NASCAR DFS Food City Dirt Race Playbook: Larson's Time To Shine On Dirt
![Top NASCAR DFS plays for Food City Dirt Race at Bristol](https://d29m18w01sxjzp.cloudfront.net/thumbnails/source/fatest/Food-City-Dirt-Race-Top-Plays-1000x600.jpg)
Published: Apr 09, 2023
Happy Easter! It’s time to get dirty while recovering from those Easter Egg hunts. The Food City Dirt Race at Bristol Motor Speedway gets rolling under the lights on Sunday night. It has become an annual event — third year running — the dirt race tests the drivers and machines as much as the crews to deal with the ever-changing conditions of the track and grip level. If you thought Bristol races were fun before, just wait till the Tennessee dirt gets involved.
Heat Race Results For Food City Dirt Race
The Heat Races happened on Saturday night in a group of four, 15-lap events. The fields and starting orders were randomized Saturday afternoon. The heats set the starting field for the race based on points earned and tiebreakers. How did drivers get points in the Heat Races? They were given out based on finish position and then passing points. So finishing first was good for 10 points, while each successive position was one fewer point, and then a driver got one point for every position they gained. The drivers with the most points are starting at the front of the grid while the drivers with the least are at the back. However, a driver didn’t get points for leading laps so don’t assume that every driver starting toward the front won or dominated the heats because drivers like Ryan Blaney and Bubba Wallace led every lap from the pole but didn’t get credit for that.
NASCAR DFS Strategy for Bristol Dirt Race
First and foremost this isn’t a typical Bristol race. Clearly, there’s dirt, rather than concrete, that they’re racing on. However, it’s more than that. It’s only 250 laps rather than 500 like the Fall race is and the dirt actually helps drivers in the back more than concrete does. What do I mean by that? Well, a typical concrete Bristol race has about 15-18 drivers finishing on the lead lap while last year’s dirt race had 26 drivers on the lead lap by race’s end. But how are we building lineups for this race? If you’re playing cash games, and this weekend is still risky for that, we’re looking for mainly PD upside along with some dominator upside. If we’re building GPP or tournament lineups, we’re looking for 1-2 laps led dominators in the build while the rest are starting P25 or better (in general). There isn’t necessarily one chalk lineup this week which also makes cash games more viable. Don’t expect a that long of a green flag run either. That will break up the race and make holding the lead on restarts that much tougher and may break up the laps led leaders more often than a regular Bristol or short track race.
Past Bristol Dirt Race Results
Well, for starters we can really only use last year’s race as a baseline. Yes, it stinks only having one race, however, the first race was run during the day, on a non-wetted surface, and had single-file restarts for about half the race because of the dust. Last year’s race was run with the Next Gen car, at night, on a wet, non-dusty track, and had regular restarts throughout the race. Last year, we didn’t see a driver lead over 100 laps, though Tyler Reddick did lead 99 while the next closest was under 65. The drivers starting P1 and P2 didn’t even lead a lap at any point indicating the start of the race is a crap shoot too and drivers can get 3-4 wide. Keep that in mind when banking on a front-row laps-led dominator, it may not happen.
If you'd like to see my favorite bets for the Food City Dirt Race, check out my favorite winner bets and props over here, for free.
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