Wow, what a weekend! We kicked off the 2018 Season with an overly-aggressive Can-Am Duel which was definitely a sign of things to come. The Xfinity race featured 12 cautions (a new record for Daytona) and ended with the closest finish in NASCAR history – 0.000 seconds!
Finally, we were treated to a wild Daytona 500 where only 25 cars finished. We couldn’t ask for much more out of an opening weekend. But now that everything is settled, I’d like to take a step back and go over things from a DFS perspective. What happened, why, and how can you learn from it?
I’d first like to congratulate a few of our winners from this weekend. turdcutters secured his first four-digit NASCAR win, Dave utilized smart contest selection for a solid $150 return, crafty32 took 6th in the $1 Happy Hour for $100, Tramlaw2119 took 3rd in the 25¢ Jukebox for $150, and Jmason247 took home a $300 profit on his first attempt at playing NASCAR! Great work guys.
DraftKings introduces Xfinity Series
We received some exciting news last week; DraftKings now offers a slate for the Xfinity Series races. Taco was quick to build a database with projections and add the new slate to the Domination Station lineup optimizer, while I built some new models to research and study lineup correlation/construction for the new series. Needless to say, we were fully prepared for the PowerShares QQQ 300 and we’re very excited about 2018 season!
Daytona breakdown
As usual, three things reigned supreme at Daytona; finishing position, place differential and chaos. If you’ve read my strategy articles, you know I talked about sources of DKFP & opportunity and why you should research and build around it. This weekend was a perfect example of why I preach what I do. Let’s take a look at the perfect lineups from Daytona:
Xfinity – Smithley, Grala, Reddick, Reed, Sadler, Green – 347 DKFP
Monster Energy – Blaney, Almirola, Dillon, Buescher, Menard, McDowell – 352.75 DKFP
There are a few key similarities to take note of here. Both lineups had all 6 drivers placing in the top 11, both had an average starting position of almost 20, and both had a significant amount of positive place differential.
The biggest difference is how many lead laps were scored. The Xfinity lineup had 18, while the Monster Energy one had a whopping 121. However, even though the Monster Energy race had 64 more lead laps available (and the lineup had 103 more lead laps scored), the two lineups were only 5.75 DKFP apart.
So, why did it work out that way? For starters, the lead laps just didn’t have much weight with so few laps. If you break down the available DKFP (something I talk about in my strategy articles), you’ll see that the other sources were a much bigger piece of the pie.
While those 121 lead laps would look good at other tracks, they were quickly matched by the Xfinity lineup’s advantage of +17 place differential. Normally this disparity wouldn’t be so extreme, but it is when half of the field gets caught up in random crashes.
Also, on normal tracks, the dominators tend to soak up the fastest laps as they stretch out their lead. At a plate race, however, they are acting as a windshield for everybody behind them, so the cars in the back pick them up instead. Blaney had 121 lead laps, but only 5 fastest laps. His dominant performance would have been good for another 30-40 DKFP at most other tracks.
This is another reason why finishing position and place differential was so important. When every driver is earning roughly the same amount of fastest laps, they become largely irrelevant. Remember how Logano was blistering fast in his charge to the front during the Xfinity race? That only earned him two fastest laps.
Closing thoughts
Hopefully, this sheds some light on how to approach a plate race. While it’s basically impossible to predict exactly who will crash, you can still determine the best way to approach a race and put yourself in a good spot to take advantage of other people’s mistakes.
This same mindset can be applied to every single race, but it takes time and research to get there. If you haven’t read them already, here are my beginner’s and intermediate articles to get you started.
History in NASCAR often repeats itself.
Looking forward
Next up, Atlanta! This is a fun track that I’ve been looking forward to all winter. There are several key situations that I believe we can take advantage of and I’ll have a members-only article ready to go by mid-week covering everything.
If you’re on the outside looking in, consider joining up for articles like that and access to our NASCAR research station & Domination Station lineup optimizer. You also get content for every other sport as well as 24/7 access to our Slack channels where we break down things even more. You can sign up right here! Use promo code NILLY to lock in a 10% discount. See you guys in Slack or on Twitter! @nillyJay
