Race Preview: NASCAR DFS Jockey Made in America 250 & Fantasy Picks for DraftKings + FanDuel

With Alex Bowman and Kyle Busch winning at Pocono this past weekend, NASCAR heads to Wisconsin for its first race at Road America for the Cup Series since 1956. Let’s review the ups and downs of back-to-back Cup Series events, get into some NASCAR DFS strategy and what to expect for NASCAR DFS picks on DraftKings and FanDuel for the Jockey Made in America 250 this week.

Get 2 Risk-Free Bets Up To $2,000!

NASCAR DFS Preview: Jockey Made in America 250

A Double-Header Doozy

If people only watched the final 10 laps of both Saturday and Sunday races, they would be convinced that both Pocono events were good races. Unfortunately, exciting finishes don’t always correlate to compelling races. Just think, a walk-off RBI in the bottom of the ninth inning of a baseball game doesn’t necessarily mean the whole game was worth watching.

Herein lies the problem. NASCAR media and fans are convinced that both finishes were memorable. If Kyle Larson had not cut down a tire on the last lap, everyone would have been talking about Larson winning his fourth straight race. Sunday became memorable because the drivers leading with three and two laps to go both had to pit for gas. For whatever it’s worth, Kyle Busch’s improbable victory was only a story because of a faulty transmission. NASCAR had nothing to do with that.

If nothing else, the doubleheader did cut some time down for NASCAR. Both events were shortened compared to past Pocono races, which had been 160 laps. A race falling in the 130- to 140-lap range at a larger track like Pocono created a scenario where teams actually had to use strategy. Many of them attempted to race the event backwards to pit as little as needed in order to win, and that should be the plan going forward for Pocono and Michigan. Fewer laps equals better strategy, and better strategy can equal more compelling racing.

Find All The Top NASCAR Drivers Awesemo's NASCAR Top Drivers Tool is of the industry's best tool for finding the top drivers every week. This tool gives the probability that each driver will end up in a winning DFS lineup on DraftKings and FanDuel. The Top Driver Tool combines a driver's ownership, the Top 2 dominator percentage, the chance of being a Top-4 scorer, as well as their ceiling and floor. With all of that, it pinpoints the drivers most likely to bring you to the top of the leaderboard.

Road Racing in Wisconsin

This weekend finds NASCAR racing at Elkhart Lake for the Cup Series fourth road race of 2021. Road America is a 14-turn, 4.04-mile asphalt track mirroring the technical aspect of Watkins Glen. Along the front stretch, connecting the start-finish line is a long straightaway featuring a long climb and descent as drivers pass pit road. Once drivers make a quick 90-degree turn at Turn 1 and a subsequent right-hander at Turn 3, there is another long straightaway before drivers spill into Turn 5. Following this is the technical aspect of the course featuring nine turns before drivers approach the long straightaway again.

Although Road America is narrow by NASCAR standards, the track still provides more than enough places for drivers to pass. If drivers can’t out-muscle someone in the straightaways, they can use throttle and brake to make moves in the various turns. Furthermore, like Watkins Glen, drivers will be pitting with crew members to the right-hand side. If teams haven’t been practicing for this pitting adjustment, they will possibly cost their drivers precious seconds on pit road.


Latest NASCAR DFS Content


Muscle Memory in Milk Land

Although the parallels to Watkins Glen are striking, one difference does stand out. As mentioned above, this will be the Cup Series’ first race at Road America since the Eisenhower administration. Yet unlike Circuit of the Americas in Austin, this won’t be the first time these drivers have seen this track. Road America has been one of the venues that the Xfinity Series regularly visits, while the other two major Series have stayed away. Think of Sonoma for the Cup Series and Gateway for the Trucks. Sometimes NASCAR prefers for certain venues to only have racing action via one Series.

Regardless, depending on their age and years in the Cup Series, these drivers may have just a few years or several between this weekend and their last visit to Elkhart Lake. Using 10 years as a measuring stick, 13 of the 40 drivers entered in Sunday’s race haven’t raced at Road America.

