The second trip to Atlanta Motor Speedway is this weekend with the Quaker State 400 on Sunday evening. We’ve become used to see the excitement at the redesigned Atlanta that’s produced races like Daytona and Talladega rather than the tire-wear races we’d seen resemble Darlington. For NASCAR DFS that means a lot of volatility to account for when we’re building DFS lineups on DraftKings and FanDuel. If you listen to the podcast (click the play button below) you’ll hear Dan Malin and I breaking down the strategy that we’ve found successful here. Don’t worry though, we’ll have it written up below as well as more stats and charts to look at to back up the strategy. We’re setting up for another great race in the Summer stretch with the Quaker State 400 on Sunday.

Are We Stacking The Back at Atlanta?

We spend a lot of time talking about how Atlanta is now a plate race equal to that of Daytona and Talladega. However, that doesn’t me were are full building lineups like it’s those two tracks. While the most recent optimal lineups here, since they redesigned it, still have a few drivers starting P25 or worse, it’s not entirely that. In fact, the last two optimal lineups have had the pole sitter in them which we never have at Daytona and Talladega. It is still a 1.5-mile track which means that passing for the lead can be just as tough as we’re used to seeing at Las Vegas. So in essence, we’re not going a full stack-the-back strategy but we are doing a partial stacking of the back. We’re still building lineups leaving two spots for drivers starting in the top-15 and the rest starting outside the top-25 but in reality just about anyone is in play.

Do We Need Dominator Points at Atlanta?

Typically we wouldn’t be looking for laps led from our lineups at plate races because they are far harder to come by more than a few at a time. This weekend that’s going to be different. We’ve seen 1-2 drivers dominate each race so far since the redesign including this Spring when laps led certainly mattered. With the track being 1.5 miles per lap that means there’s 267 laps in Sunday’s race which clearly makes them a stat to target, especially on DraftKings. The last two pole sitters led more than 90 laps in the race, yet another reason to target laps led and fastest laps here. The average points tables will bare this out as well.

Average Points By Starting Position at Atlanta

These charts are using the last three races at Atlanta, the ones since the redesign, and take the drivers in those starting spots out of the equation.

What’s The Weather Forecast In Atlanta?

I know we’re sick of rain at this point following Chicago, but there is a chance of rain in Atlanta this weekend. It’s supposed to have a shot at raining earlier in the day on Sunday but it should be racing as scheduled at 7pm ET. That being said, if it does rain, that will cool things down even more which should put more grip into the track as well.

Stacks

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