s longest race of the season — 600 miles — and that makes it a challenge in and of itself, now we add in weather. The on-track activities on Saturday were rained out with the Xfinity race being postponed until Monday at noon ET. Cancelled on Saturday thanks to the rain was also the Cup Series practice and qualifying sessions. As we’ll dive into, the lineup being setup via the metric changes the way we see some of the drivers for NASCAR DFS contests on DraftKings and FanDuel and who the NASCAR DFS top plays are for the Coke 600.

What’s the weather for the Coke 600?

Not good. Put simply. The chances of rain on Sunday are in the 70-percent range if not higher and it’s going to be chillier than normal. In order to put on the race they’ll need a couple of hours to dry the track and then a few hour window to get at least halfway through the race. Will we get that? Not sure to be honest but if we don’t get that window the Coke 600 will be moved to Monday afternoon.

Coke 600 Qualifying Results

Thanks to the rain, not “Thanks Ross”, qualifying was cancelled for Saturday night. So how was the qualifying order set? It was set using the metric that takes into account previous race results, fastest lap speeds, and owner and driver points. That does mean that the drivers that had a bad day at Darlington will be starting further back than perhaps they’d hoped. William Byron has landed on the pole with Kevin Harvick starting P2 followed by Brad Keselowski, Denny Hamlin, and Kyle Busch rounding out the top-five.

NASCAR DFS Strategy for Coca-Cola 600

So with everything we’ve talked about so far, and you’ve listened to in the podcast above, how are we approaching this slate? The Coca-Cola 600 is the longest race of the year and that gives us quite the chance for laps led and fastest laps in our lineups. That will be important on Sunday, or Monday, but not everything. There is also plenty of chances for drivers to move up in this race and at this track. Charlotte is known as a track where the leader and any position on the track aren’t necessarily safe at any point. That being said, it is possible to get a single driver out front for long stretches as we’ve seen here previously like Ross Chastain leading 153 laps a year ago. We’re building lineups around two potential dominators and the rest of the spots we’re targeting high finish positions. Sure position differential will be good to have as well but that’s where the chalk will likely lie based on how the field was set for Sunday’s race.

Core Plays for DraftKings

Stacks

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