NASCAR DFS Picks: Straight Talk Wireless 400 Playbook, 10/27 - Homestead-Miami

NASCAR’s Round of 8 continues at Homestead-Miami Speedway with the Straight Talk Wireless 400 on Sunday. There’s still 3 of 4 spots in the Championship 4 left and plenty of hopeful suitors for those spots. Will a playoff driver win and lock in Sunday afternoon? The starting field is a bit shook up and should create plenty of drama to answer that question. What can we expect for NASCAR DFS from Homestead? How are we taking practice and qualifying results for the race? Are there race trends for the Straight Talk Wireless 400 we can use for DFS strategy? Why is this one of the best 1.5-mile tracks on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule? And how do all of those play into our NASCAR picks for Homestead and the Straight Talk Wireless 400? All that and more in this week’s NASCAR DFS playbook.

Homestead-Miami Speedway Trends

The southern Florida track just outside of Miami is known as one of the best 1.5-mile tracks. The trends over the last 5 races here bare that out as well. The pure oval layout with multiple grooves produce a decent amount of parity during the races here. The first things that stick out about the table below are the fact that the laps led are generally split between 1-4 drivers depending on how many laps in front we’re talking about. Out of the 267 laps in the scheduled distance, most of the time one driver leads 100 or more laps and the one race without a 100-lap leader saw 96 laps up front. The other notable trend about that is, in all but 1 of the last 5 races, the driver who led the most laps won the race. Fast laps, as we discussed on the weekly preview podcast above, are typically split throughout the field as pit cycles run and drivers get new tires which are way faster than older ones.

As far as how it holds up against other intermediate tracks, it does have the highest Top-10 finish rates from outside the top-12 of any intermediates we compare it to. Nearly 50% of the top-10 finishers here come from outside the top-12 over the last 5 races at Homestead. Whether that be due to cautions or simply some driving styles play better here, it’s generally a fluid race. However, unlike moving into the top-10, winning here generally happens from starting in the top-5 as 8-of-11 recent winners rolled off P5 or better.

NASCAR DraftKings Scoring Trends

The following chart shows the average points by starting spot over the last 5 races on DraftKings. It’s designed to show the strategy in play here regardless of who was in each car or why they started there.

The interesting part of this chart is that the mid-pack is what makes or breaks your optimal lineups. Despite most of the laps led coming from the top-10 and race winners coming from P5 or better most often, that’s not where scoring comes from. This trend illuminates the idea that PD is highly important at Homestead for your NASCAR picks. Sure, nailing the laps led dominator is important but getting the drivers starting deeper in the field who move up well is arguably more important. Out of the top-10 scoring spots, 7 of them come from P11-P31 in this span.

NASCAR FanDuel Scoring Trends

The following chart shows the average points by starting spot over the last 5 races on FanDuel. It’s designed to show the strategy in play at Homestead regardless of who or why they were starting in the spots they did.

Much like the DraftKings chart above, the FanDuel scoring is mid-pack loaded rather than front loaded. However, there is a slight boost to the front 10 starting spots as 7 of them average more than average points. That’s thanks to the laps completed points you get on FanDuel and the propensity for front of field drivers to finish on the lead lap. Finish position and position differential are heavily weighted on FanDuel and so much like DraftKings, picking the mid-to-back-of-pack drivers who can finish top-15 or top-10 is a huge advantage. There are still 7-of-the-top-10 scoring spots from P11-P31, they’re just shifted a bit farther forward than on DraftKings because of laps completed points giving a slight boost to drivers finishing on the lead lap. Typically there’s an average of 19-20 drivers completing all of the laps.

Straight Talk Wireless 400 DFS - Practice & Qualifying Results

Below is a table showing how the drivers rank in terms of single-lap speeds and long-run speed during practice Saturday morning compared to their Qualifying spot. It’s helpful to see who may be able to move up and who may fall back and who may have sneaky upside.

