LineStar® Weekly Pitstop - Coke Zero Sugar 400

🔥Written by 2020,2023 FBWC, 2021 KoS, 2023(x3) and 2024 FWRC qualifier @joejets19

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Coke Zero Sugar 400🏁

Mother Nature and a late-stage caution could not stop my second fade in a row from reaching victory lane. The NASCAR playoffs are rapidly approaching. With only two races remaining in the regular season, there will be fireworks this Saturday night when the Cup Series travels to Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, FL, for the Coke Zero Sugar 400. Daytona is a massive, 2.5-mile, steeply banked tri-oval. While it is exceptionally tedious to mention every time, Daytona and Talladega are known as superspeedways due to the immense speed these cars can produce. We have to rely on a unique strategy while building lineups for superspeedways, and we will go over that in the Lineup Construction section of the Pitstop. The playoff picture plays an extra special wrinkle on Saturday because many teams view this as their last chance to make the postseason.

This is also one of the last weekends we will get good NASCAR tournaments. DraftKings will start shrinking the tournaments once football starts. Say goodbye to a $100k top prize in about two weeks.

On the weather front, it’s Florida in the summer. While the forecast is predicting anywhere between 10-20% chance of rain, I’d pencil in at least an hours worth of rain delays. Daytona obviously has lights, so running the entire race shouldn’t be a huge problem.

_{On to Daytona!}

Scoring Breakdown

At this point, we know how the DK scoring system works, so let's see how many points are available this week:

Laps Led Points =0.25 points per lap led. 160 laps will be run this week, and 40 DK points will be awarded (plus any overtime laps).

Place Differential Points = 1 point per position gained or -1 point per position lost.

Fastest Lap Points = 0.45 points per lap not run under caution (roughly 135 laps should run under the green flag for 60.75 possible DK points).

Finishing Position Points: The 40th place driver receives 4 points, and for each position gained, another point is awarded (39th=5, 38th=6…), and the winner gets 46 points.

Lineup Construction 🏗

This is now the third superspeedway of the season and close to the twenty-fifth time we have visited one since the inception of the Pitstop. I am going to save us the long-winded explanation of what makes this track type special and make a concise list of rules to follow.

1) Fade the top 5. Only one top 5 driver has made the perfect lineup at Daytona since February 2018.

2) Backload lineups. The magic starting position is 24th. Nineteen of the 24 drivers in the last four perfect lineups have started 24th or worse. Make sure to maximize the ceiling and floor of our lineups.

3) Dominators don’t matter. The driver that led the most laps at Daytona hasn’t made the perfect lineups since 2021.

4) Salary Cap doesn’t matter. Don’t be afraid to leave up to $10,000 on the table. Back loading lineups and fading dominators pretty much forces us to click names we wouldn’t generally consider, that’s ok. If you like your lineup but only spent $43000, don’t worry about it. Love your lineup and you used all $50,000? Chances are one of those big name drivers is going to break your heart.

5) Don’t fall in love with one particular driver. This is the perfect type of track to build a bunch of lineups and embrace the volatility but you must stay disciplined. There is close to a 40% attrition rate at Daytona so even your most beloved drivers shouldn’t really be in more than 50% of your lineups.

6) Embrace the Big One. None of your lineups are going to survive unscathed. A big one will happen. Don’t get stressed out if 90% of your lineups lose at least one driver. It only takes one clean lineup to turn a slate positive and possibly change your entire year.

Stage 1: 35 Laps

Stage 2: 60 Laps

Stage 3: 65 Laps

Lineup Foundation Targets

Justin Haley ($5,500 DK, $4,500 FD)

Haley burst onto the scene in 2019 with a win at Daytona but has had mixed results ever since. His starting position of 36th is his worst since February 2020 when he started 33rd and finished 13th. I think this is a great get-right spot for Justin, and expect his floor to be around 25th, with a top 15 as a very realistic ceiling.

