Rackley Roofing 200 DFS Picks & NASCAR Playbook: Nashville Superspeedway

It has been four weeks since the trucks have gone racing, but the Craftsman Truck Series is back under the lights to kick off the weekend! Nashville Superspeedway plays host this weekend to all three NASCAR series. It’s the fourth straight year that Nashville has fallen onto the calendar, and this is a big one for these drivers. 

We have just four races left in the regular for the Truck Series. It’s hard to believe we’re this close to the playoffs, but only four full-time Truck Series drivers are locked into the playoffs with wins. This is a tremendous opportunity for someone new to punch their ticket to the playoffs. Let’s take a look at the NASCAR DFS strategies and top plays for the Rackley Roofing 200!

Rackley Roofing 200 NASCAR DFS Lineup Picks

Nashville Superspeedway does not quite live up to its name. It’s only 1.33 miles in length which is half the size of legitimate superspeedways like Daytona and Talladega. So, we will pull data from comparable intermediate tracks. But we can also look at Bristol Motor Speedway as a comparable track. Nashville’s unique trait is that it’s one of the few tracks on the schedule that is concrete, similar to Bristol. A majority of tracks are asphalt.

This is a one-day show for the Truck Series. That means we’ll get practice, qualifying, and the race on Friday. Practice will start at 4:30pm ET and qualifying will follow at 5:00pm ET with the race going green just after 8:00pm ET. It’s a short window to adjust DFS lineups on DraftKings but as always, there will be updates to this Playbook once we know the starting lineup.

We’ve seen the Truck Series run here the last three years. Ryan Preece won the first two races while Carson Hocevar got the win last year. We’ll have 150 laps for this race and the stages are broken into 45-50-55 lap segments.

In the three races since 2021, we’ve seen multiple dominators in all three races. The 2021 and 2023 versions saw three drivers lead at least 30 laps, and two of those drivers led 40+ laps. The 2022 race saw Ryan Preece and Zane Smith both lead over 70 laps.

Passing hasn’t been too difficult here. The stage breaks certainly help but each of the last two years we’ve seen seven and eight cautions respectively for at least 40 laps. That’s somewhat of a bummer when you consider nearly one-third of the race could potentially be run under yellow. But we take those punches with the lower levels.

I’m expecting the winner to come from within those drivers starting in the first four rows. Moreover, I expect most of the top 10 finishers to start within the top 15. And you can sprinkle in some drivers starting deeper in the field to get lucky and move up or strategize properly. For the most part, we can take a typical two-dominator approach and mix in some position differential. But as always, be on the lookout for Friday afternoon’s updates after qualifying.

Rackley Roofing 200 Practice Notes

Top Price Core Plays

Corey Heim ($11,000)

Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Once again, we kick things off with Corey Heim. And why not? He’s the heavy favorite to win the Craftsman Truck Series Championship although we can’t sleep on Christian Eckes. But DraftKings just seems afraid to raise his price tag even though he averages over 60 fantasy points per race. Paying off the price tag hasn’t been a problem.

Heim may have finished fourth in last year’s race. But he did lead over 50 laps and posted a driver rating over 120.

You just have to hope that the long layoff for this series doesn’t come with rust. Heim has four wins on the season, but his momentum has been off the charts. He’s led over 60 laps in each of the last five races.

He also has a big opportunity on Sunday as he’ll be racing for 23XI Racing for the NASCAR Cup Series’ Ally 400. He can certainly kick off the weekend with a win in the Music City.

Update: He qualified P7 but still had good speed in practice. Eckes is starting P3 and has an easier path to early dominator points if you choose to go that route.

Nicholas Sanchez ($10,500)

For now, I’m skipping over Christian Eckes. I’m sure he’ll make some of my lineups, but I feature him and Corey Heim together almost every week. Sanchez has really come into his own this year. He has two wins (Daytona and Charlotte) and the performance on the intermediate tracks has been solid.

He’s finished seventh or better in seven straight races, so we’ve certainly seen the growth and maturity from him in his second full-time season. He doesn’t have the massive dominator upside that Heim does. However, there’s sneaky appeal here. He’s won two races and does put himself in contention late in the race. 

Update: HUGE update regarding Sanchez. He tagged the real incredibly hard. The good news is that he now offers a lot of position differential. The bad news is that team has less than two hours to fix the damage. The tail of the truck and right-rear quarter panel sustained a lot of damage. It's unclear if that truck will be fit for racing tonight. Cash games? Totally fine if you want to play him for the floor. The truck did look fast. I'm only doing three lineups tonight and I'm going to avoid him entirely as the team attempts to prepare a backup truck.

Ty Majeski ($10,300)

I know that Clint Bowyer ($10,000) is in this race. But while the truck should be set up well, I just don’t know how much upside he possesses after not having raced in a couple years. But I do like how Majeski is trending.

A year ago at this time, we were watching the Heim vs. Majeski show all summer. Heim continued the momentum into 2024. But Majeski had a bit of a slow start this year. He still doesn’t have a win, but we’ve seen him knocking on the door.

Majeski might have more dominator potential than Nicholas Sanchez. Majeski has led 35+ laps in five different races this year. And three of those races include comparable tracks like Vegas, Darlington, and even Gateway to an extent.

He’s a bit plagued since the cheating scandal last year but he has top five equity and can once again go out and collect dominator points for our lineups.

