🔥Written by 2020 FBWC and 2021 KoS qualifier @joejets19

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Kwik Trip 250🏁

Happy 4th of July weekend everyone! I hope everyone will enjoy some sun, a party or two, and maybe even a tournament takedown before the real fireworks begin. This Sunday, NASCAR travels to Road America in Plymouth, WI. The track is a 14-turn, 4.048-mile road course with many elevation changes and an incredibly long front stretch. This is the third true road course of the season so we are starting to get some decent data to go on. Rain is not in the forecast for Sunday but if pop-up showers do occur they have road tires and windshield wiper so we are still a go as long as there is no lightning.

On to Road America!

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, 62 laps will be run and 15.5 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 52 laps should run under the green flag for a total of 23.4 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 the second road course in three weeks so the strategy should be fresh in our heads. There are a laughably low amount of dominator points available on Sunday so dominators are almost a non-consideration. As I went over during our Sonoma Pitstop, we want to prioritize finishing position over place differential so I think our goal should be to roster 6 drivers with top 10 potential. An example of this for this race is Blaney ($9,200 starting 19th) vs Byron ($9,000 starting 29th). If we could only roster one of these drivers, you may think that Byron is the better play because he is slightly cheaper and starting further back. This is a superficial approach to the situation , however, so lets take a look why. If Blaney were to pick up 10 spots and finish 9th, he will score 45 DK pts while Byron would need to pick up 15 spots and finish 14th to score 44 DK pts. Especially at road courses where passing can be difficult at times, Blaney has the easier road to hitting value and their floors aren't too different either. Our lineups will look more front loaded than usual (that is ok) and we may avoid the bargain basement all together in favor for a more balanced build.

Stage 1: 15 laps, Stage 2: 15 laps, Stage 3: 32 laps

Lineup Foundation Targets

Ross Chastain ($10,300 DK, $13,000 FD)

Chastain is having a career year and has been one of the most consistent drivers this season. He starts 12th on Sunday and is coming off of a win at COTA in March and a 7th place finish at Sonoma in June. Chastain ran the third-fastest single-lap in practice on Saturday but didn't run 5 consecutive laps so we don't have a complete gauge of his long-run speed. Chastain is a bit pricey so we are depending on him finishing in the top 5 to be useful but I think he provides us with a safe enough floor and race winning upside, making him a great building block for our cash and tournament lineups.

Austin Dillon ($6,200 DK, $6,000 FD)

Austin Dillon has been sneaky good at road courses this season and I am looking for him to continue that trend on Sunday. Dillon starts 20th and is coming off of a 10th and 11th place finish at COTA and Sonoma respectively as well as an 11th place finish at Road America last season. While his single-lap speed wasn't overly impressive during practice he did run the 9th best 5 lap average which is an encouraging sign. Dillon is a very inexpensive option with top 10 potential that gives us a ton of flexibility with out lineup builds.

Tournament Targets

Chase Elliott ($11,100 DK, $14,000 FD)

I am not going to waste too much time looking for dominators on Sunday because there are only 62 laps, but I would like to roster the race winner and I think Elliott has the best chance to take home the W. Elliott was almost alarmingly slow in practice but as able to secure the pole in qualifying. He is arguably the best road racer in the field and he is starting 1st, if passing continues to be difficult with the new car there is a chance he can run away with this race. Road courses are one of the only track types that have been majorly impacted by the implementation of stages so he could lose the lead due to pit strategy but I still believe this will be his race to lose.

Daniel Suarez ($7,700 DK, $11,500 FD)

Suarez is looking to follow up his first career win at Sonoma with a solid finish at another road course this Sunday. Suarez starts 17th and has already shown he has race winning potential. He was fairly quick in practice, running the 10th best single lap time but really excelled over the long run with the 5th best 5 lap average. Trackhouse has figured something out at these road courses and I expect their drivers to continue their success until the rest of the field catches up.

Bargain Basement

Justin Haley ($5,900 DK, $4,500 FD)

Haley is cheap and starting 34th which is a great combination. He has two top 15 finishes this season at road courses, albeit one came with negative place differential but he was still able to hang on to his track position so that is encouraging. I would not be opposed to fading this entire price range in tournaments because I do not believe these drivers provide enough upside to win 1st place but Haley is perfectly fine for cash where you want to minimize risk.

Other Drivers To Consider

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

Ryan Blaney ($9,200 DK, $10,000 FD)

Kevin Harvick ($8,100 DK, $6,800 FD)

Aric Almirola ($7,100 DK, $5,000 FD)

Top Driver to Avoid

Cole Custer ($6,100 DK, $5,800 FD)

Custer has trap written all over him. He starts 10th on Sunday and is very cheap, I expect him to garner some ownership due to the success of McDowell/Buescher/Suarez at road courses this year under similar circumstances. Custer is used to starting this far forward at road courses, starting in the top 6 at both COTA and Sonoma, and in both of those races he finished worse than 20th. I will be rolling out a full fade on Cole and if that is the difference between a good and a bad week I will have to live with it.

Pitstop Picks

11-25 (-11.1u)

After my rough spell I have been treading water with these picks but I am dying to get into the green. This is the most reasonable top 10 offering I've seen on DK in months and love Dillon at +800. I already wrote him up as a cash game option so I won't go crazy but he already has a top 10 finish at a road course this year and he has proven time and time again he can make big moves at these tracks and finish well.

DK burned me big time last week with Bowman but I am going to go back to the well again with a bloated underdog in a group. Briscoe and Reddick could win or crash and at least one of them will so I want to avoid that volatility. Bowman has been a good road racer and he starts in the top 10 so that will prove to be an issue for Byron but he has been here before, He often qualifies poorly and is still able to turn in a decent result. I think a top 8 will be enough to win this group and I can't pass up that massive number on Byron, embrace the variance.

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

Be sure to download the Kwik Trip 250 cheatsheet and find me on Twitter Good Luck!