Following Martin Truex Junior’s win over Joey Logano at Las Vegas, we head back East. As in flipping the continent to North Carolina from the desert of Nevada. The second race of the playoff’s first round takes place Saturday night under the lights of Richmond for the Federated Auto Parts 400. Let’s get into some NASCAR DFS Picks.
Track Preview
If you’re reading this you should be fully aware of who and what Richmond is. Let’s face it, right now the only people left playing NASCAR DFS are actual NASCAR fans…
However, if you need a refresher or just lost your seat to CFB DFS and need to make bankroll back, buckle in.
A .75-mile D-shaped oval, RIR hosts two annual NASCAR Cup events. If you’d like a more in-depth preview, check out my article for April’s race. In that race breakdown, I detail trends dating back to 2013. Thus, whatever you would need to know is probably in that article. If, however, you need more don’t hesitate to check out the Race Sheets.
That is if you’re an Awesemo member. Now would be a great time to join Awesemo as the NFL season is just underway. Besides consuming our gobs of NFL content, Hockey is literally around the corner. Before long, the MLB playoffs will wrap up and the NBA season will commence. The PGA Swing Season is underway as well as the British Premiere League. Oh yeah, MMA and Tennis never stop.
Besides, now that all of the sharks who play NASCAR have left for NFL, cashing in NASCAR has gotten that much easier. It’s amazing what happens in tournaments when guys with max entry bankroll no longer play.
Richmond In The Spring
So, if we’re not going to needlessly rehash five years worth of racing data, what will we review? It seems appropriate to instead isolate this past April’s Richmond race. Don’t forget, April is the only race we have at Richmond under the 750 HorsePower package running at “short” tracks this season.
The story of the 750 HP package has been if you want to lead, you need to start upfront. That’s precisely what occurred as our top three lap leaders came off the grid 5th, 3rd, and 4th. Another characteristic of this package has been the limited possibility of passing. While results seemed skewed thanks to wonky starting positions (post-qualifying technical inspections), only two drivers who finished inside the top-ten started outside of the top fifteen. Namely, Denny Hamlin (failed tech) from 30th and Ryan Newman from 24th.
Cautions wise, it was a pretty clean race for Richmond. Throwing out stage breaks and the competition caution, that race only saw two yellow flags. One for Kyle Larson on lap 125 and the other for Michael McDowell on lap 240. Coincidentally, those drivers were the only two to fail to finish the race.
Finally, if I gave you one guess as to who the winner was you’d probably nail it. In true, afternoon to night racing fashion, Martin Truex Junior came alive leading 186 laps en route to victory.
Toyota Owners 400 Loop Data
| Driver | Driver Rating | Start | Finish | High | Low | Avg | % T15 | Laps Led | Fast Laps | Laps |
| Martin Truex Jr | 138.9 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 21 | 2 | 98.8 | 186 | 34 | 400 |
| Joey Logano | 125 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 11 | 3 | 100 | 52 | 45 | 400 |
| Clint Bowyer | 112.8 | 14 | 3 | 2 | 17 | 5 | 99.8 | 0 | 21 | 400 |
| Kevin Harvick | 119.5 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 7 | 4 | 100 | 30 | 50 | 400 |
| Denny Hamlin | 88.7 | 30 | 5 | 5 | 30 | 14 | 68.5 | 0 | 8 | 400 |
| Austin Dillon | 98.5 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 24 | 9 | 98.8 | 0 | 11 | 400 |
| Brad Keselowski | 107 | 8 | 7 | 1 | 24 | 5 | 98.8 | 31 | 18 | 400 |
| Kyle Busch | 108.7 | 4 | 8 | 1 | 26 | 7 | 86.3 | 101 | 55 | 400 |
