What’s up everyone?! After a fantastic first week of racing, the NASCAR world heads west for a run of three race weekends. For this edition of the NASCAR DFS Preview, we will take a look at the first stage of the west coast swing, with the upcoming Cup Series, and Xfinity Series races at Auto Club Speedway. This article is brought to you by DFSArmy.com and written by Ryan Larkin. You can catch up with Ryan on Twitter or in the DFSA VIP slack @Larkin8
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Jun 23, 2019; Sonoma, CA, USA; Cars line up in the pit before the Toyota / Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway. Mandatory Credit: Stan Szeto-USA TODAY Sports
Auto Club Speedway
This week the Cup and Xfinity Series’ makes their way to Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California. ACS is a 2 mile ultra wide track with multiple grooves. The track has one of the older surfaces that NASCAR races on which results in tire fall off. This will make long run speed very important this week. Since this will be the first true intermediate track for the new car, we will have a lot of unknowns for the weekend. Thankfully, we will have a solid practice session to get some info from. How the cars will race together is still an unknown at this point. We will have to pay extra close attention to practice to try and understand how cars will race around each other. Early expectation would be larger groups for the first few laps much like the low hp package of the last couple yeas. Once tires wear out the field would then separate and give us some fun racing.
Cup Series Race Preview
As always with NASCAR DFS, the most important part of lineup building is hitting on those dominators. Picking the drivers who will lead the most laps and score fast laps can set you up for a huge day. With this race only having 200 laps, we should look to play at most two of these potential dominators. For the last few years there has always been one driver who leads 100-140 laps and then a second driver who leads 40-70 laps. Even with the new car we should still expect the race to play out this way. From there, we will need to see what kind of place differential plays qualifying gives us, and then possibly find those good value plays to save some salary. An important not for this race is that there will only be 36 cars. There will not be a single open car making the trip. Because of this, we will have less punts to choose from. The thing this may change is the pricing of the lower tier. We could see some drivers cost drop a little which could make lineup building easier.
Way too early win prediction: Kyle Larson
Larson was far and away the best driver on the high tire wear intermediate tracks in 2021. He has always been amazing on this track type with 4 wins across 20 races at Auto Club and its sister track, Michigan. Another positive is that Hendrick Motorsports dominated this race with Alex Bowman the last time the series was here. With the new car it is hard to know for sure if the past will carry over to the present but all things point to a strong Kyle Larson day.
Race Weekend Details
3:30pm/et, Sunday, February 27
TV: FOX
Radio: MRN, SiriusXM
Practice: Sat., Feb 26, 2:00–2:35pm/et
Qualifying: Sat., Feb 26, 2:35–4:00pm/et
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NASCAR Xfinity Series DFS Outlook
For this race, we will look for at most two dominators but race history suggests only one will be needed. In 7 of the last 9 Xfinity races at Auto Club Speedway, the dominator led 90+ laps. Brandon Jones led 73 run the last race here in 2020. Long run speed will be important for the Xfinity Series but with stages splitting the race up and the higher caution probability, we may only see 1 or 2 green long green flag runs. This track rewards elite teams and equipment. Also, with tires being so important, the mid-pack teams running on a budget will be at a disadvantage since they typically do not purchase new tires. We have 42 cars on the entry list so 4 cars will not qualify for the race. Once qualifying is over we will have more in-depth info for you to check out through the VIP Research Station as well as our post qualifying Cheat Sheets!
Xfinity Race Weekend Details
5:00pm/et, Saturday, February 26
TV: FS1
Practice: Saturday, February 26, 12:00-12:30pm/et
Qualifying: Saturday, Feb. 26, 2:30-3:30pm/et
Way too early win prediction: Ty Gibbs
This has been a track that Joe Gibbs Racing has dominated at for years. In 2020, Brandon Jones dominated the race before having late issues. His teammates, Harrison Burton and Riley Herbst went on to finish 1-2. A lot of this domination by JGR has come at the hands of Kyle Busch so you can write some of that off if you want but given the recent history and the complete lack of depth in the Xfinity Series, I believe this is a great spot for Ty Gibbs to get in the win column early. OR MAYBE TREVOR BAYNE…….
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This will conclude this edition of our NASCAR Preview. If you would like to reach out and talk NASCAR Follow me on Twitter @Larkin8 or join me as well as our other DFS Army NASCAR contributors (Brady Miller and Taco) in the NASCAR coaching channels.