NASCAR DFS Playbook DoorDash 250: Top DraftKings Picks

The NASCAR Cup Series and NASCAR Xfinity Series head to Sonoma Raceway before a week off for all three series for Father’s Day Weekend. Sonoma marks the third road course of the year for the Xfinity Series as they ran Circuit of the Americas (COTA) earlier in the year and raced at Portland a week ago. This is a unique week for the Xfinity Series because normally this is the first time in as long as I can remember that the Xfinity Series is racing at Sonoma. So while we don’t have much previous track history to look at, we still know what teams and drivers are good on road courses and we will also consult practice and qualifying to determine who should make our NASCAR DFS driver pool. Let’s dive into this week’s NASCAR DFS top picks and plays for the DoorDash 250.

Sonoma Raceway is a 2.5-mile road course featuring 12 turns and some elevation changes. The highest point is roughly around the third turn with the lowest point being in turn ten. The difference in elevation is about 160 feet between those two points. Unlike last week’s race, the NASCAR Xfinity Series teams will have their regular pit crews working so we won’t have to rely on gaining track position solely on green flag runs. 

This race will have 79 laps (divided into 20-25-34 stages with no breaks) which means we’ll likely have around 50 dominator points to work with. That isn’t a whole lot if we’re being honest. But we could see a couple drivers lead 20+ laps. Those dominator points will only matter if the drivers finish well. Look at Sheldon Creed last week. He started on the pole at Portland and led 47 laps and had eight fastest laps. He didn’t even have the best car all day as he never really stretched out his lead. But with those dominator points he added 15.35 points to his score. Unfortunately, he lost six points for starting first and finishing seventh so if you consider the net points between the two categories, we’re looking at 9.35 points. Creed ultimately finished with 46.35 fantasy points, but he was over 30% owned in some Tournament contests on DraftKings. That’s still a good score but it’s useless to accumulate the dominator points if you don’t finish well.

This weekend’s schedule is a little odd. The practice session happened at 4:05pm ET (1:05pm local time) on Friday. But the real kicker with this weekend’s schedule is that qualifying won’t be until Saturday at 3:00pm ET (12:00pm local time). So we have to wait almost 22 hours between practice and qualifying, but we will have a window of about four hours after qualifying to finalize our NASCAR DFS lineups.

As mentioned previously, the dominator points only matter if those who collect them finish well. So if you’re building Cash lineups, don’t build around the polesitter because you think they collect dominator points. Build with them in mind that they’ll win the race. The dominator points are a bonus. Position differential as well as overall finishing position are what we’re targeting this week. As always, check back after qualifying Saturday afternoon for updates in RED.

NASCAR Xfinity Series DoorDash 250 Practice Notes

Fantasy NASCAR DFS Top Picks & Plays

Kyle Larson ($11,400)

Plenty of win equity with Larson this week despite the price tag. You’ll have to get creative with Larson in your lineups, but you can make it work because there are plenty of discounts on this slate. Larson won the Darlington race in the Xfinity Series last month and last year he finished second at Road America and won Watkins Glen in the Xfinity and Cup Series. He also won the Cup Series race at Sonoma in 2021 and has plenty of experience here. If you aren’t playing A.J. Allmendinger, it’s likely you’re playing Larson. He was the fastest in practice by a country mile. Update: He's on a different level right now as he was nearly a second faster than Allmendinger in qualifying and still radio'd to his team he could do better. I normally don't love betting drivers shorter than +300 to win outright but if you threw a couple units at Larson for this race, you have to be feeling good about your chances.

A.J. Allmendinger ($11,100)

Easily one of the top plays on the board because he’s the best road course driver in the field and he at least has 11 Cup Series races under his belt at Sonoma. While his Cup Series results may not stand out, we shouldn’t hold those against him because he wasn’t always in the best equipment. He’s proven time and time again that he can win on road courses in the Xfinity Series with Kaulig Racing. Time to list off his Xfinity Series wins (and close wins) on Road Courses the last few years with this team!

• Circuit of the Americas (COTA): 2023, 2022, and runner-up in 2021
• Mid-Ohio: 2021, and third place in 2019
• Portland: 2022
• Watkins Glen: Runner-up in 2022 and 2021
• Indy Road Course: 2022, runner-up in 2021 BUT he did win the Cup Series race at Indy in 2021 to compensate for the second place in the Xfinity Series that year
• Road America: Runner-up in 2020, and had top six finishes in 2022 and 2021

He’s just too good to pass up on road courses and it doesn’t matter where he starts. He has plenty of win equity, which is what we’re looking for on this type of track. Update: Dinger is a good, not great play. Had good practice speed and qualified P5. But Larson is just so much faster than the field that it's difficult justifying Dinger even on a road course at this price tag unless he wins. He's not in the Core Plays below simply because I don't want to have two $11,000+ drivers in there as Tournament plays. But he is still one of the best road course drivers in this field.

