Daily Fantasy NASCAR Track Preview: Busch Clash

Let the year of the road course begin.

With the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series season set to get underway Tuesday with the Busch Clash, it's time for a new era in the sport's top series. Gone are the days when the circuit would turn right only two or three times each year. Now, that number's jumping up to six during the 36 points-paying races.

It's only fitting, then, that the season-opening exhibition would kick things off on a road course, as well. For this year's race, the Cup Series will shift from the high banks of the Daytona superspeedway to the twists and turns of its road course configuration. It may not be for points, but it's one that will matter for these teams.

Not only will Tuesday's race be on the Daytona road course, but so will the second race of the year on February 21st. With COVID-19 shelving practice sessions for all but eight races this year -- including for that race in Daytona -- they're going to get some key information that will help them fine tune their equipment for when the stakes go up.

Lucky for us, it also gives us a chance to get our DFS chops ready for the road courses, which are a unique beast from a scoring perspective. Because each lap is so long, there are fewer laps in these races than in any others. And this one's just 35 laps, so it takes things to the extreme.

With the short race and the small field, what do we need to know before filling out our lineups on FanDuel? Let's check it out.

It's All About the Finishes

If you're new to NASCAR DFS on FanDuel, there are four categories for scoring points: laps led, laps completed, finishing position, and place-differential. This means we have to alter our prioritization of where to find drivers based on the length of the race and the field size.

Here, we're taking both to their extremes. And it means we have to sell out to find drivers who will finish well.

With 0.1 points for every lap led on FanDuel, we've got just 3.5 total points available for laps led this week. That number can be as high as 50 during the regular season. There's effectively no upside in targeting drivers to lead laps.

But place-differential upside is also capped. Let's say a driver starts dead last (21st) and wins the race. They'd get 10 place-differential points (their position differential divided by two). When we talk about the Daytona 500 on Sunday, that number could get as high as 19.5. There's more juice here than with leading laps, but it's still not as fruitful as usual.

While both those numbers decline, the finishing points remain the same. You still get 43 points for winning, 40 points for second, 38 points for third, and then one less point for each position you get lower in the order. As a result, a massive chunk of the scoring will come from just that one category, forcing us to prioritize it above all else.

This means -- more than most other races -- we have freedom to pick the best drivers. It sounds reductive (because it is), but that's the situation we're handed. If you think a driver is under-salaried, you have more leeway than usual to use them without considering other factors.

Finishing potential is our main motivator for filling out lineups. With that said, though, we should still give a bump up to drivers starting further back.

The starting order will be set by a draw on Monday night. In theory, this means the fastest car in the field could start as far back as 21st. There'd be a good amount more upside in that driver than a similar driver starting near the front of the field.

As a result, we should take the approach of accepting place-differential points where we can find them. If a fast driver draws toward the back of the pack, you should be aggressive in shoveling them into your lineups. They'll have more upside than those starting higher in the field. However, we don't need to sell our souls to stack the back as we might for Sunday's race, and that's a distinction worth drawing. If the drivers starting in the back don't project to have a bunch of speed, creep your way up the starting order until you find drivers with a satisfactory profile.

Once you blend it all together, we have a pretty simple formula to kick off the year. You want to make sure you're targeting drivers who project to finish well, and if two drivers project similarly, take the one starting further back. It's not going to be this easy for most races, so it's wise to take advantage of it while you can. It's a magical three-slate week for NASCAR DFS, and keeping things straightforward and simple for the first one is absolutely a plus.