Matt Vecchio 
Welcome to the NASCAR DFS Pit Stop for the NASCAR Cup Series. Below you will find my rankings for the drivers in this race.
A Group: Drivers I will have the most exposure to and are high-priority
B Group: This group is drivers I feel have a high upside and are great filler pieces to pair with the A Group
C Group: The drivers in this tier are risky but could still be optimal. This group should be used in GPP’s
F Group: These drivers are on my do not play list
(Starting position in parenthesis)
Drivers in BOLD are potential dominators
(All pricing is for DK)
| A Group | B Group | C Group | F Group |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kyle Larson (15) – $10.2K | Shane van Gisbergen (12) – $9.5K | Todd Gilliland (26) – $6.2K | Austin Dillon (21) – $6.4K |
| Michael McDowell (27) – $8K | Noah Gragson (39) – $6.5K | Chase Elliott (9) – $10.3K | Justin Haley (13) – $5.8K |
| AJ Allmendinger (14) – $8.8K | Kyle Busch (16) – $9.2K | Ryan Blaney (28) – $7.5K | Daniel Hemric (33) – $5.2K |
| Chris Buescher (20) – $7.8K | Ty Gibbs (2) – $8.7K | William Byron (1) – $9.7K | |
| Joey Logano (35) – $7.4K | Alex Bowman (17) – $7.7K | Christopher Bell (4) – $10K | |
| Tyler Reddick (3) – $10.5K | Chase Briscoe (32) – $7.1K | Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (30) – $5.5K | |
| Brad Keselowski (36) – $6.9K | Kamui Kobayashi (25) – $7K | Martin Truex Jr. (7) – $9.8K |
DFS NASCAR – Driver Notes
- This weekend we have our first road course of the weekend. We saw some good racing yesterday and we saw some stupid penalties. A lot of drivers were penalized for cutting the corners in the esses in the Xfinity race, which caused a lot of havoc. Hopefully, the Cup drivers learned from this and we won’t have too many of these issues on Sunday.
- In the past, we only had a select few, 2 to 3, drivers that we considered road course experts, but now half the field excels on road courses. Tyler Reddick is the favorite to win this race at most books, and he will be in my player pool today, but my pick to win is Ty Gibbs.
- We have fair pricing on non-traditional road course favorites like Logano, Blaney, and Keselowski who all start near the back and have top 15 upside. All three drivers can smash value just by finishing in the teens.
- Kyle Busch is an under-the-radar excellent road course driver, in my opinion. Busch finished top 4 in 3 of 5 road course races in ’23 and had an average finish of 11th in all 5 races.
- Michael McDowell is severely underpriced for his upside today. If all goes well for the 34 team today, McDowell could be the highest-scoring driver in this race.
- Like the rest of the Hendrick cars, Alex Bowman was fast in practice (3rd fastest lap), he is starting deep enough to offer some good PD and has top 10 finishing upside.
- Todd Gilliland is a good road course driver. Gilliland won his only Truck Series race at this track and has some decent place differential upside. I believe his ownership will be low because of other drivers starting further back in his price range.
- There are many good options in the field today, if you have a feeling about a driver that I did not list, play him. These are just the 21 drivers I have in my player pool for this week that I feel the most confident in.
NASCAR Best Bets:
(best odds in parenthesis)
Ty Gibbs (+400 – Caesars & FD)
Shane van Gisbergen (+1200 – FD)
Martin Truex Jr. (+1800 – DK)
There are a lot of good picks to win this race, if you have a feeling about someone, bet it!
AJ Allmendinger Top 3 (+750 – FD)
Chris Buescher Top 5 (+700 – DK)
FanDuel has some interesting specials on this race. If you bet there, I suggest taking a look. My favorite is +6000 Martin Truex Jr. to win and Ty Gibbs to finish top 3.
Spicey Pick:
Kyle Busch (+3200 – FD)
Matchup Bets:
Chase Elliott (+125) vs William Byron
Christopher Bell vs Martin Truex Jr. (+105)
Alex Bowman vs Michael McDowell (+100)
Kyle Larson (+130) vs Christopher Bell
All of these are on DK