Cole Custer ($10,100)

Custer finally broke through last week with his first win of the season, even though he may have lucked into it. But that happens in racing. Over his last seven races coming into Sonoma he has six finishes in the top five, with the outlier being a seventh-place finish at Dover at the end of April. Custer has two Cup Series races at Sonoma under his belt and he’s also running the ARCA race on Friday so he’ll have extra laps under his belt for this race on Saturday. Update: Custer had a poor showing in qualifying and will start deeper in the field with some PD. He'll likely be a popular play given that he has experience on this track and he won last week.

John Hunter Nemechek ($9,600)

Creed had a solid run last week at Portland. Led a ton of laps and finished seventh. But he’s priced at $9,900 this week and in a field with Kyle Larson and A.J. Allmendinger I won’t pay that much. It is worth notice that Creed was second-fastest in practice. But I will consider John Hunter Nemechek in this range for $300 less. JHN actually looked like he had the best car regardless how we feel about him spinning another drivers. Nemechek finished tenth last week and even though he only led two laps he had ten fastest laps. Update: Creed is fast this week, but with Larson on the pole he's going to need some help to gain the lead. in JHN's case, he at least has a little more PD on his side and can easily be built into Larson lineups.

Parker Kligerman ($8,400)

Kligerman had speed last week at Portland and had an average running position in the top ten and even had plenty of laps in the top five, including running third with four laps to go. Without leading a single lap he recorded 13 fastest laps. His price is diminished because of the presence of the Cup Series drivers and because he finished 14^th, but he still had a top five car last week. Update: Kligerman just missed qualifying for the final round and will start outside the top ten. He's a similar play to last week that has top five upside as long as the car holds up, but better suited for Tournaments and GPP's.

Sammy Smith ($8,200)

Smith was an absolute disaster last week at Portland, and I was very heavy on him in DFS so it’s a miracle I even broke even with last week’s race. Smith had a shifter issue early in the race and while he got back on track it was something he couldn’t recover from. Damage had been done and he finished 30^th. He still has upside on road courses with top five finishes at COTA and Watkins Glen in the last calendar year. He ran the ARCA race Friday night and finished second to Ryan Preece. Update: Sammy Smith qualified for the final round of qualifying and starts P10. I like him for Tournaments with a little PD on his side. Keep in mind he did finish second in the ARCA race on Friday so he picked up some extra track time. Hopefully there are no shifter issues like last week.

Josh Berry ($8,000)

Berry is one of the many regular Xfinity Series driver getting a discount this week. There’s top five upside as we saw last week at Portland and there’s potential for PD based on qualifying given the saturated field of talent. He’s actually 50-1 as of Thursday night to win this race, which is decent considering he has a handful of top five finishes on road courses in his Xfinity Series career. Update: He'll be a popular play tonight given the P18 starting spot and he's arguably a good Cash game play as well.

Chandler Smith ($7,600)

Some folks may go to Brandon Jones. for $200 offering more PD. I prefer Chandler Smith as Jones tends to bust when he's a chalk play and i don't think he'll repeat what he did last week. Smith starts P20 and has top ten upside as we saw last week. He was also 12th at COTA earlier this year, and again, it doesn't hurt that he can go to Allmendinger for some advice this week. Kaz Grala is another good pivot in this range as well that also offers PD.

Daniel Hemric ($7,200)

Hemric was an absolute disaster last week at Portland. Despite being fast in practice, he couldn’t finish the race as his car caught fire under caution. I still have interest in Hemric because the price tag keeps dropping and he’s capable of a top ten. He only has one race at Sonoma under his belt and it came in his brief tenure in the Cup Series back in 2019, but he did finish in the top 15. He can’t possibly have a worse week than last week so I’ll be optimistic and assume the car shows up with speed once again. He’ll only be viable in Cash games if he starts outside the top 20 so let’s assume he’s a contrarian GPP play this weekend. He was posting some pretty fast laps in practice finishing tenth in practice. His teammate, Chandler Smith, was right behind him and is a fine play for $400 more, but I’ll give Hemric the lean heading into qualifying on Saturday. Update: GPP-only since he laid down a pretty good qualifying effort.

Aric Almirola ($7,100)

Almirola is in the 28-car as RSS Racing is entering four cars this weekend. That could mean that their spreading themselves a little thin in terms of equipment and the costs to get the cars out to the West coast. Or on the other hand, it could mean that SHR is funding this car and the setup. $7,100 is a good price tag for a Cup Series driver in the Xfinity Series considering he’s only $6,500 for Sunday’s race. Almirola has plenty of experience at Sonoma and during his time with SHR he has three top 15 finishes in four races at Sonoma including a pair of top ten finishes. I expect he’ll be popular because of the price tag and experience, so don’t be too overweight here.

