NASCAR Daily Fantasy Helper: Quaker State 400
If you are looking for an action-packed way to consume sports on the weekend, NASCAR may be a great avenue to explore. Far from just driving in circles, some of the world's best compete nearly every weekend from February to November on tracks across America. NASCAR drivers are scored ultimately based on how they finish in the race, how many spots they advance from their starting position, and how many laps they finish and lead. Avoiding drivers who crash out of the race is a must, though!
numberFire is always your home for fantasy NASCAR advice. In addition to this helper, Jim Sannes takes a look at the best bets of the weekend in his betting guide. For driver picks and a full preview of the event, he also discussed this weekend's race on the latest NASCAR episode of The Heat Check Daily Fantasy Podcast.
With all of this in mind, let's preview the Quaker State 400 from Atlanta Motor Speedway on FanDuel.
Weekend Primer
| Event | Time |
| Practice | NONE |
| Qualifying | Saturday, July 9th 11:35 a.m. EST |
We got plenty of answers to questions about the new Atlanta Motor Speedway in March. Namely, it's now truly a 1.5-mile superspeedway with drafting.
As a result, NASCAR has eliminated a practice session that teams likely wouldn't have utilized very heavily. Now that 400 miles were completed in race conditions earlier this season, the risk of tearing up equipment outweighs the reward of drafting practice.
Qualifying will be a single-lap time trial process, and that won't be very useful for determining speed with drafting conditions expected on Sunday.
General Lineup Strategy
Atlanta now brings a fifth and sixth superspeedway race to the schedule, and that means the strategy is clear -- stack the back.
Now, laps led weren't quite as random in the spring race as they usually are at the larger superspeedway. William Byron led 111 of the 325 laps (34.1%), but that still wasn't the giant chunk of the race we see at times on normal 1.5-mile tracks. It also didn't come from the fastest cars in qualifying.
Still, 5 of the top 15 finishers in the spring started 22nd or worse. It likely would have been more if wrecks didn't take out plenty of quality cars. There was shuffling for position all day. Moving forward, we'll likely see more cars that start towards the back lead laps and finish well.
As you'll see in my weighted median lap time rankings, I'm not ignoring speed on normal tracks as you can do at Daytona or Talladega. I'm still weighing 20% of this week's race from Texas -- a 1.5-mile track with lots of on-throttle time -- in May. There was still a pattern of faster drives and teams running towards the front considering any driver that led at least 10 laps here back in March is in a playoff spot currently.
This race is now a hybrid of a Daytona-style track with a traditional 1.5-miler. As a result, my core plays will all have a place-differential element, but I'm also not opposed to top-15 starting cars that can win the race.
Driver Rankings
Below are my pre-qualifying rankings for each driver based on equipment, track history, recent form, and overall talent level -- in that order. Only drivers with a win probability above 0% in Jim Sannes' win simulations were included.
As a great indicator of overall speed, MLT Rank is the driver's weighted average median lap time ranking at the relevant sample of similar race tracks to this weekend. The prior races in the sample this week are:
2022 Atlanta (Spring) - 50%
2022 Daytona (Spring) - 30%
2022 Texas All-Star (Spring) - 20%
For dominator viability, the driver is ranked 0-10 on a scale to potentially lead laps and win the race if they start upfront. A "10" is among the favorites to win the race, and a "0" has no realistic chance to lead the race at any point.
For flex play viability, the driver is ranked 0-10 on a scale to finish in terms of potential to finish inside the top 15 spots. These drivers will be better daily fantasy plays the further back in the field they start for optimal place-differential points.
