🔥Written by 2020 FBWC and 2021 KoS qualifier @joejets19

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Hollywood Casino 400🏁

The NASCAR playoffs are in full swing and the NFL season starts on Sunday, so this is a great time to be a sports fan. The downside, however, is the NASCAR contests were absolutely gutted for this slate and racing will be treated as a third tier sport for the remainder of the season on most DFS sites. Linestar still has you covered though, so let's jump into the Hollywood Casino 400, which will take place Sunday afternoon at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, KS. The track is a 1.5 mile, progressively banked, tri-oval. The track itself is an unremarkable cookie cutter, and the weather report looks clear, so hopefully, the drivers will not have to endure any external curveballs this weekend.

On to Kansas!

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, 267 laps will be run, and 66.75 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 227 laps should run under the green flag for 102.15 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 🏁

1.5 mile ovals have traditionally been boring races, but the new car brought some much needed excitement to these tracks. While they now make for great TV, trying to predict the most likely outcome of these races is a tall task. Dominators will be important at Kansas but figuring out where they will start from is the trick. Excluding the 2020 races, each of the previous 11 races here have had 1 driver lead more than 100 laps. In six of those 11 races, a secondary dominator led 70 or more laps but less than 100. Starting on the pole used to guarantee a spot in the perfect lineup at Kansas but this is the only intermediate track this season where that turned out to be the case.

While it would for our place differential drivers be nice for all six drivers to finish in the top 10, that is not always feasible. If we can roster two dominators, two top 10 finishers and another two drivers that can pick up at least 10 spots, we should be set up well for a big day.

Stage 1: 80 laps, Stage 2: 85 laps, Stage 3: 102 laps

Lineup Foundation Targets

Chase Elliott ($10,500 DK, $13,000 FD)

Elliott starts 22nd on Sunday and will provide plenty of place differential for our cash teams. In his last eight races here, Chase finished in the top 6 six times with a win and two second place finishes. Elliott has also been very successful at similar tracks this season with an average finish of 6.8 and a positive place differential of 3.6 spots. Elliott struggled a bit in practice which isn't ideal but we aren't expecting him to be a dominator, as long as he makes his way into the top 5 over the course of the race he will reach value.

Aric Almirola ($6,500 DK, $5,500 FD)

Almirola and Stenhouse Jr will be starting 36th and 35th respectively on Sunday. I really debated which driver I wanted to write up, and Almirola got the nod. There may be an issue with Aric's engine but he is being scored from last, so if he needs to go to a backup car he won't lose any spots. Stenhouse ran into trouble in practice and qualified poorly. Almirola is not a sexy pick by any means but I view him as a safer option than Stenhouse. While I expect Almirola to finish around 25th, Stenhouse on the other hand has top 15 potential for sure, but he can also smack the wall again and finish dead last. For cash, Almirola is the safer play but I prefer Stenhouse in tournaments.

Tournament Targets

Ross Chastain ($10,000 DK, $10,500 FD)

This is mostly a gut feeling, but I think Chastain will be the major dominator on Sunday. Ross starts 5th on Sunday and turned in the second best single lap speed and third best 5 lap average during practice on Saturday. Ross has been very solid at similar tracks his season with an average finish of 8th and an average positive place differential of 13.6. Chastain needs a good performance in the worst way for his championship aspirations to continue and I am looking for him to punch his ticket to the next round tomorrow.

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

Jones was a surprising winner at Darlington, and I expect him to put on another good performance this Sunday at Kansas. Erik starts 24th for this race and was not impressive in practice by any means, His track history, however, is quite remarkable. During his time with JGR, Jones posted five top 7 finishes in six races here. That trend was similar to one we saw at Darlington, indicating that Jones is able to replicate his previous successes with his new team and decent equipment.

Bargain Basement

Justin Haley ($5,500 DK, $3,000 FD)

No brainer here; Haley was fast in practice and is starting 27th on Sunday, He has run into some car issues here recently, but if he stays clean, he has top 20 upside and that is exactly what we are looking for in this price range.

Other Drivers To Consider

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

Brad Keselowski ($7,000 DK, $6,000 FD)

Kyle Larson ($10,700 DK, $12,000 FD)

Ricky Stenhouse Jr ($6,300 DK, $6,500 FD)

Top Driver to Avoid

Tyler Reddick ($9,800 DK, $11,000 FD)

THIS IS A COMPLETELY CRAZY IDEA, but it may work. Reddick is starting on the pole and showed up to the race track on Saturday with an absolute rocket ship. 1.5 mile tracks have been tricky this season, and they haven't gone that well for the driver starting first. There are two conflicting trends going into the race, but I think Reddick will soak up a significant amount of ownership, and I can't resist a good game theory play.

Pitstop Picks

15-41 (-14.3 u)

Jones is starting a little further back than last week and he wasn't as fast this week during practice. I still love the odds on his top 10 finish but I will lower the units to a half unit to offset some of the risk.

I like the idea of betting 2 units a week so I am juicing this one a bit. Harvick has a better Kansas history and performed better at similar tracks this season. Wallace qualified much better than Harvick but Kevin was actually better in practice. Wallace's pace fell off the face of the earth after 10 laps during practice and since he is about to run 267 laps on Sunday, that should be very concerning.

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

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