Update: Qualified P4. Still fine to play him in Tournaments.

Mid-Price Core Plays

Ben Rhodes ($9,000)

Rhodes had a poor qualifying effort and starts outside the top 25. He makes the table below based purely on the position differential. I do think Taylor Gray ($9,300) still possesses more of a ceiling. Gray got slightly loose in qualifying but didn't take any damage. So he'll start P18 but the truck has speed.

Rajah Caruth ($8,800)

Caruth has definitely cooled off from his hot start to the 2024 season. He finished in the top eight in five of the first six races this year, including his win at Vegas. Over the last six races he hasn’t finished in the top 10 at all.

So, he doesn’t quite have momentum coming into this race. But the speed on the intermediate tracks has certainly been there in 2024. We all know of the win at Vegas. But he flashed top 10 speed at Bristol, Kansas, and Charlotte.

Because of the cold streak, we are seeing more of a discount on Caruth. But we know this Spire Motorsports organization is investing heavily in better equipment and he shows up most weeks with speed. The errors do tend to be his own doing so we’re just hoping for a clean race.

Update: Qualified P5 which is high. He basically will need some dominator points but the truck was very fast in practice.

Tanner Gray ($8,200)

Gray got loose in qualifying and tagged the wall, but not nearly as hard as Sanchez. I imagine they'll make the necessary repairs and have the truck ready, but he will offer a ton of PD.

Matt Crafton ($8,000)

Nobody needed a bit of a break more than Crafton did. Hopefully the last few weeks did him some good. In his last eight races he only has one top 10 finish. In his last four races he managed to finish 20th (twice), which isn’t great given the expectations for a ThorSport driver, and he also finished outside the top 30 at Darlington and Charlotte.

But the read on Crafton is the same as it’s been all year; he qualifies poorly and moves up. The running position has definitely been better than the final results. But the experience and equipment still carry some weight.

In the last three Nashville races, Crafton has moved up at least eight spots in each race. If he puts up another poor qualifying effort, then he does have 40+ point upside if he can grab that elusive top 10 finish.

Update: More of the same from Crafton's qualifying efforts. He'll roll off P19.

Brenden Queen ($7,500)

Butterbean is back, baby! Queen had a phenomenal run at North Wilkesboro where he made his debut earlier this season. Ultimately, he started P26 and finished fourth and absolutely smashed value at his price tag.

It also helps that the equipment is pretty darn good. He’ll be back in the 1-truck for TRICON Garage which is comparable equipment to Corey Heim and the Gray Brothers.

This isn’t the track type that fits what he grew up racing on. But there’s definitely upside as we saw at North Wilkesboro, and I’m stunned he’s only $300 more than where he was at for his debut earlier this year. Definitely keep an eye on him during practice because he’ll qualify early with a cooler track and may start deep in the field once again.

Update: He either starts P12 or P13. NASCAR's website showed that he and Stefan Parsons laid down identical lap times so I don't know yet who starts P12 or P13 but both are still viable.

Value Price Core Plays

Kaden Honeycutt ($6,900)

Honeycutt is the “nice” play of the week. But honestly, he’s so underpriced based on what we’ve seen this year. Honeycutt has only run five races this year for Niece Motorsports. His worst finish is 12th at Bristol but in the other four races he’s finished in the top 10.

Ahead of practice and qualifying, he should be on everybody’s radar as a value play. And it isn’t like this is a fluke either. At Charlotte, he started P9 and finished eighth. He didn’t lead a single lap and still churned out 18 fastest laps which is impressive to do while driving in traffic.

He’s definitely making a name for himself and could potentially be in line for an equipment upgrade for the 2025 season. But we’ll keep our eyes on the prize and strictly focus on the immense value he offers for Friday’s race.

Update: Risky starting P7 but he's a great Tournament play at a cheap cost. Nobody will want to play him.

Stefan Parsons ($6,800)

Parsons, like Honeycutt, is a part-time driver. Parsons has been with Henderson Motorsports this year and we’ve seen some of the best results from him in recent memory.

This team is small, and they don’t have many full-time drivers. But they seemingly provide a decent truck every week. Parson finished top 20 this season at Daytona, Bristol, COTA, Texas, and North Wilkesboro.

At this price tag he doesn’t really need to do much to pay off the price tag especially knowing there’s top 20 potential. If he can qualify around P25 for this race, he would just need to finish about 17th to pay off his price tag.

Update: See Brenden Queen's section.

Timmy Hill ($6,100) & Bret Holmes ($6,000)

It’s been a few weeks so it’s just fun to remind you all that both these drivers are in play on a whenever we see the Truck Series. The general rule of thumb has been that Hill is the cash game play while Holmes is the better GPP play. As always, that can change after qualifying.

But we are seeing a price increase on both drivers this week. Luckily for us, the inflation isn’t too drastic. Hill has returned 30+ fantasy points in eight races this year. Holmes has done that seven times, but he does offer more of a ceiling than Hill.

Both drivers typically qualify outside the top 25 and I’m expecting more of the same this week. Timmy Hill did finish 16th last year in this race, while Holmes was caught up in a wreck. But we will keep them on our radar once again ahead of Friday’s race.

Update: Hill starts P25 and Holmes starts P30. Holmes might be the better cash game option this week but they can each still score 30+ fantasy points on DraftKings.

Rackley Roofing 200 NASCAR DFS Driver Pool