NASCAR DFS Picks & Strategy: 2024 Straight Talk Wireless 400

So seeing everything above, how are we building NASCAR DFS lineups for DraftKings and/or FanDuel for Sunday? Well, we’re going to start with identifying our favorite laps led dominators for Homestead. As noted above, 75% of laps led come from drivers starting in the top-10 which should give us a good starting spot. After that we’re going to want a secondary laps led play as we typically see at least 2 drivers top 50 laps in the 267-lap event. After that, it’s like any other intermediate race as we’ve got to fill out the lineup with position differential, and along with it, finish position plays. Top-10 finishers can come from literally anywhere in the field, but typically it’s the drivers who’ve run well at similar intermediates, previous Homestead races, and have speed when tire wear is factor. Oh yeah, there’s tire wear here, like loads of it. It’s on the scale with Darlington and a bit more than Kansas and Las Vegas. Along with those similar tracks, we can also include a bit of Texas and Charlotte. The tire wear doesn’t guarantee chaos though as in the last 8 races at Homestead-Miami there’s been an average of just 4.2 cautions a race. That speaks to another piece of the strategy, the cars with the best long-run speed in the race tend to do the best since there tends to be long green flag runs.

Top Straight Talk Wireless 400 DFS Picks

Below are my favorite plays for GPP and Cash builds on both sites. Not only should you look at the drivers with written analysis but also those included in the driver pools below the analysis. The ones in the pool without analysis are a bit riskier but still worth sprinkling into lineups you build. Look for NASCAR DFS projections and rostership figures Sunday morning as a tiebreaker if you like.

NASCAR DFS Picks: Top-Tier Drivers

Kyle Larson

Another week, another track that Larson has dominated at in the past. Sure, there’s a P34 finish to his credit last year, but that should have an asterisk next to it. He led 96 laps and then smashed into the sand barrels at the end of pit road which ruined his day. Outside of that he’s finished P4 and P1 in the other 2 prior races here in the Next Gen car. It’s a track that fits his driving style to a tee with the high line being the fastest and finding speed on worn tires, like a dirt track, required to succeed here. He’ll start P2 but had only backend top-10 speed at practice. That being said he was spending time feeling out different lines after trying the top line and that likely dropped his practice speeds a bit. Larson is a perfectly fine choice for a laps led dominator and will likely be the most popular choice.

Tyler Reddick

The pole sitter at Homestead has been pretty blah when it comes to racking up laps led in the past 5 races. Just once has the pole sitter led the most laps, outside of that the most led from the pole is 32. That doesn’t bode well for Reddick does it? Well not necessarily but he did lay down some of the best practice speeds across multiple metrics on Saturday. If he can hold off Larson and a hard charging Hamlin, Reddick could spend all of Stage 1 in front before having a rest-of-race battle on his hands for the win and laps led.

William Byron

Everything was going well for Willy B at practice until he went out to qualify and somehow wound up in the 20s for a starting spot. Given the speed in the car, his 6.5 average finish in the last 4 Homestead races, a win, and 5.9 average running position in that span, he’ll be incredibly popular for major upside. The 24-car also has the deepest starting spot for a win here in recent memory as he won starting P31 in 2021. Will he win on Sunday? It’s possible but he certainly has the speed and ability to nab a top-5 with a chunk of fastest laps and thus a bunch of value.

Denny Hamlin

The Hamlin we’ve come to know as dominant and fast is making a return. He’s run P10 or better in 4 of the last 5 races overall this season and has a run of top-10s in 7-of-8 intermediate races. Now this week he shows up with some of the best practice speed and a good qualifying spot. As if we didn’t need another reason to think of Hamlin as a potential second dominator, there’s this. Hamlin’s run the Mavis Tires scheme 7 prior times this year, in those races Hamlin has 3 wins, 5 top-5s, the best average finish (6.4), most fastest laps on average (27.6), second most laps led (59.3 a race), and the best driver rating (112.1) in those races across various styles of track.

NASCAR DFS Picks: Mid-Tier Drivers

Martin Truex Jr.

For those that might’ve thought Truex was shutting things down as the season drew to close… not quite. The runs at Kansas and Vegas resulted in a P3 and P6 finish respectively. Now comes Homestead where he’s run very well in his career. The 19-car is also in a feel good throwback scheme back to his 2017 championship run which is sure to give him good mojo too. Then there’s the consistency of his practice speeds matching his qualifying spot. All of that puts Truex squarely in play for all formats on Sunday. 

Ross Chastain

The Trackhouse duo have been good at intermediates and it’s been led by Chastain and his 5 straight P11 finishes. Chastain finished P2 at Homestead 2 years ago and wrecked out racing P8 last year. So not only are the performances here a tad hit-and-miss in the last few races, the practice speeds are a bit tricky to dissect. The shorter run speeds were very good but the longer run speeds are only middling and more befitting of the P22 starting spot he earned. So if Chastain gets more speed on the long run, he’s got the pedigree to finish top-12. However, if the long run speed is only middling, he may spend most of the day running between P15 and P22.

