Pennzoil 250 DFS Picks & NASCAR Playbook: Indianapolis Motor Speedway
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The NASCAR Xfinity Series runs through Indianapolis Motor Speedway this weekend! After four years running the Indianapolis Road Course, the Xfinity drivers will run the hallowed grounds of the oval. The bad news is that the data set is small.
We can compare this track to higher speed intermediates such as Pocono, Michigan, and possibly Auto Club, which has since been torn down. But luckily, we just saw all three series race at Pocono last week.
We know who is certainly capable of showing up with speed for this race in particular. It’s the final week of the NASCAR season before the lengthy break for the Olympics. Here are the top NASCAR DFS picks regarding drivers and lineup building strategies for Saturday’s Pennzoil 250!
Pennzoil 250 NASCAR DFS Lineup Picks
The strategy largely remains unchanged from last week for the Xfinity Series. Although we do have 10 more laps for this race than last week at Pocono. The stages will be broken into segments of 30-30-40. 100 laps will give us 70 dominator points at most. And we know that we won’t see that many when we account for cautions. A more realistic number is around 60 dominator points.
But Indianapolis is one of the most historic tracks in all of racing. The complex is massive and looks visually appealing whether in person or even on television. This is a 2.5-mile oval with four true turns. The straights are flat with absolutely no banking, while the turns are about 9.2 degrees. The track is 99.999% asphalt with a small strip of bricks marking the start-finish line.
Similar to last week’s race we are looking for drivers that thrive on intermediate tracks that require more horsepower. The downside is, as we mentioned, both the Xfinity and Cup Series have run the road course at this track the last few years. Auto Club is a fine comparison as well, but they tore that track down and that racing saw more tire wear.
So, we really have just Pocono and Michigan to work with. Some of the plays we identify below are drivers who either looked great last week, have good equipment, or perhaps they’re just better on the few comparable tracks.
Not a lot of drivers in this field have a ton of experience at this track. And remember, pit road is probably the most narrow of any track on the schedule. There’s no infield to run off to in case there’s contact on pit road. If you have contact, you’re going into a wall or someone’s pit box.
For this race, I’ll mostly be building with win equity in mind. I do expect that this becomes a strategy race for fuel mileage similar to what we saw last week at Pocono although it didn’t come into play nearly as much as we all thought it would. But I’ll be playing around with solo-and-two dominator builds for this race.
As always, once we know the starting lineup and have dissected the practice results, I will provide updates in RED in addition to the driver pool at the very bottom of the article.
Friday afternoon, Bob Pockrass tweeted that the Xfinity Series will be using their intermediate aero package, but also utilize the superspeedway engine package. So we could see more drafting on the long straights and likely explains why Austin Hill is the most expensive driver in the field.
Top Price Core Plays
Cole Custer ($10,200)
Custer isn’t necessarily my favorite play in the top tier, but I do feel obligated to mention him following the win last week at Pocono. Custer certainly had a great car. I don’t necessarily think it was the best car, but he had the best track position when it mattered most.
He started P8 and won the race with 14.8 dominator points. It took a while but the defending Xfinity Series champion got his first win of the year and he carries that momentum into Indy this weekend.
He ran here three times in the Xfinity Series from 2017-2019. In that span he wrecked once but then finished fifth and seventh in the two other races. Even in the lone Cup Series race he competed in at the oval, he grabbed a top five.
We also have some rumors that he’s due to be announced as making the jump back to the NASCAR Cup Series for the 2025 season. So, he’s coming off a win and about to get promoted back to racing on Sundays, so there’s plenty going for him right now.
Update: Custer is on the pole next to his teammate, Riley Herbst. Good win equity if they can maintain track position.
Justin Allgaier ($10,000)
It seems a bit silly that we ran a somewhat comparable track just a week ago, when Allgaier had one of the three best cars in the field, and yet he’s $1,000 cheaper this week. Allgaier started third and finished second last week with a dozen dominator points.
When the Xfinity Series did run the oval at Indianapolis, Allgaier certainly had success. He finished fifth in 2016 (102.5 driver rating), won the race in 2018 (134.6 driver rating) with 41 laps led, and finished second in 2018 (131.1 driver rating) with 24 laps led.