| Swaim's Rank |
Driver | Sannes'
Sims |
MLT Rank |
Dominator Viability |
Flex Play Viability |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ryan Blaney | 8.02% | 1 | 9 | 10 |
| 2 | Kyle Larson | 4.04% | 3 | 9 | 10 |
| 3 | Chase Elliott | 7.10% | 9 | 8 | 10 |
| 4 | Ross Chastain | 6.14% | 18 | 8 | 10 |
| 5 | William Byron | 4.82% | 10 | 8 | 10 |
| 6 | Kyle Busch | 7.94% | 19 | 7 | 10 |
| 7 | Joey Logano | 6.24% | 5 | 7 | 10 |
| 8 | Denny Hamlin | 4.84% | 22 | 7 | 10 |
| 9 | Martin Truex, Jr. | 5.42% | 2 | 6 | 10 |
| 10 | Bubba Wallace | 5.88% | 7 | 6 | 10 |
| 11 | Austin Cindric | 3.34% | 13 | 6 | 10 |
| 12 | Tyler Reddick | 2.60% | 23 | 6 | 10 |
| 13 | Christopher Bell | 6.60% | 14 | 5 | 10 |
| 14 | Kurt Busch | 2.62% | 11 | 5 | 10 |
| 15 | Kevin Harvick | 5.76% | 28 | 5 | 10 |
| 16 | Daniel Suarez | 2.14% | 16 | 5 | 10 |
| 17 | Alex Bowman | 1.54% | 8 | 4 | 10 |
| 18 | Austin Dillon | 1.96% | 29 | 4 | 9 |
| 19 | Brad Keselowski | 1.64% | 17 | 3 | 9 |
| 20 | Erik Jones | 1.48% | 5 | 2 | 9 |
| 21 | Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. | 3.14% | 4 | 1 | 9 |
| 22 | Aric Almirola | 0.92% | 15 | 1 | 8 |
| 23 | Chase Briscoe | 0.62% | 20 | 1 | 8 |
| 24 | Justin Haley | 0.46% | 21 | 0 | 7 |
| 25 | Cole Custer | 0.80% | 31 | 0 | 7 |
| 26 | Michael McDowell | 0.76% | 26 | 0 | 6 |
| 27 | Chris Buescher | 1.66% | 12 | 0 | 5 |
| 28 | Noah Gragson | 0.18% | 30 | 0 | 4 |
| 29 | Ty Dillon | 0.44% | 27 | 0 | 3 |
| 30 | Harrison Burton | 0.16% | 33 | 0 | 3 |
| 31 | Todd Gilliland | 0.20% | 24 | 0 | 2 |
| 32 | Corey LaJoie | 0.34% | 25 | 0 | 1 |
There's -- perhaps for the first time all season -- a clear-cut, consensus top option this weekend, and it's Ryan Blaney ($13,000).
Blaney is the only car I'll consider regardless of starting spot. On top of being fast and finishing second in Atlanta earlier this year, Blaney also won the All-Star Race at throttle-heavy, 1.5-mile Texas. He's also a three-time winner at either Daytona or Talladega. He checks every single box you'd hope for and sits promptly at the top of Jim's simulations for good reason.
I think many might be off Kyle Larson ($12,500) as his ho-hum stretch of results continues, but this might actually be the best shot for a win he's had since Fontana back in February. Larson had the fastest median lap time in Texas, and he was third at Daytona in that category. Crash damage hurt his Atlanta median time from earlier this year (19th), but he should be fast.
Interestingly, Kyle Busch ($11,000) is second in Jim's simulations with a 7.94% chance to win. Busch's rotten luck on drafting tracks is well-noted by now, but he should have legitimate speed on this hybrid configuration after winning the pole and posting the second-fastest median lap time in Texas.
The rest of the top contenders should be ordered by place-differential upside, but I'll be a bit more trepidatious around Martin Truex Jr. ($9,500), Christopher Bell ($9,000), and Kevin Harvick ($6,500). They'll be thinking points over a position at times as they battle for a playoff spot.
On the other side of the coin, Bubba Wallace ($8,800) needs a win with a great history at drafting tracks, including a win at Talladega last fall. I'd also throw former Daytona winners Austin Dillon ($7,000), Michael McDowell ($6,200), and Erik Jones ($5,500) in that same boat, and it would surprise me very little to see any of them in contention.
As you can see, dominator ratings are pretty flat across the board, and flex-play ratings are actually very high deep into the driver pool. It just depends on who gets to start towards the rear of the field.
Getting beyond Cole Custer ($4,500) is where I start to get a bit nervous about the speed of the car and/or the ability of the driver, but Corey Lajoie ($4,000) finished fifth here in the spring, so anything is truly possible with the drafting element to this one.
