NASCAR DFS Playbook & Top Picks: USA Today 301

New Hampshire Motor Speedway is hosting the USA Today 301 on Sunday. The Magic Mile, as it’s known, in Loudon is one of the more unique tracks on the NASCAR schedule. It may match a few others in shape, distance, and banking, but the eccentricities of the track are unique.

Weather Forecast For Loudon, New Hampshire

Rain and wetness. That’s the simplest way to put it. It rained off and on enough to cancel qualifying and most of practice for the Cup series on Saturday. More is expected overnight and Sunday morning. There is a window to race on Sunday, though NASCAR did move up the Green Flag time about 30 minutes for Sunday to increase the window. If they get past halfway, and storms roll in, expect NASCAR to call a rain-shortened race.

Race Trends at New Hampshire Motor Speedway

The chart below shows the stats in key categories over the last five races at New Hampshire. While the cars are different in that span, the racing style hasn’t changed much here so it’s applicable across car generations.

The first thing that sticks out with the table below is that starting in the top-10 is a big advantage. Not only do nearly 70% of top-10 finishers start inside the top-12 but 74% of laps led here have come from the top-10 starters. So for dominator points, we’re looking for drivers starting in the top-10. However, to put the cool water on dominators a bit, we’ve generally seen just one driver top 100 laps led per race here. Like last week, and Gateway, we’re going to need to nail the laps led dominator to really have a shot being high on the leaderboards.

The second thing that shows up is that like a short track, passing in the back half of the field is possible. That’s evidenced by the 5.2 drivers a race posting 10+ PD and the 10.2 drivers a race with 6+ PD spots. However, the counter to that is that just about half the field finishes on the lead lap on average at 18.6 drivers a race on the lead lap.

DraftKings Scoring Trends

The chart below shows the average points scored on DraftKings by starting position over the last five races. Scoring is based solely on starting spot and not driver, car, nor team, nor why they started there. It’s designed to show strategy and not hard-and-fast rules about scoring.

FanDuel Scoring Trends

The chart below shows the average points scored on FanDuel by starting position over the last five races. Scoring is based solely on starting spot and not driver, car, nor team, nor why they started there. It’s designed to show strategy and not hard-and-fast rules about scoring.

USA Today 301 NASCAR DFS Strategy

We’ve talked about the forecast, the trends, the scoring, so how about the strategy? Things are going to be a bit loopy early in the race as drivers try to sort out what they have in their cars and what they need. It’s also going to be loopy for a bit if/when they go to the wet weather tires during the race. When things get sorted out though, we’ll need to focus on laps led. As we talked about above, one driver has been the dominant laps leader in most of the last five races and once the first stage sorts out, we should expect that again. Much like other shorter, flatter tracks this year, passing up front will be tough but getting spots further back in the dirty air should be easier, including on restarts. We saw a bunch of spots gained on and following restarts in the Xfinity race on Saturday. Look for similar results on Sunday. Tire wear, on a dry track, can be a factor late in runs as well. So overall, we’re building lineups like we did for Phoenix, Richmond, Gateway, and Iowa this year.

Drivers To Build DraftKings and FanDuel Lineups Around

Top-Tier Salary Drivers

Christopher Bell

Bell won his fourth straight Xfinity race at New Hampshire on Saturday and will start P4 on Sunday. He does have a win here in the Cup series too. Given his extra track time and time with the wet weather tires that others didn’t get, he should be at an advantage with that as well. The Toyota contingent has been great in this short, flat track setup and if he can hang around up front long enough to get a read on his car, he should be a threat late on Sunday. Hey, perhaps that will make up for spilling the Chase Briscoe secret on Friday.

Denny Hamlin

This has been a track that’s matched Hamlin’s driving style and setups quite well in the past. While Iowa was an utterly terrible run, those happen from time to time and we should be more intrigued by his long run of being arguably the best driver at the similar tracks to New Hampshire in the Next Gen car. We also get some nice PD from Hamlin as he moves up into the top-five by race’s end if not winding up running from a crustacean when all is said and done.

Martin Truex Jr.