He’ll be in some of the best equipment in the field for this race and he carries experience, good speed on comparable tracks, and great track history. We really can’t ask for much else ahead of practice and qualifying.
Update: Allgaier starts just inside the top 10 so he offers a little PD and has a chance to move up and lead laps later on.
Aric Almirola ($9,800)
Almirola is back with Joe Gibbs Racing for Saturday’s race. He was supposed to return a few weeks ago at Nashville but news broke that he was suspended by JGR after an altercation with Bubba Wallace. But he’s back and we’ve had a great sample of races from Almirola this year.
He wrecked at Phoenix but finished second with 95 laps led at Richmond and then he won at Martinsville with 148 laps led. He even managed to grab a top five at Darlington.
Obviously, Indianapolis isn’t a short, flat track. It’s much larger but is still relatively flat. Almirola had some very strong runs at the Cup Series level when they ran the oval at Indy. He finished third in 2020 and also grabbed top 15 finishes in 2017 and 2019. And Pocono has secretly been a pretty solid track for him in recent years.
He does have some win equity in this car and we’ve seen him find his way to the front when he has raced in this field. $9,800 could be a soft price tag and easy for him to crush if he can get to the lead. His experience here will mean a little more this weekend.
Mid-Price Core Plays
AJ Allmendinger ($9,000)
Allmendinger is probably one of the few drivers in the field not thrilled that they’re taking the road course off the schedule, and instead going back to the oval. Allmendinger is a phenomenal road course driver and claimed wins on Indy’s road course in both the Xfinity and Cup Series.
But still, even without the road course, it’s entirely possible that he can still have a strong race. Last week it was noted how Allmendinger, in previous Xfinity Series seasons with Kaulig Racing, could do well on these higher speed intermediates. He started 10th and finished sixth with eight fastest laps.
It’s been about six years since he’s raced on the Indy oval in any capacity. But he still carries more experience on this track than most of the field and he also has a win at Michigan on his resume. He’s one of the few drivers that actually saw a price increase following last week’s action, but that could make him more of a leverage play by the time we go green for this race.
Riley Herbst ($8,600)
With news they'll be running this race with superspeedway engines, I'm inclined to give Herbst a bump. He's the 10th-most expensive driver in the field. However, he's tied for the fifth-best odds to win outright and he had top five speed in practice.
Parker Kligerman ($8,500)
I’ve been underweight on Kligerman all year. I swear, if he wrecks this week that would be just so fitting one of the few times I do write him up. But I’m going to give the guy some love because he’s incredibly likable and this organization isn’t too bad.
The 48-car has had very nice speed the last handful of races. In six of his last seven races, Kligerman has finished 11th or better. Granted, he does tend to qualify pretty well, but the reason he’s only averaging 27.8 fantasy points on DraftKings is because he typically qualifies well and rarely offers position differential.
He may be a better driver to get a bet on than play in DFS. The car packs speed, but there’s still a bit of variance so I get the sense he’ll mostly be a tournament play.
Update: Kligerman was able to lay down the second-fastest lap in practice.
Update #2: So Kligerman was fast in practice and was in the process of a very fast lap in qualifying. However, he tagged the wall on his qualifying lap and will start at the back of the field. Lock him in for cash games because of the floor and the ownership. In tournaments it could be difficult for the team to make the necessary fixes in just about two hours. The damage wasn't severe but this is a track position race and he has a lot of ground to make up.
Carson Kvapil ($7,800)
The mid-range is a little odd this week. I do want to prioritize drivers with experience and ones who performed well last week. But we have some very young drivers that don’t have a ton of experience on Indy’s oval. It’s not the end all be all, and by no means does Kvapil have a ton of experience, but we’ve seen some great runs from him this year.
He’s back in the 88-car this weekend for Jr. Motorsports so we’re certainly getting great equipment at a discount. But it is worth mentioning, he’s run five races this year. His three best performances came at Martinsville, Dover, and New Hampshire where he was top five at all three. They just don’t compare to Indianapolis at all.
He raced at Darlington and Nashville, and while he finished in the top 20 at both tracks, he didn’t seem as comfortable on those tracks. Now he heads to an even larger track where he has no experience.