Considering the Xfinity Series has only been racing at Road America since 2010, quite a few of the above drivers didn’t have the opportunity to race here back when they were full-time Xfinity drivers. But two of those drivers (Busch, Kevin Harvick) are rectifying that lack of experience by competing in Saturday’s Xfinity race.

This is all to say, the majority of drivers have been here before but not in Cup equipment. Expect this experience, or lack thereof, to be a major factor in Saturday’s practice session and the race on Sunday. This week, the Race Sheets have driver’s names highlighted with links to their past results at Elkhart Lake dating back to 2011.

Get a risk free bet + 2 months FREE of Awesemo+ platinum all-access!

NASCAR DFS Notables

While practice is always something to comb-over, the data will be a bit lacking this week. Considering the length of this venue, don’t expect to see many drivers put up anything longer than a five-lap run. In fact, most drivers are going to run for a single lap or two, come back into the garage for an adjustment and then run for another lap or two. Repeat this process a few times and 50 minutes is already up. Judging drivers by their road racing acumen, and past history at Road America if applicable, will probably be worth more than judging single-lap runs.

What matters most is the number of laps: 62. Once more, with the sheer size of this track, any more laps and this race could venture on becoming an endurance race. The first segment will run 14 laps. The second segment will run to Lap 29. Then finally the race ends at Lap 62. With these lap breakups, the race is surely going to become yet another strategy race as teams attempt to race the event backward and make as few stops as possible.

Knowing who pits when is impossible to project. However, with so few laps, optimal DFS roster construction is going to boil down to place differential and finishing position points. On FanDuel, DFS players can just disregard laps led points as only 6.2 are available for the entirety of the race. For DraftKings, only 15.5 laps led points will be up for grabs. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 fastest laps points will be available too. Therefore, around 40 dominator points will be on the board. In cash the best bet is disregarding a dominator and focusing on finishing position and place differential. Yet in tournaments a dominator will need to be on DFS player’s minds in case a driver performs as Larson did at Sonoma.

That said, qualifying could get wonky and provide several place differential options. In that case, a dominator could be the last thing to worry about. Whether to “dominator or not” will be settled around noon ET on Sunday following qualifying.

Thanks for reading to the end of this article! If you appreciate this free content and want to see more of it every day, you can help us out by sharing this article on social media!

[NASCARPAGE]

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

Stokastic +

Premium Data and Tools
PREMIUM TOOLS
Lineup Generator
Stokastic Sims MLB
PREMIUM DATA
Projections
Top Stack %s
MLB Data Central
FREE DATA
SoRare MLB Rankings
DraftKings Night Owl
FANTASY CRUNCHER (ADD-ON)
MLB Lineup Study
COMMUNITY
MLB Discord Server
PREMIUM DATA
Projections
Ownership Projections
PREMIUM TOOLS
Fantasy Cruncher (ADD-ON)
NHL Lineup Study
COMMUNITY
NHL Discord Server
PREMIUM TOOLS
Lineup Generator
Stokastic Sims PGA
PREMIUM DATA
Ownership Projections
Top Golfers Tool
PGA Tournament Models
FANTASY CRUNCHER (ADD-ON)
PGA Lineup Study
COMMUNITY
PGA Discord Server
Ownership Projections
Top Drivers Tool
NASCAR Discord Server
NASCAR Fantasy Cruncher
USFL Projections
USFL Discord Server
Ownership Projections
Top Fighters Tool
MMA Discord Server
MMA Fantasy Cruncher
NFL Betting Tools
Stokastic Discord Server
Best Ball
Best Ball Rankings
Best Ball Stat Projections
Stokastic Discord Server
Season Long Fantasy (Coming Soon)

DFS Winners from the Stokastic Community

Subscribe to the Stokastic newsletter

DFS advice, exciting promos, and the best bets straight to your inbox

Stokastic.com - Daily Fantasy Sports and Sports Betting Data, Tools, & Analytics

Please play responsibly. Only customers 21 and over are permitted to play. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help, call 1-800-GAMBLER.