NASCAR DFS: Season Finale 500 Track Breakdown

We’re here. It’s almost amazing to think that there were 10 weeks of the regular season missed due to Covid and yet a full season is what we still got and one that’s ending on-time as scheduled.

Though the name doesn’t sound like it, this is the race for all the marbles, well a really big trophy, but the idiom still works. Four drivers advanced from the Martinsville race with a shot for the title and to be clear, the champion doesn’t have to win the race to win the title, they simply have to finish ahead of the other three, though in the last nine years, the champion has had to win the Championship race to take the title. This will be the first time that Phoenix Raceway, formerly ISM Raceway and Phoenix International Raceway, is holding the Championship race as it’s typically been held at Homestead-Miami with the penultimate race being at Phoenix.

It feels like a full year has passed since they last raced at Phoenix so let’s do a deeper dive into the track than we normally do shall we. Phoenix is a 1-mile nearly flat track that really only has banking in one set of corners at 12 degrees and it has an interesting shape to it. You’re going to hear the phrase “dogleg” quite a lot this week, and no it’s not people gearing up for the Masters or talking about the Houston Open, they are talking about the odd pseudo-turn just after the start finish line that allows for crazy restarts and a major fanning-out effect as drivers dive below the white line to cut the corner on the dogleg, just like a golfer looking to cut yardage on a hole. That quirk in the track can help with passing and in three of the last five races here, double-digit drivers have moved up at least six spots a race and most of the time four drivers have hit the double-digit position differential mark.

Strategy Notes: As you can see in the above graphs, from FRCS.pro, the manufacturers are pretty evenly split here in the last 10 races though Chevy has been shut out of victory lane in the last five races as Toyota has won thrice and Ford twice. In all but one of the last five races one driver has led at least 100 laps with another leading at least 73 laps in three of those four. The race this February here saw a mostly-split laps led column with four drivers leading at least 60 laps each and no one topping 93. Given what’s on the line on Sunday, there’s a decent shot that the laps led wind up mostly split once more, but listen throughout the week for a driver I think has a shot to dominate the race.

Check my Twitter feed, @theselzman, for the schedule for this week’s content and I’m always available in Chat or on Twitter to answer questions.

Core Drivers By Tier

Tier 1 - Kevin Harvick

• Harvick should be mighty frustrated with not making the Championship Four at his best track.

• The four Championship drivers have a combined four top-fives in the last four races here and Harvick has three by himself with the second-best average finish in the field.

• He finished P2 here in February and led 67 laps, this time he has PD upside going for him, but he is priced like it.

Tier 2 - Jimmie Johnson

• Johnson has the third-best PD mark in the last four races at 7.2 with four top-15s.

• His last Cup series race in the now-iconic 48-car is Sunday and starting P26 he’ll want to put on a show.

• He started P21 and finished P12 here in February and in the playoffs his Green Flag Speed has been P17 or better seven times.

Tier 3 - Ty Dillon

• Dillon was on this list back in February for his amazing PD upside with six top-20s in seven races here and an 8.2 PD mark in the last four.

• He’s starting P22 on Sunday and started P25 here in February before finishing P15, a similar result is certainly possible Sunday.

• His wife and he also just welcomed a baby son into the world so he’s got that new dad mojo going and we’ve seen what that did for his older brother as well as some baseball players this year as well.

Contrarian Play - Aric Almirola / Clint Bowyer

• Both of these SHR drivers are likely to get overlook a bit since they are starting higher up in the field.

• Almirola has posted three top-10s in the last four races here with a 9.5 average finish while Bowyer has three top-15s and finished P5 here in February.

• This is Bowyer’s last race as well which gives a nice narrative and Almirola started P6 in February and finished P8 but posted a 96.5 top-15 rate and both haven’t been the hottest drivers recently which should keep them as lower played options.

Fade - Alex Bowman

• At his home track we’re going to fade him? Yep we’re doing that.

• He’s posted just one top-20 in the last four races here and typically goes backward nearly 18 spots a race.

• Bowman started P8 and finished P14 in February but still only brought in 25.5 DK points at 9.3K and now he’s starting P6. His value at his price this weekend has averaged 0.7x on DK in the last five races.

Last Four Races at Phoenix

Tier 1

Tier 2

Tier 3

Tier 4

Top-20 Drivers Over Last Eight Phoenix Races

Top-20 Drivers At Similar Races

(New Hampshire, Phoenix, Richmond)

Momentum

This shows the last five races of the season and the driver’s stats so we can see who is coming in hot and who’s coming in cold.

Drivers

Tier 1

Tier 2

Tier 3

Tier 4

Teams

Finishing Spot Ranges By Starting Spot Ranges

Price Changes

These tables show the difference in pricing for each driver from the first race here in March to the race this weekend. A positive in the difference column means they are more expensive this time while a negative shows they are cheaper.

Weekly Rankings

Race Hist, Recent Form, Track Hist, Type Hist are all ranked on average finish position over the last four races at the track, five races this season, eight races at this track, and similar races respectively. The Avg. Rating and Top-15 % columns are ranked on those categories in the last four races at this track. The L8 PD column ranks the position differential over the last eight races from best (most positive) to worst (most negative).

Tier 1

Tier 2

Tier 3

Tier 4

DFS Value Averages

We have taken their points scored over the last two and five races on each site and averaged those out and then divided that average by their salary divided by 1,000.

Tier 1

Tier 2

Tier 3

Tier 4