Race Preview: NASCAR DFS Verizon 200 at Brickyard Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course | DraftKings & FanDuel

Following Kyle Larson‘s second road course victory in 2021, NASCAR heads to its sixth road race this season. This weekend’s race provides a first in terms of the track, which will be intriguing for our NASCAR DFS strategy and lineup building on DraftKings and FanDuel for the Verizon 200. Let’s recap the action from New York this past Sunday, where the playoffs stand and what to expect in the NASCAR Cup Series’ inaugural run at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course.

NASCAR DFS Picks: Verizon 200

A Pre-Inspection Fiasco

If a sportsbook ever offers odds on a team to fail pre-race inspection, the leader in the clubhouse will always be Chase Elliott. Once again, NASCAR found some manipulation of Elliott’s car they deemed an issue. In fact, this problem was so egregious that Elliott’s crew chief Alan Gustafson was kicked out of the race, fined $25,000 and the No. 9 team lost 10 points. Oddly, the same matter affecting Elliott was also found on Christopher Bell‘s car. For a more in-depth look at what NASCAR found, here is a great write-up by Asher Fair of Beyond the Flag.

In the short term, these penalties showed no impact as both drivers marched from the rear to the front and finished well within the top 10. In fact, without the benefit of traffic for Larson, Elliott may have caught his teammate and contended for the win. However, in the long term, with both drivers having locked themselves in the playoffs, any effect of these penalties is probably negligible. If NASCAR wanted these penalties to have the sort of impact that really makes teams consider whether pushing the envelope is worth it, then playoff points should be impacted.

Perhaps the most important lesson to take from this is, when good road course drivers get sent to the rear, it is probably a good process to just fade the news. So many road races get boiled down to strategy and pit stop sequences. With so much shuffling of the lineup, drivers like Elliott and Bell will end up in the front at some point regardless.


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Playoff Standings with Three to Go

Win No. 5 of 2021 has all but assured that Kyle Larson will rank No. 1 when the playoffs start. His 2,052 (projected) playoff points give him a 28-point cushion over second-place Martin Truex Jr. Considering the next two venues on the Cup Series itinerary, Larson could pad this lead even further and be a legitimate threat to just stroll into the third round of the playoffs. For those interested, Larson is +200 to win the Cup championship at BetMGM and +250 at DraftKings Sportsbook.

The biggest impact of Larson’s day on Sunday is he is now tied with Denny Hamlin at 917 regular-season points. If Hamlin fails to win outright or score enough points to win the regular-season championship, he will fall in the playoff standings. Hamlin is in eighth, but losing the regular-season title by just 1 point will drop him down to 14th in the playoff standings. With a 302-point cushion over the final playoff spot, Hamlin is in no dire position to fall out of the playoffs unless the final three races all see first-time winners in 2021. While not highly probable, it is still a possible scenario. A repeat 2021 winner at Indianapolis will drown this scenario of Hamlin missing the playoffs. On the other hand, Hamlin’s chances to win the 2021 title could really be hampered if he fails to win the regular-season crown.

The only real spot that is up for grabs, outside of someone with no wins grabbing a surprise victory, is the 16th seat held by Tyler Reddick. Reddick entered Sunday with a 5-point lead and now sits at 15 over Austin Dillon. By all accounts, Dillon did what he needed to do at Watkins Glen by finishing 15th — his fourth straight top-15 at road courses. Yet Reddick was better, and Sunday was his fourth straight top-10 in road races. These handfuls of spots, scattered throughout the year, end up being the reason drivers find separation. In this case, Reddick’s slightly better finishes could be why he will make the final spot and Dillon will miss the playoffs.

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The Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course

This Sunday will mark the first time the NASCAR Cup Series has raced on the Indianapolis Road Course. After nearly three decades of racing on the oval, Cup moves to the road course — a welcome change in most fans’ eyes but not in the drivers’. The Indianapolis oval is historic; however, it was built for open-wheel racing and not stock cars. The quality of the races, in the past few years, has definitely suffered as the low horsepower package has created a race with little passing. That said, nothing will touch the catastrophe that was the 2008 race when tires failed at such a consistent rate that NASCAR had to throw competition cautions every 10-12 laps. Race quality and fan attendance have been suffering since.

Using the road course at least gives NASCAR viewers something else to watch besides a third Pocono race. This change would not be possible if not for the Xfinity Series racing on the road course last season. The quality of that race was deemed so good that it seemed like a good fit to have both Xfinity and Cup run on the road course. Truth be told, it was a very compelling race and came down to the wire — a win by Chase Briscoe.

Perhaps what made it so compelling was the duality of inexperience on everyone’s part plus the technicality of this track. Unless someone had previous IndyCar experience, everyone came into that Xfinity race with no on-track time. Plus, this is definitely more road course than roval with 13 turns, over 2.4 miles, while very little of the actual oval is used in the layout. In fact, the only real part of the oval used in the road course layout is the front stretch giving drivers access to the pit road. This all fails to mention, they’re driving backward on the front stretch. Whatever correlation DFS players want to give to past Indianapolis numbers is completely meaningless.

For those unfamiliar with the layout of the Indianapolis Road Course, check out this helmet cam view:

Those same factors are what should make the Cup race intriguing. Only six drivers in Sunday’s Cup field were in that 2020 Xfinity race and just two others are making spot starts this Saturday. With inexperience at the Indianapolis Road Course abounding, technical skill should really separate the contenders from the field.

Indianapolis Schedule

The on-track schedule for the Xfinity and Cup races are as follows:

The two important things to keep in mind are practice and qualifying. Each Series will give their drivers a 50-minute practice session the day prior to their races followed by same-day qualifying of the race. With the short windows between qualifying and each race, there will be no picks articles this weekend. The Race Sheets will be updated accordingly with starting order as well as preferred dominator, tournament and cash options. An hour prior to the Cup race on Sunday, look for the Live Before Lock show as lineup strategy and driver by driver analysis will be touched upon.

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Phill Bennetzen is the creator of the RaceSheets; all-inclusive stats and data NASCAR DFS spreadsheets for the Trucks, Xfinity, and Cup Series. Phill and the RaceSheets can be found at racesheetsdfs.substack.com

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