Alex Labbe ($7,000)

Labbe wasn’t initially on the entry list for Sonoma but he’s been added to the 29-car for RSS Racing that is normally occupied by Kyle Sieg. In comparison to the normal DGM equipment that he runs in, I like to think this is an equipment upgrade from Labbe although maybe not by much. DGM is notorious for setting their cars up well on road courses so I was already a bit high on them. The other knock on Labbe this week is that, while he is a road course specialist, he doesn’t have experience on Sonoma. But with the level of talent in the field this week, we’re getting discounts on the usual faces in the Xfinity Series so I’m intrigued with Labbe in this equipment this weekend. Update: Qualified pretty well so he's more of a GPP play this week given that there are plenty of drivers behind him that can likely pass him. Still has some top ten equity but not as much as last week. Brett Moffitt is a decent pivot in this range that nobody is going to play. Historically he's not a great road racer but he has speed in his car and had a strong performance last week at Portland.

Jeb Burton ($6,600)

Burton was having a very strong race at Portland last week. He finished 25^th, but was regularly running in the top 15 for the first 70 laps. He had an average running position of 13^th but got into a few on-track incidents with Chandler Smith and that spilled over into pit road with Burton thinking he landed significant shots on the younger driver. Either way, we can turn the page and focus on the positive, because the car was solid last week despite the poor finish. And there’s a $600 discount this week so keep an eye on where he qualifies. He did lose some laps during practice because he had a tire go down, but he’s one of the few value plays we can feel okay about this weekend. Update: Qualified P30. Good play in all formats.

Connor Mosack ($6,200)

Mosack had a great run last week at Portland finishing in the top ten and tonight he starts just inside the top 30. He has PD and is more comfortable on road courses so he's live for Cash games and Tournaments. Some folks may prefer Anthony Alfredo but keep in mind he's going to a backup car on an already awful team. The good news is Alfredo can't really hurt your lineups. I still prefer Mosack though.

Ryan Sieg ($6,100)

Sieg wasn’t outstanding last week, and he isn’t a great road course driver in general, but he’s $6,100 after being $7,900 last week. So this is mostly a discount play. He finished 18^th at Portland last week and he was 23^rd earlier in the year at COTA. Again, not a great driver on road courses and I don’t expect the practice session on Friday to convince me otherwise. However, this is just too cheap for Sieg and he still has top 20 upside and will likely offer some PD. As expected, he sucked in practice but is still one of the better drivers in this range. Update: Qualified poorly which was expected. But the car is still very good for this price range and doesn't need to do much to return value.

Parker Retzlaff ($5,600)

Retzlaff has finished 17^th in both road course races so far at COTA and Portland this season. Not bad for a guy who primarily comes from a short track background and is still finding his footing in this series. He doesn’t have any experience at Sonoma obviously, but with the 50-minute practice session on Friday, and the ARCA race, he’ll get plenty of laps in to get comfortable on this track. Retzlaff was top 20 in single-lap speed during Friday’s practice session. Update: Tournament-only play. Qualified too well for Cash games.

Josh Bilicki ($5,400)

Bilicki, unlike almost half the field, actually does have experience at Sonoma so this track isn’t new to him. He posted a top 20 lap during Friday’s practice which isn’t bad for a value play. He’ll be driving for DGM and I’ve already talked them up ad nausea for road courses. There is still some risk with Bilicki because he could maybe get you zero points or he breaks the slate with a top 20 finish, which he did last year at Road America and Watkins Glen driving for Alpha Prime Racing. Consider him a value play in this range, but I do like the speed he had in practice and I just hope he runs a clean race and chips away at some PD. Update: Fringe Cash game play. The good news is I don't think we need to go down this low in Cash games. Good Tournament play that had great speed yesterday.

Josh Williams ($5,200)

Williams is having a very strong year by his standards. He has seven top 20 finishes in a dozen races in 2023 with five of those coming in his last six races. As mentioned last week in the Playbook for Portland, DGM Racing does well in setting up their cars for road courses. And it showed last week with Labbe finishing 11^th and Williams moving up to finish 16^th. He still doesn’t have the upside the Labbe has but I do like the value we have been getting on him. And while things got a little aggressive on pit road at Portland with Jeb Burton confronting all of Kaulig Racing, it was our boy Josh Williams popping into frame at the end of this clip with a quality fist bump after his solid finish…

The guy is so likable, and he’s been a solid DFS value play recently. Let’s keep the momentum rolling into the upcoming off week. Update: GPP-Only.

Joe Graf Jr. ($4,900)

Graf had a good run last week at Portland where he started P33 and finished 23^rd for 29 fantasy points on DraftKings. At a sub-$5,000 price tag he’s a good value for a driver that’ll be driving in RSS Racing equipment. The fantasy upside is probably a similar run to last week, but if you can even squeeze 20 fantasy points out of a driver in this range you’ll take it and run. He did get off track during the practice session, but he recovered well and kept the car running. Update: Starting dead last and can't kill you with negative points.

Fantasy NASCAR DFS Core Plays