NASCAR DFS 101: How to build lineups

The million-dollar question is what do we do to build NASCAR lineups?

The main answer is that it all depends on the track. When we play Daytona or Talladega, we focus on a lineup construction around the less aggressive drivers mixed with drivers who do well on those tracks. This is a different monster and an exception to our basic rules of building lineups for NASCAR. When it comes to building lineups for NASCAR, here’s my research and what I do beforehand. 

• Research the drivers that have had past success at that particular track. I tend to look at the last 5-10 races at that particular track.
• Focus on the top value plays on the slate. Drivers who are priced down and starting worse than they should be are value plays. These plays will be your place differential (PD) core plays.
• Look at Las Vegas odds and focus on the drivers who have the best odds.

It’s a pretty easy process, but a key point I want to emphasize is that you can leave salary on the board. I prefer not to use all salary every week because more times than not, you’ll end up tying a ton of people. When building lineups, we usually focus on “dominators.” This term refers to drivers who will lead a ton of laps, finish in the top 5 and have the fastest laps. As the name suggests, you focus on a few drivers who will dominate the race.

For myself, I usually run 2-3 dominators (also depends on the track) then plug and play the best PD drivers, plus some cheaper drivers who could finish in the top 5 or 10. Here’s an example of my build from my recent $20,000 win. I ignored the $50,000 because this was Talladega and as I mentioned in the beginning, that's is a different monster:

• Dominator
• Dominator
• Dominator
• PD Value
• PD Value
• PD Value or Inexpensive driver who could be top 5 or top 10

It seems easy, but there are 40 drivers. I usually remove 15-20 of my player pool every week. We can discuss and help you every week on who we should remove. As mentioned, it depends on the track.