So we are certainly taking a risk here. The equipment is great and the “pedigree” is there for Kvapil as a young driver. But we can’t go all in here simply because of what he’s done on shorter tracks.
Update: Slight downgrade since he qualified so well. You can still pay him in deep-field GPP's but we avoid this play in cash games.
Value Price Core Plays
Joe Graf Jr. ($7,500)
Graf is basically JGR’s version of Carson Kvapil this week. We have a driver who, while not as young as Kvapil, just doesn’t have the experience the rest of the field does. But Graf will be given a top tier car for this race.
I wasn’t even anticipating plugging Graf into this article when the entry list came out earlier in the week. I thought he was going to be $1,000 more. Graf ran six races with Joe Gibbs Racing last year. He grabbed top 15 finishes at Auto Club and Vegas early on. Then later in the year he was top 10 at Kansas and Homestead.
So I do like that he did well on the intermediates. And I’m perfectly fine taking a gamble on this play if he offers PD. But again, we try to spread exposure around in this range so we don’t land on a driver that blows up as a chalk value play.
Update: Graf looked pretty sporty in practice. He was one of the few drivers to log a 10-lap run and his speed indicated the car could have top 10 speed.
Ryan Sieg ($7,300)
Sieg is coming off a solid run at Pocono last week. He was an okay DFS play because he finished 12th but he also started P7 and led four laps. But mind you, he did spill the beans that he was basically running a Stewart-Haas Racing car.
If he brings the same car again, there’s certainly some intrigue with this play. We do run the risk of him qualifying well, similar to last week. Sieg has run the oval at Indy seven times in his career. He finished 14th or better in four of his last five races here, but again, the last race on the oval for the Xfinity Series was five years ago.
Similarly enough, Michigan is also a pretty strong track for Sieg so all signs are points to the 39-car being a viable option once again. And if we get wind that SHR is setting up the car once again, then we’ll go back to the well.
Jeb Burton ($7,100)
Adding Burton to the player pool ahead of qualifying Saturday morning. With news that they're running with superspeedway engines, that definitely helps a driver like Burton. His two wins in the Xfinity Series both came at Talladega and he put down the sixth-fastest lap in practice early in the run when the track wasn't all that warm nor did it have a ton of rubber.
But even teammate, Parker Retzlaff laid down a top 10 lap and he was only able to get two laps in practice because he put his car in the wall. Looks like this organization brought some competitive cars for Saturday's race.
Anthony Alfredo ($6,600)
I’m not loving a lot of the options below $6,500. Even our beloved Brennan Poole ($6,000) received a price bump up to an even $6K. So, we’ll have to see how qualifying shakes out. But I’m going right back to Alfredo after he finished 14th last week at Pocono.
It wasn’t a great DFS performance simply because he didn’t offer a ton of PD. But we were anticipating speed in the 5-car for Our Motorsports, and Fast Pasta delivered.
So without seeing who has rolled off the truck fast, I will lean into Alfredo again. Both Michigan and Auto Club (now defunct) are some of his best tracks and we know he’s a better play on the higher speed intermediates, and even the superspeedways.
Update: Qualified very well and will start P5. Burton and Daly are better pivots.
Conor Daly ($6,500)
Daly is an Indianapolis native and has raced in the Indianapolis 500 before with IndyCar. And to his credit, he’s done pretty well! He’s finished top 10 in three straight Indy 500’s and even led 22 laps in this year’s race.
He’s run a pair of Xfinity Series races in his career in addition to three Truck Series races. But for those races, he was never really in the greatest equipment. For the Pennzoil 250 he’ll be in the 26-car for Sam Hunt Racing. This car isn’t the greatest, but Corey Heim has run well in it this year and it’s easily the best ride he’ll have to date in NASCAR.
With the experience of racing here plenty, and being an Indy native for that matter, Daly might just be one of the better options in this range, but I doubt there will be leverage here given that everyone knows he’s in the 26-car.
Update: He looked very fast in practice and will draw a lot of attention for today's contests.
Pennzoil 250 NASCAR DFS Driver Pool
The NASCAR DFS driver pool will be published Saturday after qualifying.