After a wacky weather weekend in Southern California, the Pala Casino 400 will go green on Sunday afternoon at Auto Club Speedway. Even without practice or qualifying taking place, we have a very interesting starting grid for this race that should give us a shot at seeing the green in NASCAR DFS on both DraftKings and FanDuel if we build our lineups the right way. So with that in mind, let’s take a look at the strategy behind this weekend’s NASCAR Core Plays.

When building DFS lineups for NASCAR DFS it’s important to look at a core of drivers, rather than a full lineup at a time. Just like most DFS sports, building around cores of players, or drivers in this case, and then filling in around it is the best way to see success in both cash and GPP contests. Regardless of the style of track, the core build method is the way that Dan Malin and myself approach our builds and then we get exposure to other drivers by sprinkling them into the builds as well. That way when different cores do well, we see more green by the checkered flag.

The Core Plays table below should be read from left to right based on the site and game type you’re building for. They are not designed to add up to the salary cap nor are they designed to be plugged in as full lineups. Certain races they’ll be more for top-tier than the value-tier and vice versa and same goes for the mid-tier. It simply depends on the race and the setup of the field.

For more specific and in-depth analysis, check out the Pala Casino 400 Cup Playbook and the NASCAR DFS Podcast as well as asking questions in the NASCAR DFS Discord channel.

Good Luck in Sunday’s NASCAR DFS Pala Casino 400 contests!

DRAFTKINGS
Top TierMid-TierValue Tier
Cash Games
Kyle Larson1510800Tyler Reddick359100Justin Haley295900
Chase Elliott3310500William Byron328900   
Kyle Busch2110300Erik Jones347700   
         
Tournaments
Denny Hamlin1310600Kevin Harvick108500Ryan Preece276700
Ryan Blaney910100Alex Bowman48300Ty Dillon365300
Martin Truex Jr149300Chase Briscoe317500   
         
FANDUEL
Top TierMid-TierValue Tier
Cash Games
Kyle Larson1514000William Byron3210000Justin Haley294000
Chase Elliott3313500Tyler Reddick359000   
Kyle Busch2111500Erik Jones348000   
         
Tournaments
Denny Hamlin1313000Martin Truex Jr1410500Ryan Preece275500
Ryan Blaney912000Alex Bowman48500Ty Dillon363000
Joey Logano311000Kevin Harvick108200