Bubba Wallace

It’s long been the case that Wallace has been good at intermediate tracks and that’s showed up once more recently at Kansas and Vegas. Now at Homestead he’s starting in the top-10. While that does take away some PD upside from his value, him holding his spot is entirely possible and that still brings value at this price. If he does manage another P6 finish at a 1.5-mile track, that’s handily 5x value without any fastest laps or a handful of laps led either.

Noah Gragson

How about this for a shocker? Gragson was the fastest car in practice in nearly every metric possible. He barely missed his group’s top-5 and so he’ll start P16 rather than inside the top-10. Boom, free PD. Sure, the average finishes for Gragson at both similar tracks and Homestead previously is only so-so. But when a driver has this kind of speed under him, we take the shot that trends will bend this weekend. Gragson easily has top-10 finish upside if not better but thanks to the practice speeds, he’s also likely to be a popular play in this tier.

AJ Allmendinger

If you listen to the podcast, linked above, you’ll hear us talk about Allmendinger and his 2 great finishes here in the last 2 races he’s run. That being said, he went out in practice and didn’t run well in the least. It’s been a tough season for Kaulig in the Cup series to be sure, but Allmendinger’s skill has made up for some of the lack of speed in the car. He’ll have to do that again this weekend when he rolls off P32 on Sunday. If he can find race pace in the car and put his experience at the track to his use, we could be looking at a sneaky top-20 finish from him. If the practice speed is truly what it is, it’s a long day for Allmendinger so there decent risk here.

Daniel Suarez

Got to ride the hot hand from time-to-time right? Just like NFL running back rooms. Suarez is that hot hand right now based on Kansas and Las Vegas performances. The speed might not be quite that elite this week, but there is upside here given how Suarez the Darlington and Texas races went too. Let’s also not blow off that Suarez has 3 straight P16 or better showings at Homestead. 

Austin Cindric

It’s not just because he qualified P36 that he’s getting a write up. Cindric has posted solid finishes here in the last 2 races averaging a 15.5 finish. Those finishes came with a 10.5 PD mark too. While the last 2 intermediate races (Kansas and Vegas) didn’t go great for Cindric — 2 P34s — the 3 races before that saw him finish P20 or better. Cindric has that top-20 speed again this week based on practice. A.k.a we’re seeing that PD upside here once more.

NASCAR DFS Picks: Value Drivers

Austin Dillon

While Dillon has been a bit up-and-down on intermediate tracks this year, that’s not been the case at Homestead. He’s posted 8 straight P12 or better finishes at Miami. Sometimes a track just fits a driver and that appears to be Dillon at Homestead. By the way, he’s flashed that kind of speed in the 3-car again this weekend while qualifying P30. Even if he doesn’t get all the way up to P12, there is still plenty of relatively cheap PD here with Dillon.

Zane Smith

Smith has been on a bit of a heater in the last couple of intermediates at Kansas and Vegas. Finishes of P10 and P16 make him appealing. Along with that is his P19 starting spot and his P16 average running speed at practice. Smith has been quite solid at keeping his car clean and logging laps and finishing about where he starts if not move up a few spots. That’s what we’re looking for from Smith this week as a great, likely overlooked, budget tier option.

Harrison Burton

The intermediate tracks is where Burton has been shining, if we’re going to call it that, of late. Maybe “running better” is a better way to put it. Either way, Burton has put up 4 P23 or better finishes in the last 5 similar races. This week Burton will roll off P34 despite running much faster than that at practice and got faster the longer he ran. He’ll need a P24 or better finish to hit value but given his run of late at intermediates, that’s quite possible.

Daniel Hemric

I will admit that this inclusion was prior to practice and qualifying. However, I still like a bit of the risk after qualifying to be different in the budget range. He’ll be rolling off in the top-10 and had eh speed in practice but at this price, we can afford for him to go backward a bit and still hit value. Over Hemric’s 8 Cup races at similar tracks, he’s posted 5 top-20s, though coming while averaging a 30.8 starting spot. This is easily his best starting spot in that range and if he can somehow hold on for a P15 starting spot, the play works.

NASCAR DFS Optimizer & Lineup Picks This Week

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