NASCAR DFS Pit Stop: Cup Series Road America 7/4/21

Welcome to the NASCAR DFS Pit Stop: Cup Series for the 2021 season! If you’ve been with us before then you know the drill, but if you are new the WinDaily Sports or to my NASCAR content, welcome! I break down the field each week and give you my favorite plays for each race in three different price categories.

Make sure to check out my NASCAR DFS Tutorial to make sure you are ready and understand how I break down the races and build lineups (https://windailysports.com/nascar-dfs-pit-stop-2021-introduction-to-nascar-dfs/). You will notice that all pricing is for DraftKings in these articles since they are the only site that has contests for all three series (Trucks, Xfinity, Cup) and is the site I mainly play on. All plays in the Cup Series article will translate to FanDuel if that is where you play.

Happy Independence Day everyone stateside! Usually, NASCAR heads to Daytona for July 4th weekend, but this year they are north, REALLY north, all the way to Minnesota, specifically Elkhart Lake. Road America, the home of this weekend’s race, is a 4.048-mile, 14 turn road course that is only of a select few tracks that have kept its original track configuration since its inception. This marks the first time the Cup Series has been here in nearly 65 years.

When it comes to road courses we can almost always count on the usual suspects like Chase Elliott ($10,600) and Martin Truex ($10,300) to run well, but we’ve seen both Kyle Larson ($10,500) and Kyle Busch ($10,100) become better road racers recently, with the latter winning the Xfinity race on Saturday. There are a couple of other drivers that may be sneaky plays on Sunday and might carry very little ownership, but I will save those for the driver breakdowns.

NASCAR DFS: Dominators

Chase Elliott ($10,600)

Starting Position: 34th

I wasn’t originally going to have Elliott in this write-up because he is a known play at road courses, but I need to explain why he starts 34th today. Elliott was unable to run a qualifying lap during the allotted 25 minutes. He tried multiple times but a yellow flag came out for two different incidents on the track forcing him to stop his lap. Elliott ran out of time in the end but this poor starting position has nothing to do with his ability on this track or his car. He is the top overall play…well second-best overall play now.

Kyle Busch ($10,100)

Starting Position: 40th

Busch is now the top play on this slate, but will probably carry the most ownership on the slate (which is why I listed him behind Elliott). Kyle did not take a lap during Sunday’s qualifying since he was already starting in the back for going to a backup car. My only fear is that Busch does not know what this car can do and it will take him some laps to get it right and get some damage while fighting through the field. Going back to 2015, Busch has run 12 road course races in the Cup Series and he has one win, seven top 5’s, and eleven top 10’s. This season at Sonoma (the most relevant comparison to RA), Busch finished 5th and had the 2nd fastest late run speed and the 3rd fastest total speed. Busch will be starting at the rear on Sunday, so maybe that could lower his ownership but not for me.

Kyle Larson ($10,600)

Starting Position: 2nd

I know both Elliott and Truex have a better pedigree when it comes to road courses, but how do you pick against the best driver going this season. Coming into the weekend Larson has led 30% of all laps run this season in this series. In 2021 Larson has two top 5’s and a victory in three road course races this season. Larson ran the 9th fastest lap in practice, but I am not putting too much stock in these times. A lot of the drivers were just trying to get a feel for the course since most have never raced here, or at least haven’t raced here in years.

Joey Logano ($9,800)

Starting Position: 14th

Joey Logano might be the most overlooked road course performer in the entire Cup Series field right now. Over the past two seasons, Logano has run five road course races and has finished in the top 10 every time as well as four top 5’s. Logano also has an average finish of 4th in these five races and his worst finish is 9th.

Martin Truex Jr. ($10,300)

Starting Position: 9th

Truex, like Elliott, tends to dominate at road courses, and Sunday should be no different. In a post-practice interview, Truex said he wasn’t 100% sure he knew how to run this course and was concerned about that. I think he may have figured out in qualifying and will also be overlooked because of Busch and Elliott and to a lesser extent Larson.

Denny Hamlin ($9,700)

Starting Position: 6th

Hamlin ran the most laps in practice on Saturday (16) and was 6th fastest. This season at road courses, Hamlin has an average finish of 8.3 with his best finish coming at the Daytona road course (3rd). This season has not been good for Hamlin, while he does lead the regular-season point standings but he is winless. I don’t think Hamlin wins on Sunday, but a top 5 is something I think can happen for the 11 team.

NASCAR DFS: Mid Tier

Kevin Harvick ($8,600)

Starting Position: 25th

Harvick did not have a good qualifying session on Sunday and will start 25th. We did see Harvick on this track Saturday afternoon in the Xfinity Series and he came home with a top 10. Since 2018, Harvick has seven top 10’s in 11 Cup races at road courses and has an average finish of 11.8. I thought Harvick was underpriced going into this race, but he is ridiculously underpriced for his upside. I like using Harvick as a “top tier” substitute in Busch/Elliott lineups.

Austin Cindric ($8,300)

Starting Position: 5th

With all the top drivers starting at the back of the field Cindric will likely be overlooked completely. Cindric was fast in both practice and qualifying as well as running great in the Xfinity Series race and should be a darkhorse contender for the win on Sunday. We know Cindric is great at road courses and seems to have the best Penske car in the field going in.

I really think we need to focus on the high-priced top-tier drivers and pair them with the plethora of value plays in this race so I won’t have much exposure to the mid-tier. Outside of Harvick and Cindric, I am only interested in :

• Kurt Busch ($8,800) – P16
• Christopher Bell ($8,00) – P13
• Brad Keselowski ($8,500) – P20
• Alex Bowman ($8,100) – P10

NASCAR DFS: Value Tier Rankings

1. Austin Dillon ($6,800) – P37: Dillon ran into the same problems that Elliott did. Incredible upside for this price
2. Chase Briscoe ($6,700) – P35: See Dillon and Elliott
3. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. ($5,900) – P38: No issue here with the #47, just ran into the same issues as Briscoe, Dillon, and Elliott
4. Ty Dillon ($5,700) – P39: Cheap and can’t hurt you. So many drivers in worse equipment starting ahead of him that he will surely pass. I see Dillon as a top 30, maybe top 25 car.
5. Bubba Wallace ($6,000) – P36: Wallace’s team had to change his transmission after qualifying so be aware of that when using him. Wallace is coming off his first top 5 finish of his career and was not too pumped of coming to a road course though.
6. Ryan Preece ($6,100) – P32: Preece will start from the rear, but has similar upside to Ty Dillon
7. Ryan Newman ($6,300) – P28: Newman is a decent road course driver and did run the Trans-Am race this morning to get track experience.

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