| Ryan Newman | 79.3 | 24 | 9 | 6 | 26 | 15 | 52.8 | 0 | 3 | 400 |
| Paul Menard | 92 | 9 | 10 | 4 | 16 | 9 | 99.8 | 0 | 1 | 400 |
| Kurt Busch | 97.4 | 2 | 11 | 2 | 14 | 8 | 100 | 0 | 5 | 400 |
| Jimmie Johnson | 74.4 | 34 | 12 | 8 | 34 | 15 | 62.3 | 0 | 4 | 400 |
| William Byron | 83.5 | 13 | 13 | 7 | 18 | 13 | 94.3 | 0 | 4 | 400 |
| Erik Jones | 77.3 | 35 | 14 | 6 | 35 | 15 | 62.8 | 0 | 9 | 400 |
| Chase Elliott | 66.9 | 32 | 15 | 9 | 32 | 19 | 21.8 | 0 | 2 | 400 |
| Ricky Stenhouse Jr | 68.9 | 11 | 16 | 9 | 26 | 17 | 24.3 | 0 | 2 | 400 |
| Alex Bowman | 73.5 | 12 | 17 | 2 | 22 | 15 | 48 | 0 | 3 | 399 |
| Daniel Suarez | 80.8 | 33 | 18 | 4 | 33 | 14 | 62.8 | 0 | 20 | 399 |
| Daniel Hemric | 58.8 | 17 | 19 | 8 | 25 | 20 | 10.5 | 0 | 0 | 399 |
| Ryan Preece | 51.8 | 16 | 20 | 10 | 30 | 24 | 0.5 | 0 | 0 | 399 |
| Ty Dillon | 59.5 | 23 | 21 | 7 | 25 | 20 | 1.5 | 0 | 0 | 398 |
| Chris Buescher | 74.6 | 7 | 22 | 4 | 24 | 13 | 59 | 0 | 2 | 398 |
| Aric Almirola | 64.8 | 31 | 23 | 12 | 31 | 19 | 24.5 | 0 | 3 | 398 |
| Matt DiBenedetto | 48.5 | 20 | 24 | 19 | 30 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 398 |
| Ryan Blaney | 53.3 | 22 | 25 | 4 | 26 | 22 | 0.8 | 0 | 3 | 398 |
| Corey LaJoie | 41 | 21 | 26 | 20 | 31 | 28 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 396 |
| Darrell Wallace Jr | 47.8 | 19 | 27 | 16 | 29 | 27 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 396 |
| David Ragan | 47.2 | 15 | 28 | 12 | 30 | 26 | 5.5 | 0 | 0 | 396 |
| Matt Tifft | 37.3 | 36 | 29 | 26 | 36 | 30 | 0 | 0 | 13 | 395 |
| Ross Chastain | 38.8 | 29 | 30 | 28 | 36 | 32 | 0 | 0 | 20 | 394 |
| Jeb Burton | 32.2 | 27 | 31 | 25 | 35 | 33 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 392 |
| Bayley Currey | 29.8 | 26 | 32 | 26 | 36 | 33 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 392 |
| Joey Gase | 27.2 | 37 | 33 | 33 | 37 | 34 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 387 |
| Quin Houff | 25.9 | 28 | 34 | 28 | 37 | 35 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 386 |
| Landon Cassill | 36.8 | 25 | 35 | 20 | 36 | 33 | 0 | 0 | 11 | 322 |
| Michael McDowell | 38.2 | 18 | 36 | 18 | 31 | 31 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 240 |
| Kyle Larson | 50 | 10 | 37 | 10 | 31 | 31 | 18.5 | 0 | 2 | 125 |
Roster Construction
We could run through the optimal lineup from this past Spring but it may just be noise. In fact, it is noise. As you may remember, technical inspection occurred Saturday before the race. In total, eight cars failed and lost their starting position. Three of those cars scored enough place differential to land in the optimal lineup. This, in turn, meant only one of our dominators (Truex) was actually optimal based on point per dollar scoring.
Well, unfortunately, here we are again with post-race inspection.
Qualifying 6:05 Friday night with no tech prior to qualifying. . Tech starts 1:30 Saturday so lineup official around 3:30-4. https://t.co/S0wciRAWLW
— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) September 17, 2019
As the season has trudged along, we’ve seen fewer and fewer cars fail tech. The stakes are just too high to fail tech and have to march through the field. Thus, I expect no one to fail but I could be wrong. Desperation might provoke a driver like Erik Jones (16th) and his crew chief to get too aggressive with their set up and consequently fail.
Richmond Race Sheets
Thus, as I typically do in these races, the Race Sheets are posted below with tiers highlighted. These will be adjusted as the inspection takes place so be sure to check back Saturday afternoon. Final roster construction game theory will be laid out in slack once the field is set.
Dominators = orange. Cash Place Differential = green. GPP Place Differential = blue. Punts = pink.
