Core Plays
Chase Elliott – DK: $10,600 | FD: $14,000 – Starting 8th
The Nascar Series finds itself in Indy at the Brickyard for the Verizon 200. This track is a 2.4-mile, 14-turn road course. When it comes to road courses and total upside, we don’t have to look much further than Chase Elliott. Sure, this is not an original pick, but this is free content geared towards simply listing the highest upside play on the slate and disregarding the noise to trying to get too cute with something. Over Elliott’s last 18 road courses races he holds an average finish of 6th. Elliott finished third at Pocono, second at Road America, eighth in Sonoma, and fourth at COTA. In 2021, Elliott went first at COTA, second Sonoma, first Road America, and second Watkins Glen. Take a look at his recent success for yourself. With limited laps, we don’t need to worry about the dominator points as much. The starting spot of 8th gives us some differential upside to be gained and his pricing isn’t actually that high compared to his pricing over his last ten races.
While Elliott will likely be the highest owned driver, as a pivot Kyle Larson starting 22nd offers a lot of upside here, as does Truex starting 25th. Truex has a strong road course resume himself but has been a little cold as of last with four finishes outside the top-13 in his last five races.
Austin Dillon – DK: $6,700 | FD: $6,200 – Starting 29th
I am a big fan of drivers on day two when they drive double-duty. Meaning, Dillon is running the Xfinity race that is currently in progress at the time of typing this. While Dillon had some break issues to start the Xfinity race, we are looking at different equipment so it means very little. But it is good to see a driver grabbing experience at a track they may be unfamiliar with. While Austin Dillon isn’t a road course wizard, you may be surprised to find that he has turned in a strong amount of top-15 finishes. Over his last 10 races on road courses, Dillon has 8 of them in the top-15. At COTA this year he finished 10th and Sonoma 11th. With a 29th starting spot here, grabbing 15-20 spots of differential at this price would almost certainly put Dillon in consideration for being in the optimal.
There are a lot of names who could be listed as the value option this week including Ty Gibbs, Erik Jones, and Rick Stenhouse. All three start far back for modest pricing. Stenhouse is likely the cheapest with the highest ceiling starting 38th and being just $6,100. That being said, Stenhouse has never really found much career success on road courses – though I do still see him carrying high ownership on this slate.
Cheat Sheet
| $ Tier | D |
|---|---|
| High | Chase Elliott (10.6k / 42.73) (14k / 42.73) |
| Kyle Larson (10.2k / 53.71) (13.5k / 53.71) | |
| Martin Truex (9.6k / 58.39) (9.2k / 58.39) | |
| Austin Cindric (9.1k / 32.31) (11.5k / 32.31) | |
| Medium | Denny Hamlin (8.9k / 43.01) (9.5k / 43.01) |
| Kevin Harvick (8.4k / 47.35) (7.5k / 47.35) | |
| AJ Allmendinger (8.2k / 26.87) (11k / 26.87) | |
| Alex Bowman (7.8k / 38.23) (8.8k / 38.23) | |
| Low | Erik Jones (7.1k / 39.63) (6.5k / 39.63) |
| Ty Gibbs (7k / 40.46) ( / 40.46) | |
| Austin Dillon (6.7k / 32.17) (6.2k / 32.17) | |
| Ricky Stenhouse (6.1k / 34.79) (5.2k / 34.79) | |
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