This has been Truex’s playground in the Next Gen era with a win, 420+ laps led, and four stage wins. However, this P7 starting spot is the furthest back he’s starting here in the Next Gen car. Always a tad concerning to play Truex without seeing much, or any, real practice runs but given the dominance here and his solid speeds at Gateway and Iowa of late, it eases things a bit. He can be played in either format.

Ryan Blaney

It’s been a heck of a roll for Blaney of late. What should’ve been a win, if not top-3, at Gateway and a dominant win at Iowa. Now comes a third similar track in four races and Blaney is starting P2. That just happens to be where Blaney started last week with questionable practice speed. He should be able to threaten for another win here this week, despite not the best track history given the run and momentum he’s got coming in.

Kyle Larson

Thanks to wrecking out at Iowa last week, Larson will start P17 on Sunday. Just what we need, and the field needs, Larson with PD upside. Now, that being said, he’s not run the best here in his career and if you believe the scoring above, P17 is only average at scoring. However, we have to take a shot in some builds on Larson shrugging off poor runs previously and will threatened for a top-five kind of like what he did last year starting P15 and finishing P3.

Mid-Tier Salary Drivers

Chase Elliott

Elliott continued his strongest career start to a year with a great run at Iowa last week. While the finish wasn’t necessarily what we hoped for, he arguably ran better than that. Now, due to qualifying being cancelled, he’ll be on pole for Sunday’s race. That should give him the leg up in early laps led, at least till the expected competition caution. If he can get wide on restarts and hold his line, he could lead perhaps most of Stage 1. That being said, if he doesn’t hold the spot, there’s very little value here making him kind of a boom or bust candidate and reserved for GPPs.

Chris Buescher

The last two shorter, flatter tracks haven’t gone as well as Buescher would’ve hoped but he’s still been consistently quick. Keselowski has been the more consistent in terms of finish but we’ll take the PD and cost savings, and therefore inherited value from Buescher. The other fact to think about is that Keselowski has been giving tips to Buescher all week about how this track drives and the nuances of it to try and improve his runs here.

Kyle Busch

At some point things have to get better for Busch right? It’s not been a great season for him so far and he seemed pretty over things at Iowa last week. We’re at a track he’s run well at in the past and he had speed at both Gateway and Iowa recently that wasn’t indicative of his finishes. Starting P30 he’s likely to be a popular cash play for the PD upside and we can make the argument for GPPs that his risky finishes this year makes him a great risk-reward candidate in a weird way.

Daniel Suarez

This has been a good track for Suarez in the Next Gen car with a P12 and P9 finish. For the newly-minted U.S. citizen what better way to cap off the good week with another good run here? Phoenix and New Hampshire are his best tracks right now in this package and they’re the two that drive most similarly. Starting P11 is a tad higher than we may have wanted to see, but he did start pretty high here last year and still ran well so let’s roll with another weird play and perhaps even get leverage.

Value Tier Salary Drivers

Todd Gilliland

It hasn’t much mattered what track they’ve been at recently, Gilliland has shown up. Since the beginning of May, Gilliland hasn’t finished worse than P17 at any race and that includes starting inside the top-20 as well. The secret is out on Gilliland but perhaps with the Toddfather starting where he is, less people will play him and we’ll still have leverage on the field.

Carson Hocevar

Starting P20 has been great news for Hocevar the last few races. He’s finished P14 and P8 at Iowa and Gateway respectively after starting P20 at both. He’s starting P20 again on Sunday and Hocevar has finished P19 or better four times in six similar races. That’s enough confidence to make him an attractive play in the budget tier.

Justin Haley

Haley is coming off of a P9 and P13 in the last two similar races to New Hampshire. When we factor in his P20 and P17 finishes at New Hampshire in the Next Gen era, it’s a good time to be Haley. Starting P24 thanks to the good recent runs, should make him an shoe in for another top-20 and a shot at over 5x value.

Harrison Burton

Let’s keep the theme of getting weird in the Granite State going. It’s been a rough go of it for Burton this year to be sure, however he’s coming off a good run at Iowa. The last top-20 showing for him on a similar track? New Hampshire last year when he started P28. His job is rumored to be in jeopardy, why not choose Sunday and a track he’s run well at before to make a case for a new gig?

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