Welcome to the Monster Energy Cup Series Preview. This week we will be looking ahead to the Cup Series race at Talladega. If you are just finding the DFS Army and are not a VIP member sign up and use code LARKIN to save 20%!! Our DFS Army VIP members get access to the Domination Station and Research Station post qualifying. Also, VIP members get access to our VIP Slack and direct contact to the NASCAR coaches. Come join the best team in NASCAR DFS! You can follow myself Ryan Larkin on twitter @Larkin8
Lineup Building
WELCOME TO TEAM WARFARE!!! The Superspeedway races have become dominated by teams who can work together the best and control the race. Last year in this very race Stewart Haas racing absolutely destroyed the field utilizing this strategy. Now it has evolved from standard teamwork within one organization to complete unity between all manufactures. This means all Ford teams will work together as will Chevy with Chevy and Toyotas with each other. Of course with all Superspeedway races the “BIG ONE” is a major threat. The big one is in reference to a big wreck in which multiple cars are involved. This can eliminate 5-10 or even 15 cars in a single accident. Avoiding these wrecks is crucial and because there is no way of predicting who will be involved it makes these races incredibly difficult to judge.
Quick Facts
Date: October 13th
Practice 1: Friday 12:35 pm ET.
Practice 2: Friday 3:35 pm ET.
Qualifying: Saturday 4:35 pm ET.
Race: Sunday 2:00 pm ET.
Laps: 188 Stages: 55/110/188
Drivers: 40
Defending Champion: Chase Elliott
AVG. # of Cautions: 6.4 excluding stage breaks
AVG DNF’s: 13 per race
VIP Articles
VIP members get elite coverage not just for NASCAR but for every sport. Be sure to check out all the NASCAR Cup Series VIP articles available on a weekly basis!!
Available articles include:
NillyJay’s – Calming the Chaos: Exceptional slate breakdown
BradyMillerDFS’s – The Sway Bar: Top plays for Drafkings
Larkin8’s – Cup Series Setup: Top Plays for FanDuel
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Be sure to check out the improvements made to the Domination Station including the new Dominator Control for NASCAR. The DFS Army continues to improve to give members the best possible edge on the competition.
Dominator / Top Tier
We generally see multiple drivers lead between 25-40 laps here at Talladega. With fast laps spread all over the places this small amount of extra dom points means little in the grand scheme of things. Now of course if a driver leads 45 laps and wins like Chase Elliott did here in the Spring race they will be in the optimal. With that being said I would not recommend worried too much about doms this race. As for top tier teams they are all in play. Place differential is more important here with teams able to make up tons of places quickly but we always want to try and find the drivers who can win this race. Penske has had the most success here winning 6 of the last 10 here. Yes this race can be unpredictable but at the end of the day when they hand out the trophy it will most likely go to a top tier elite driver.
Mid to Low Tier
In this group we will look to attack drivers starting in the back the most. Drivers who offer the most place differential and also the safest floors. Nothing kills a lineup faster than drivers who start up front, wreck and score negative points. There are drivers like Ricky Stenhouse and Aric Almirola who are better at this type of racing who will offer higher upsides overall. Even though these races can be chaotic and offer lots of variance there is a reason why we see the same drivers compete for the wins here time after time.
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Punts
With the craziness that is Talladega Punts actually become some of the best plays. with a DNF rate average of 13 these teams that don’t run in the big pack and simply stay out of trouble end up scoring nicely for DFS purposes. You will want to play 3-4 from this group in almost every lineup. They come with safe floors that the rest don’t have and massive amounts of place differential points available.
I will be giving my Fanduel Top Plays in a VIP article prior to the race.
I will also answer any questions you may have in the VIP Slack!
This will conclude this edition of The Monster Energy Cup Series Preview. If you would like to reach out and talk NASCAR Follow me on twitter @Larkin8 or of course Become a VIP member and join me as well as our other DFS Army NASCAR contributors (Brady Miller, Taco, and NillyJay) in the NASCAR coaching channels.