Written by @joejets19

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NASCAR The Real Heroes 400 🏁

Welcome back! After 10 long weeks, America is slowly starting to make its way back to normal and NASCAR is doing its part with the Real Heroes 400 from Darlington Raceway. Before we dive in, I want to extend my condolences to anyone who lost a loved one due to COVID-19. Everything about this pandemic has been hyper-politicized but the long and the short of it is there are thousands of people who were here in February that aren't here now and we should offer our support to those families that are grieving.

Thank you for sticking with us through this difficult time and lets have some fun on Sunday watching a race and sweating some DFS contests. I have been writing about uncertainty for over a year now and NASCAR really stepped their game up, putting on a race with no practice and no qualifying. So we have absolutely zero clue what these cars are going to look like on Sunday. If that wasn't crazy enough, we are running it back Wednesday night and we will actually keep this pace for the next couple of weeks. Darlington is a 1.366 mile egg shaped oval with equidistant front and back stretches but turns 1 and 2 are bigger than turns 3 and 4. It is worth noting that previous races here have been night races (starting around the same time as Wednesday's race), it might not make a ton of difference but it does also add another wrinkle to the madness.

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 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 = 0.5 points per lap not run under caution (roughly 263 laps should run under the green flag for a total of 131.5 possible 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 🏁

Before we begin, a public service announcement.... I added new tabs to my cheatsheet this week to help with custom DK/FD projections. I made it easier for anyone who wants to calculate how many points a driver would score if they start 10th, finish 1st, lead 50 laps and have 5 fastest laps. The tab will be preloaded with my personal projections (not LineStar's) and can be customized for your own personal use. I am currently having trouble with it functioning properly on Apple's Numbers application, but it should be fully functioning on Sheets and Excel as long as you download the cheatsheet off of Dropbox. Feel free to reach out with any issues/questions.

We have almost nothing to go on for this race besides gut instinct and track history. DraftKings has stepped up their NASCAR offerings in a big way for Sunday's race, which really excites me but I do want everyone to exercise caution because we won't have any solid information to base our lineups on. As I say that, I will probably play just as much Sunday as I will on Wednesday, but I do expect the mid-week race contests to be smaller and potentially more profitable because we can use the information available from the previous race.

The last four races at Darlington have been interesting because two races had one dominator that led more than 200 laps and two races had three drivers that led between 75-125 laps. Three dominator races are rare, so I see this as being more of a two dominator affair and I think we need to look on the front row for at least one of them. Three of the last four races had a driver starting in the front row dominate, including both 200+ lap leaders. The second dominator will be harder to nail down because they can start from pretty much anywhere (Kyle Busch led 118 laps in 2019 after he started 33rd).

Once we pick our dominators, we will want three to four drivers that we think can pick up 5-10 places or finish in the top 10. Qualifying didn't occur, so the field was set by an owner point/random draw combo which opened up a ton of value, so lineup construction will be all over the place on Sunday.

Finally, don't be afraid to shop in the bargain basement this week because each of the last 4 perfect lineups had at least one driver that cost less than $6000. We will still need upside from those drivers however, because we will most likely need them to finish in the top 25.

Stage 1: 90 laps, Stage 2: 95 laps, Stage 3: 108 laps

Lineup Foundation Targets

Darlington Picks:

Brad Keselowski ($10,400 DK, $12,000 FD)

Keselowski was awarded the pole Thursday night and showed in 2015 he knows what to do when he starts first. He led 196 laps and finished second in that race and followed it up with two other top 10 finishes when starting on the front row. I would imagine his biggest challenge early will come from Kyle Busch, but I think he should lead the first 30 laps until the competition caution and then hopefully lock up at least the full first stage.

Erik Jones ($9,200 DK, $9,800 FD)

The drivers starting 20-25 are going to make or break the slate in my opinion, and I think Jones will actually be more contrarian than I originally suspected. Jones is starting 20th and has finished 8th or better in each of his three races here with positive place differential in two of those races. He is $700 more expensive than Kurt Busch (who I also think is a great play) and starts 2 places further forward. So I think he will actually get slightly overlooked, which is great for GPPs but also can be helpful in cash games.

Tournament Targets

Darlington Picks:

Kyle Busch ($11,800 DK, $14,000 FD)

We are most likely going to need a second dominator and I think Kyle has about the same chance to dominate as Kes, he will just have to wait his turn. Busch is no stranger to leading laps here ,with two races with over 100 laps led in the last 7 trips to Darlington. He has been uncharacteristically unimpressive so far this year but since we are going into this race practically blind, this is a "bet on talent" type of play.

Ty Dillon($5,600 DK, $5,000 FD)

This is a rare two bargain basement Pitstop but I can't miss an opportunity to write up the better Dillon. He starts 33rd but has an average finish of 18th here in his last three races (including an average of +9.3 places) and an average finish of 20th at similar tracks. He also started the season hot, with two top 15 finishes in the first four races. I think he will be popular but you can't go wrong for his ceiling/floor combo, especially at that price.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. ($6,800 DK, $6,400 FD)

Every time I write up Stenhouse in this spot it makes me chuckle, but I think he makes a great high risk/high reward GPP pivot this week. He's starting 23rd, behind two pieces of chalk (Erik Jones and Kurt Busch) and right in front of Chris Buescher (who I also like and think will be popular). Stenhouse has a career-best finish here of 12th (in 2018) but comes at a discount to the three previously mentioned drivers. He may not have top 5 potential but a top 10 at his price/ownership will go a long way to propelling a lineup to the top.

Bargain Bin

Darlington Pick

Michael McDowell ($5,400 DK, $4,000 FD)

McDowell is a fine play in his own right but is relegated to the bargain basement section because Dillon has a better history and is starting two spots further back. McDowell has an average finish here of 25.67 in his last three races, including two top 20s. In a perfect world, we get some new blood to flood in and own a ton of Suarez while we can ride McDowell and Dillon to the bank.

Other Drivers To Consider

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

Kurt Busch ($8,500 DK, $9,400 FD)

Chris Buescher ($7,000 DK, $7,300 FD)

Tyler Reddick ($7,200 DK, $6,600 FD)

Top Driver to Avoid

Darlington Pick

Matt DiBenedetto ($7,500 DK, $7,800 FD)

DiBenedetto is having himself a solid season but starting 3rd is not where I want to see him on Sunday. He has an average finish of 24.33 in his last three races here and has no chance to dominate. There are a bunch of drivers that are starting further forward than they normally would but none of them have as low of a floor as DiBenedetto.

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

Be sure to download the Real Heroes 400 Cheatsheet and find me on Twitter. Good Luck!

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