Race Preview: NASCAR DFS Drydene 400 at Dover Speedway for DraftKings + FanDuel

Following Martin Truex Jr.’s dominance at Darlington, NASCAR makes the quick jog to Dover, Delaware. Let’s jump into this week’s NASCAR DFS picks and preview for DraftKings and FanDuel lineups at the Drydene 400 at Dover International Speedway.

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Drydene 400 Race Preview & NASCAR DFS Picks

Truex Takes Throwback Weekend

This past Sunday was the absolute perfect storm for Truex. It was hot, so hot that Truex couldn’t believe how slick the track was. Early forecasts had kept pegging Darlington to see mostly cloudy skies. Those forecasts ended up being wrong, as it was a struggle to find a cloud in that clear blue sky. An abated sun accelerated the track’s probable slick conditions and made the 750-horsepower package even tougher to handle at Darlington.

Before lap 30, Truex had passed teammate Kyle Busch, who spun out behind Truex in turn four, and Truex would go on to lead 248 laps in all. Only late into the final 30 laps did anyone make a real attempt to fight Truex, however, Larson in all likelihood used up his tires to get to Truex and found it impossible to actually complete the pass. Truex showed that his dominator points from previous Darlington races were no fluke as well as that he’s not just a night racer at intermediate venues.

For the remainder of this season, it’s a safe bet that anytime the Series races in the high-horsepower/low-downforce package that Truex will be at the top of the leaderboard. Something to keep in mind as NASCAR transitions to a somewhat similar track to Darlington, in this same 750-horsepower package.

Playoff Update

With another win, Truex is further cementing his spot in the playoffs and beyond the first round. Which, in its own way, was good news for everyone who remains winless in 2021. The more wins that Truex soaks up means the greater likelihood that drivers like Chris Buescher, Tyler Reddick, Austin Dillon, and Matt DiBenedetto can make their way to the playoffs via points. Gamers can only expect this to carry over at Dover as the top teams continue to over excel in the high-horsepower package compared to the mid-tier squads. The shortlist of possible winners this Sunday should be the usual suspects from Joe Gibbs, Hendricks, and Penske.

However, following this weekend at Dover, NASCAR will make stops at the Charlotte, Circuit of the Americas, Sonoma, Nashville, Pocono, and Road America. With nearly all of these races being run in the 550-horsepower package, the likelihood of a first-time winner for 2020 increases. Perhaps, it could be one of the above drivers. However, it’s easy to forget that drivers like Chase Elliott and Kevin Harvick remain winless while veterans like Aric Almirola and Kurt Busch have been snake-bit the past few weeks. This is all to say, the next month and a half will go a long way in setting the stage for the final spots in the 2021 playoffs. The biggest wildcard will always be the Summer-Daytona winner just needing to be top 30 in points to steal a final spot.

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Darlington = Dover?

In the past few years, preparing for Dover has been a quick exercise and it usually meant just looking at past Dover races. In terms of size, there are a few other mile-long tracks but none with the sheer banking of Dover. Should you want to, you could scale down to Bristol to compare steeply banked tracks but a half-mile of missing track length does matter. On the flip side, you could scale up to a place like Homestead or Atlanta but the comparisons failed there too with the two different-horsepower packages running at Dover versus those intermediate tracks.

However, with NASCAR using the high-horsepower package at Darlington, there is a close comparison for Dover! Yes, it’s imperfect as Darlington is a little longer and has more severe tire wear. However, in terms of corollaries, this is as close as it gets, especially now that both venues are running the same package. In this week’s Race Sheets, you’ll see the past three years’ worth of race data from Dover compared to Dover 1 & 2 from 2020 as well as last week’s Darlington race.

So, what exactly is there to glean from the Goodyear 400 other than “play Truex”? Most importantly, track position matters. Six of the top seven starters finished in the top seven. Your only exception was Kyle Larson racing his way to 2nd from 14th while Brad Keselowski and his horrible setup doomed him from the start as he ended his day in 24th after starting on the pole. In four races using the 750-horsepower package, when you combine all 1,505 laps run, just 103 of those laps have been led by drivers starting 11th or worse.

While there will be recency bias definitely baked into it, every indicator says that whoever excelled last week in terms of driver rating and average running position should be the drivers to target Sunday.

Drydene 311, 2020

As per Dover itself, we, unfortunately, can’t look at both Dover races in 2020 to help prepare us for DFS. Delaware was a little late in allowing for sporting events as it recovered from Covid-19, thus both Dover races got pushed into August. This is the first wrench, as generally the first Dover race is in the late spring, while the second happens during the playoffs. So already, the typical weather for Dover was off.

However, my issue with looking at the second Dover race, to help guide our DFS process, is that it was an inverted race. That means the top 20 from the first race got inverted, so Denny Hamlin start 20th and DiBenedetto start on the pole on Sunday. More often than not, the process in roster construction was just picking the right combination of place differential drivers with whatever value you needed to round out lineups.

Drydene 311 – Race 1

Due to the double-header nature of that weekend, both races ran just 311 laps as opposed to the normal 400 laps. Our optimal lineup in the first Drydene 311 was anchored by two dominators, on both DraftKings and FanDuel, who combined to lead 203 laps; Denny Hamlin who started 2nd, and Truex, who started 3rd. Both optimal lineups could have been cash game builds, especially on FanDuel. Side note, always play your cash teams in tournaments, especially single entry tournaments.

Your ire may be raised as that race was just 311 laps while Sunday will see 400 laps. Obviously, adding 89 laps back should impact the number of dominators for our tournament lineups. However, if you refer back to the Race Sheets and look at the “Laps led data” page you’ll note something interesting. Ever since stage breaks were introduced to Dover, three of six races have had a third dominator. However, the laps led total by that third dominator; 40, 58, and 49.

Unless that third lap leader manages to snag a large number of fastest laps, they’re going to struggle to become optimal with an elevated salary and fewer dominator points. Not to mention, when you roster three dominators you often finding yourself double-punting. So far in 2021, this 750-horsepower package has yet to yield an optimal lineup where you really needed to punt. The closest thing to a punt is $5,700 Corey LaJoie at Richmond who started 36th and finished 21st.

Therefore, in cash and tournaments, look for two lap leaders on both DraftKings and FanDuel. While the punt plays make a three-dominator build appears to be viable, they fail to do so week in and week out.

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