NASCAR DFS Cook Out Southern 500 Playbook: Cup Playoffs Start

Darlington. The Lady In Black. The Track Too Tough To Tame. Whatever we call it, it’s a daunting test to open the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs. Known for the tire wear and Darlington stripes, it’s an impressive feat if a team can pull off a win at this historic, Crown Jewel, race. While this is the second race of the 2023 NASCAR schedule at Darlington Raceway, this one will be a tougher, and different test than the Goodyear 400 was. Just how different and what does that mean for NASCAR DFS? What are the lineup construction strategies for the Southern 500? Who are the top plays for NASCAR DFS on Sunday? What were the practice and qualifying results and what do we take from that?

It’s time to answer all of those questions in the Cook Out Southern 500 Playbook!

Darlington Track Layout And Track History

Darlington is known as one of the unique tracks on the NASCAR Cup schedule with its distance and shape unmatched. At 1.366 miles per lap, it’s a tad shorter than a “normal” intermediate track yet a bit longer than a 1-mile layout. The other few things that are unique? It’s an egg-shaped track thanks to a fish pond that couldn’t be destroyed when first building the track in 1950. So one end of the track is narrower and tighter in the corners than the other end. That can lead to setup issues for teams and drivers as well as making mid-race adjustments challenging. These kinds of challenges have led to the winner list being dominated by veteran, championship-caliber drivers. Aside from veteran drivers being favored here, we should also be looking at drivers who’ve started closer to the front if we want the winner or highest-scoring options in our DFS lineups. Take a listen to the podcast above for more stats and track history about Darlington. In terms of what compares to Darlington, we’re looking at Darlington, Homestead, Las Vegas, Kansas, Charlotte, Auto Club, and a bit of Richmond.

NASCAR DFS Strategy For Southern 500

So how are we building lineups for DFS this weekend? Well, if you’ve listened to the podcast and checked out the charts below, you’ll have gotten the beginning of it. The table below will also help. The data in the table shows stats for those categories over the last five Darlington races. A few things to keep in mind aside from just the pure numbers though. Firstly, the Southern 500 is run bridging daytime and the sun going down. That will change the track noticeably, mainly in the grip level. The 400 earlier this year was purely run in the daytime which does make a difference. Darlington is one of the most temperature-dependent tracks on the schedule in terms of how the cars handle. Tire wear is the next biggest thing. Going 100 miles farther on a track that’s a cheese grater brings a whole other level of tire strategy into play than May’s race possessed. Lastly, while practice numbers are great to look at, we should bear in mind that practice was run while the track was still warming up as opposed to a point where it’ll be cooling down.

The following chart uses the results of the last five Darlington races to produce the numbers in the categories.

For DFS one thing stands out right away, the need for a laps-led dominator. In each of the last five races here, there’s been at least one driver each race to lead at least 100 laps. There have also been mainly two drivers a race to lead 50 or more laps. So that’s how we’re building for DFS. In terms of PD plays, you’ll notice that an average of 6.5 drivers a race move up 10 or more spots while about a third of the field moves up six or more spots. So, we can find a lot of different PD plays throughout the field. That being said, Most of the top-10 finishers have started inside the top 12 on average. Nearly 6-out-of-10 finishers P10 or better start P12 each race. So when we’re building for PD just be aware that it might be tough to move into the top-10 when starting too far back. Not to mention only one winner since 2011 has started outside the top 16 and eight of the last 12 races have seen the winner start P9 or better.

DraftKings Scoring History For Darlington

The following chart shows the average points scored by the starting spot over the last five Darlington races based on DraftKings scoring. The points are regardless of the driver starting in that spot nor how they started there. It isn’t a hard-and-fast rule but rather designed to show the strategy in play.

FanDuel Scoring History For Southern 500

The following chart shows the average points scored by the starting spot over the last five Darlington races based on FanDuel scoring. The points are regardless of the driver starting in that spot nor how they started there. It isn’t a hard-and-fast rule but rather designed to show the strategy in play.

Darlington Practice And Qualifying Results

The following table shows not only the qualifying order for the Cook Out Southern 500 but also how drivers ran in practice. It shows single-lap, 5-lap, 10-lap, and overall lap average results from practice. That should help show who has the long-run speed to move up in the race.

Stacks

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