Matt Vecchio 
770
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 a bit 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 highlighted in yellow are potential dominators
(All pricing is for DK)
| A Group | B Group | C Group | F Group |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chase Elliott (29) – $10.1K | Alex Bowman (27) – $8.2K | Ryan Blaney (5) – $10.3K | Ty Gibbs (3) – $6.6K |
| Brad Keselowski (20) – $9.2K | Ross Chastain (23) – $9.4K | Zane Smith (35) – $5.7K | Chase Briscoe (4) – $7.9K |
| Ricky Stenhouse (33) – $8.1K | Corey Lajoie (34) – $6.1K | Bubba Wallace (12) – $8.7K | Aric Almirola (2) – $7.4K |
| Erik Jones (24) – $6.7K | Austin Dillon (14) – $7.2K | Austin Cindric (15) – $7K | Kyle Larson (9) – $9.6K |
| William Byron (18) – $9.7K | Todd Gilliland (28) – $5.2K | Joey Logano (8) – $10.$K | |
| Michael McDowell (21) – $6.8K | Riley Herbst (36) – $5K | Kyle Busch (17) – 8.9K | |
| Justin Haley (26) – $6.4K | Austin Hill (31) – $5.9K | Daniel Suarez (22) 7.5K |
*** Notes ***
- It’s our third superspeedway race of the season and like with most we want to play the place differential game. Superspeedways are not a track type we chase dominator points, so you won’t see anyone highlighted in yellow this week.
- Chase Elliott had a good week in his first race since breaking his leg in a skiing accident six weeks ago. This week Elliott starts P29 and offers incredible PD, even if it’s at high ownership.
- Brad Keselowski is one of the All-Time greats to ever do it at Talladega. If Keselowski wins on Sunday he will tie Dale Earnhardt Sr. with 7 career wins on this track. Keselowski will be a top-10 car if he can avoid the potential carnage late in the race.
- Erik Jones and Talladega go together like chocolate and peanut butter. In his last four races here, Jones has three top 10’s, an avg finish of 12th, an avg running position of 12.1, and the third most DKFP per race (43.4)
- As odd as this may sound, nobody has been better at Talladega since 2021 without a win than Michael McDowell. In the four races since 2021, McDowell has the best avg finish (7.8), tied for the most top 5’s (2), best avg place differential (16), and most avg DKFP per race (55).
- Remember all those things that McDowell was tops in right above this, well Austin Dillon is second in almost all of them. Dillon is an excellent superspeedway racer and should be a contender for the win on Sunday.
- Riley Herbst is another above-average superspeedway driver and is the #15 Rick Ware Racing car. It is my belief that this car is RWR in name only and it was prepared by Stewart-Haas Racing. Herbst could be one of the top PD plays in this race when all is said and done on Sunday.
- I don’t love Kyle Busch at this track type, but he was set to win at Daytona until one of the late race wrecks took him out. Busch is also way too cheap for his potential place differential upside.
