🔥Written by 2020 FBWC and 2021 KoS qualifier @joejets19

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Goodyear 400🏁

First and foremost, Happy Mother's Day to the three confirmed females reading the Pitstop this weekend. NASCAR gave everyone a present this year with the timing of the annual Darlington throwback race. The Goodyear 400 will take this Sunday at "The Lady in Black", Darlington Speedway in Darlington, SC. The track is a 1.366 mile, asphalt, egg-shaped oval with a unique feature: turns 1 and 2 are slightly more banked and have a different shape than turns 3 and 4. Weather is not projected to be an issue this weekend but tire wear might be so get ready to spend the afternoon watching some chaos in classic paint schemes.

On to Darlington!

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. This week, 293 laps will be run and 73.25 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 258 laps should run under the green flag for a total of 116.1 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 🏁

We are going to start our lineups searching for, you guessed it, dominators. Just shy of 300 laps (293) will be run on Sunday, a weird amount but still enough to facilitate at least two dominators. Historically, four of the last nine races have had two drivers that led more than 90 laps and seven of those eight drivers made the perfect lineup. In three of the last nine races, one driver led more than 200 laps with no secondary dominator, all three of those drivers made it into the perfect lineup. Darlington is one of the few tracks where dominators can come from literally anywhere, which is fun and stressful at the same time. At least one driver starting in the front row has been in the perfect lineup of five of the last nine races, but only three of those drivers led more than 90 laps.

Finishing position will be the second most important thing we will look for when building lineups. In addition to our two dominators, we will need three other drivers that finish in the top 10. Historically, passing has not been a problem and there is a relatively high attrition rate so drivers can make big moves. Drivers generally do not have a hard time starting in the 20s and finishing in the top 10 and fast drivers are able to start well and finish well too. Five top 10 drivers will be our goal, don't be scared if a driver you like will have to make a big move to get there.

The bargain-basement will be open again on Sunday. Eight of the last nine perfect lineups have had at least one driver in the sub $6000 range and one race had two drivers from that range. These drivers are generally our sole non-top 10 driver so as long as they pick up a few spots they will be useful.

Stage 1: 80 laps, Stage 2: 95 laps, Stage 3: 108 laps

Lineup Foundation Targets

Kevin Harvick ($8,800 DK, $9,000 FD)

Harvick's price jumped out at me early in the week and then he became a cash game lock on Saturday when he failed to make a qualifying lap. Harvick will start 35th on Sunday due to an issue in practice that chose to fix during qualifying. Even if Harvick has to go to a backup car, his starting position can't get worse so he will not have to worry about late-breaking news. When his car was working on Saturday, he ran the 15th fastest single lap time and even had the 13th best 10 lap average. Harvick is coming off of seven straight top 6 finishes here, including two wins. He will have his work cut out for him to keep his top 6 streak going, but a top 10 is not out of the question and that is exactly what we are looking for.

Austin Cindric ($7,100 DK, $6,200 FD)

The mid-range is a bit dicey this weekend but I think Cindric is one of the safest drivers with top 10 upside. He starts 19th on Sunday and had a fantastic practice, turning in the fastest single lap time and the 9th best 10 lap average. Austin enjoyed some success at Darlington during his Xfinity career with four top 12 finishes in 6 tries. Cindric is an inexpensive driver with a relatively safe floor and top 10 upside, exactly what we are looking for in both cash and GPPs.

Tournament Targets

Kyle Larson ($11,000 DK, $14,000 FD)

Larson is starting on the front row on Sunday (2nd) and is the most likely dominator of the race. This is shaping up to be Kyle's best chance at a dominating performance in a, so far, lackluster season. While Larson didn't run the best single lap speed in practice, his car got better in the long run compared to Logano whose car practically fell apart in 10 laps. Larson is very good at Darlington, with four straight top three finishes and three races with more than 124 laps led in the last five. While Larson is starting to rack up decent finishes he has yet to run away with a race, this is the weekend that he puts the rest of the series on notice.

Chase Briscoe ($8,100 DK, $7,500 FD)

Briscoe is not the type of driver I normally look at but his 13th place starting position has me intrigued. We are looking to rack up top 10 finishes and Briscoe has a chance to do just that. His 7th best 10 lap average was very encouraging and his moderate success at Darlington last year makes him a plausible high-risk high reward option. Briscoe is starting right around a handful of drivers that will garner a ton of ownership with a similar ceiling, he is a great driver to gain leverage on the field.

Bargain Basement

Ty Dillon ($5,100 DK, $4,000 FD)

Dillon is no stranger to starting will at Darlington and his 21st place starting position makes his floor dangerously low but does give him tournament-winning upside. Ty has four top 20 finishes here in his career including a top finish of 13. He was also able to record top 15 single lap and five lap times in practice on Saturday. There are definitely safer options in this price range but very few have the ceiling of Dillon.

Other Drivers To Consider

Here are 3 more drivers I like at Darlington that have a chance to make some noise in no particular order:

Ross Chastain ($9,700 DK, $11,500 FD)

Chase Elliott ($10,600 DK, $13,000 FD)

Chris Buescher ($6,900 DK, $6,800 FD)

Top Driver to Avoid

Ryan Blaney ($9,400 DK, $10,500 FD)

There are some tracks that Blaney just can't figure out and Darlington is one of them. Over the last six races here, Blaney's average starting position is 7.7, and his average finish position in 17.3. That actually make it look better than he actually is here.

Pitstop Picks

Hey I won one.

6-18 (-10.55u)

DraftKings has a ton of fun bets out for this race so you should go check them out if you are in a participating state, including this one. Hendricks (Elliott, Larson, Byron and Bowman) vs JGR (Truex Jr., Hamlin, Kyle Busch, Bell) for more cars to finish in the top 5. I could see literally anything happening here, the way JGR has been operating this season, I could see either all four drivers in the top 5 or outside the top 20. I think Larson is the most likely winner, Elliott and Hamlin are both starting in the rear, Kyle Busch is on baby watch and Truex was scary slow in practice. With all that said, these two teams are evenly matched so I am going with the better odds.

Who doesn't like a back marker prop? Hemric is terrible and very likely to crash (or at least twitter told me this).

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

Be sure to download the Goodyear 400 cheatsheet and find me on Twitter Good Luck!