Erik Jones ($7,000 DK, $6,800 FD)

Jones is going to be insanely popular on Saturday, but that is not due to his stellar track record. Erik starts 40th this weekend and is only one of two drivers in the field who cannot score negative points, no matter how hard he tries. Jones has a respectable number of top-10 finishes, including a win in 2018, but he has also run into his fair share of trouble. While you would have to be nuts to pass up playing Jones in cash, I love the idea of fading him in large tournaments and qualifiers.

Tournament Targets

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. ($7,900 DK, $6,000 FD)

In the continued theme of former Daytona winners, we find Ricky Stenhouse Jr starting 35th. Ricky followed up on his 2023 Daytona 500 victory with a pair of DNFs due to accidents, but I don’t expect that trend to continue on Saturday. I love that he has returned to his old wrecky ways because I expect him to go under-owned this weekend. One meaningful way to attack a superspeedway is to zig when everyone zags. If a driver has four straight top 15 finishes at Daytona, don’t think he’s “figured out superspeedways”; instead, pencil him in for a finish of 30th or worse. Likewise, a driver that has run into rough spot won’t perpetually be snakebitten, eventually the “Big One” will miss them and they can turn in a fantastic finish.

Denny Hamlin ($10,300 DK, $14,000 FD)

Is that another former Daytona winner? I think it is! Denny Hamlin was lights out at Daytona for nearly three years and then hit a giant skid. He starts 19th on Saturday, on the heels of a dramatic Richmond finish and a massive penalty being levied by NASCAR this week. Revenge Denny is one of my favorite NASCAR villains, and I can’t wait to see what he has up his sleeve this weekend.

Bargain Basement

Zane Smith ($5,800 DK, $3,500 FD)

This entire newsletter has been a bargain-basement extravaganza, but that’s ok because I really just wanted an excuse to write up Smith this weekend. Zane starts 30th on Saturday, and I expect him to go overlooked due to the variety of better-known names starting around him. Smith only has two races here, but they were a pair of 13th place finishes, and oddly enough, he started inside the top 17 for both of those races. He has proven he can stay up front. Now, it’s time for him to prove he can make his way up there.

Other Drivers to Consider

Here are three more drivers I like in Daytona that have a chance to make some noise in no particular order:

Austin Hill ($5,600 DK, $4,500 FD)

Kyle Busch ($8,800 DK, $9,500 FD)

Corey LaJoie ($6,300 DK, $5,500 FD)

Top Driver to Avoid

Bubba Wallace ($9,000 DK, $11,000 FD)

All eyes will be on Wallace this weekend because he is a bubble driver with a growing reputation as a fantastic superspeedway racer. The former Talladega champion starts 18th on Saturday and will need every point he can get. I expect Bubba to garner a ton of ownership this weekend making him a perfect fade candidate because the minute he runs into trouble we can get leverage on at least 30% of the field.

Pitstop Picks

2022 results: 17-57 (-27.3 u)

2023 results: 15-50 (-25.65 u)

2024 results: 19-25 (4.15 u)

DraftKings isn’t even offering H2Hs this weekend. I think they are still salty about taking a massive loss at Daytona last year. While I don’t like betting on MGM, they are offering two-plus-money H2Hs, and this is the one my model actually has the underdog pulling through. Buescher is an excellent superspeedway racer, but this weekend, it is all about making the odds work in your favor.

LaJoie has finished in the top 10 in three of his last seven races at Daytona, which is tied for the second-best top 10 percentage in the field. The top 10 odds are suppressed overall for this race due to the volatility of a superspeedway, but this is actually a decent line, all things considered.

Pitstop Poll

2023 Results: 3-4 (2.85 u)

2024 Results: 10-14 (+10.9 u)

A new feature this season will be the Pitstop Poll. I will select one of the groups posted on the DK Sportsbook and leave it up to the readers to vote on their preferred bet. I will keep track of this throughout the season to see how well we are doing. This week’s selection:

Thanks for reading, and good luck this weekend! Be sure to join me in the LineStar NASCAR chat!

For comments on every driver and additional stats, check out the Coke Zero Sugar 400 cheatsheet

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