LineStar® Weekly Pitstop - EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix

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

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EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix🏁

Bristol was utter chaos last weekend, with lead changes and cautions seemingly every 15 laps. This Sunday, right-hand turns are back, and they want to add excitement to the race. The EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix will take place at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas. The track is a 3.41 mile, 20 turn road course that has become a staple of the NASCAR and Formula 1 schedules. COTA is the longest track on the NASCAR circuit, and over the last three races, it has proven to be incredibly difficult to master.

While rain tires will be available to the teams this weekend, they will not be needed. Temperatures in the mid 70s with gusty winds will make Sunday a fantastic day to take in a race.

An exciting development this season is that stage breaks are back at road courses. The one-year experiment of running road races without cautions at the stage breaks was a complete flop, so NASCAR is going back to running road races like every other track on the circuit.

_{On to COTA!}

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. 68 laps will be run this week, and 17 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 54 laps should run under the green flag for 24.3 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 🏗

Road courses are inherently different from any other track type we deal with and should be treated as such. This Sunday’s race will feature the fewest laps in any race in 2024, and in general, all road courses have significantly fewer laps than ovals. Since there are so few dominator points available to the field, the main concern at road courses is the finishing position. While you may think place differential should reign supreme, let's look at this example. A driver can start 32nd and crack the top 20, finishing an impressive 18th, and that would score 39 points. A similarly priced driver could start 11th and finish 7th, and he would score 41 points. While the second driver only picked up 4 spots compared to 14, since he finished so much better than the first driver, the place differential didn’t make up the point difference. Our goal is to have all 6 drivers in our roster finish in the top 12. The easiest way to rack up top 12 drivers is to roster drivers already starting in the top 15. Passing is hard at road courses; unless there is a major issue during the race, a driver should finish right around where they start. This causes a much more front loaded lineup than we are used to and in turn opens us up to a much lower floor, if something should go wrong.

Dominators take a hit whenever NASCAR goes to a road course but this year is different. With the addition of stage breaks again drivers can utilize pit strategy at the end of a stage to possibly lead the next stage. This all but guarantees at least 2 lead changes this race, severely hampering the possibility of a major dominator leading more than 70% of the race.

Finally, the bargain basement is open but with an asterisk. The basement is where we take the biggest gamble because while we generally avoid low priced drivers starting in the top 15, that’s where our money will be made.

Stage 1: 15 Laps

Stage 2: 15 Laps

Stage 3: 38 Laps

Lineup Foundation Targets

Chase Briscoe ($7,100 DK, $6,500 FD)

Briscoe is not the typical Foundational target, but I think his starting position of 32nd makes him an intriguing option on Sunday. Chase is exceptionally inexpensive and has immense upside. In the three previous races here, Briscoe has an average finish of 17th, including a top finish of 6th. He ran very well in practice, posting the 14th-best single-lap speed, and he had success at other road courses last season. While Briscoe was the driver I was mentioning in the lineup construction section, a top-20 finish would be more than enough for him to reach value in a cash game, and I actually believe he will provide some tournament upside.

Alex Bowman ($7,700 DK, $7,000 FD)

While I never think of Bowman as a particularly good road racer, his history at COTA is phenomenal. In three races here, Alex has an average finish of 4.33. He starts 17th on Sunday, but he showed a ton of speed in practice, posting the third-best single lap speed. A top-10 finish should be more than enough to help lineups land in the money in cash games.

Tournament Targets

Chase Elliott ($10,300 DK, $13,500 FD)

Elliott is one of the best road racers in the field and is starting 9th on Sunday. In his two races here, Chase finished 1st and 4th but never led a significant number of laps. Lucky for us, he is relatively inexpensive and has enough place differential potential to make up for the lack of dominator points. Elliott is in a bit of a drought, but I think COTA is exactly what he will need to get back on the right track.

AJ Allmendinger ($8,800 DK, $11,000 FD)

One of my favorite things to do at road courses is fade Allmendinger because he goes over-owned every time. Now, get yourself ready to be put in a mental pretzel. Allmendinger’s history here is abysmal, and he starts 14th on Sunday, so now I want as much tournament exposure to him as possible. AJ’s average finish at COTA is 24th, most due to issues he had in the last two races here. Allmendinger is way too good of a road racer to experience issues in three consecutive races so I think this presents a perfect buy low opportunity.

Bargain Basement

Ricky Stenhouse Jr ($5,500 DK, $4,000 FD)

There are two main reasons Stenhouse gets the nod this weekend: 1) He starts 30th, and 2) it's funny we found him in the basement in the first place. While Ricky does have a top 10 finish at COTA, the rest of his road history is less than stellar. This is mostly a low-risk, low-reward play. If Stenhouse doesn’t run into trouble, he could be useful. If Stenhouse does hit a snag, he is cheap and won’t ruin a lineup.

Other Drivers to Consider

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

Ross Chastain ($9,000 DK, $9,000 FD)

Chris Buescher ($7,800 DK, $8,500 FD)

Austin Dillon ($6,400 DK, $4,800 FD)

Top Driver to Avoid

Bubba Wallace ($6,700 DK, $5,500 FD)

Wallace has no luck at COTA; on Sunday, he starts 10th. His average finish here is 38th, while his average finish at other road courses in 2023 was 15. If he could hold himself together, Bubba could be a threat but he has this special knack for getting in his own way.

Pitstop Picks

2022 results: 17-57 (-27.3 u)

2023 results: 15-50 (-25.65 u)

2024 results: 5-5 (3.4 u)

SVG shocked the racing world when he made his NASCAR debut last season at Chicago and won. That was the first street race for most of these drivers and a rainy mess. As a general rule, I fade non-NASCAR drivers making the jump because they had a problem assimilating to the car and pit stops and such. As long as AJ runs a clean race, I think he should be able to finish better than SVG.

RFK Racing had a tough practice and qualifying on Saturday, but I expect them to use pit strategy to separate themselves from the field on Sunday. Buescher ran incredibly well at road courses last season, including a career-best 8th-place finish here, and I expect him to be hanging around the top 10 all race.

Pitstop Poll

2023 Results: 3-4 (2.85 u)

2024 Results: 2-2 (+3.85 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 EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix Cheatsheet

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