🔥Written by 2020 FBWC and 2021 KoS qualifier @joejets19

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NASCAR Cup Series Championship🏁

We finally made it! Our 36-week grind culminates with one final race, the NASCAR Cup Series Championship at Phoenix Raceway in Avondale, AZ. The track is a 1 mile, flat, asphalt tri-oval with a unique dogleg that can be used for passing if necessary. The focus of the championship race should be the Championship Four drivers: Bell, Chastain, Elliott, and Logano. We should expect all four drivers to run in the top 5 for most of the race (unless they suffer some self-afflicted error) because the other drivers stay out of their ways and let them battle for the championship amongst themselves. We will go more in-depth about our strategy for this race in the lineup construction section. We are looking at perfect racing conditions this weekend, and I am excited to see this season's champion crowned on Sunday.

Before we proceed, I would like to thank everyone for another amazing season. The new car, tire problems, odd practice times, and overwhelming variance made this a tougher-than-usual year. Still, I appreciate every one of you for continuing to read the Newsletter, participate in the chat, and being active on Twitter. I also want to thank LineStar/BetFully for providing this amazing optimizer/app and their constant innovations in the DFS space.

On to Phoenix!

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, 312 laps will be run, and 78 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 262 laps should run under the green flag for 117.9 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 🏁

The championship race is a winner-take all event that will crown the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series Champion. The four championship drivers this season are Christopher Bell, Ross Chastain, Chase Elliott, and Joey Logano. While this race isn't technically winner take all (the championship goes to the top finisher of the four), every year since the inception of this playoff system the Championship driver won the Championship Race. The prevailing theory around this is the other 32 drivers kind of mind their own business around the top 4 because they don't want to have any influence on the outcome. We can use this information to our advantage when building DFS lineups. During the two previous Championship Races at Phoenix, over 90% of the laps were led by championship drivers, all 8 of the championship drivers finished in the top 5 and both perfect lineups for those races had at least 2 championship drivers. DK/FD did a great job pricing up these drivers but not making them too expensive so we should be able to roster any pair of championship drivers but throwing a third in there will make everything significantly harder. In cash I would suggest playing Bell and Chastain together because they have guaranteed place differential (as long as they don't wreck) and possibly one of either Elliott/Logano. For tournaments I would have at least one of Elliott/Logano in every lineup because one of the two will be the major dominator and then you could pair them with a place differential championship driver or go totally nuts and fade both of them (I wouldn't suggest that strategy but it definitely would be unique).

Now that we have 2-3 spots in our lineup accounted for, now what? Depending on our preferred build we will have between $5966/driver for 3 drivers and $7275/driver for 4 driver. We will need at least one bargain basement driver to simply not suck, to free up some salary (especially in 3 stud builds). For our final roster spots, we should focus on drivers with top 10 potential. We don't need laps led potential, just a top 10 finish with positive place differential should be enough to make a run at the perfect lineup.

Stage 1: 60 laps, Stage 2: 125 laps, Stage 3: 127 laps

Lineup Foundation Targets

Ross Chastain ($10,400 DK, $13,000 FD)

Chastain is the cheapest of the Championship Four drivers on DK and also has the worst starting position (25th). That combination screams cash game lock to me because he should be running in the top 5 by the end of the first stage, and that would give him 59 DK pts as a floor. Chastain finished 2nd here in the Spring after starting 17th and has top 8 finishes at Dover, Kansas, and Loudon, all correlated tracks to Phoenix. On Friday, Chastain was fast in practice, running the best single lap speed and top ten 5,10,15, and 20 lap averages. I am not scared off by Chastain's poor qualifying performance but instead see it as an opportunity to lock in a significant amount of points for my cash team.

Bubba Wallace ($7,300 DK, $7,800 FD)

Bubba Wallace and safe are not words that end up in sentences very often, but I think he is in a great spot this Sunday. Wallace starts 23th but showed some speed in practice, running the 11th best single lap speed and 10th best ten lap average. What drew my eye to Wallace is his average finish of 10.8 at similar tracks this season. His track history at Phoenix is not as impressive, but a top 15 is well within reason and that is very useful in cash this weekend.

Tournament Targets

Joey Logano ($10,500 DK, $12,500 FD)

Logano is starting on the pole on Sunday and is the most likely dominator of the race. While I looked for every reason to write up Elliott over Logano, all the numbers point to this being Logano's race to lose. Joey has a better average finish at Phoenix, more laps led here, better practice times, and a better average finish at similar tracks this season. I don't think Logano will be a wire-to-wire winner, but I am pretty confident in his ability to lead 100+ laps and finish in the top 5.

Aric Almirola ($7,200 DK, $8,200 FD)

Is Phoenix short? Yes. Is Phoenix flat? Yes. Then Almirola is at least a tournament consideration. Aric starts 13th on Sunday and is coming off of five straight top 13 finishes here. I wish he started a little further back, but a driver at his price with top 10 potential is precisely what we are looking for this weekend. Almirola's practice speeds won't jump off the page and his similar track finishes aren't that exciting but his track history is fantastic and sometimes we have to trust our gut.

Bargain Basement

Ty Dillon ($5,600 DK, $4,000 FD)

Dillon starts 32nd on Sunday and has an average finish of 17.5 over his last five races here and an average finish of 22.375 at similar tracks this season. Ty provides cash game safety with tournament-winning upside.

Other Drivers To Consider

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

Alex Bowman ($8,000 DK, $8,000 FD)

Chris Buescher ($6,700 DK, $7,000 FD)

Brad Keselowski ($7,000 DK, $7,500 FD)

Top Driver to Avoid

Kyle Larson ($10,100 DK, $12,000 FD)

It would be perfectly ironic if Larson or Blaney ran away with this race to cap off the oddest season I can remember. Larson is expensive and starting 4th but has almost 0 dominator potential. He has struggled, by his standards, for most of the year and I would expect him to mail this one in. Knowing my luck, he is going to lead 200 laps and win.

Pitstop Picks

17-55 (-25.3 u)

I had a terrible year, so I am trying to catch up here. Most other years with would be a safer bet, but tires and 2 wildcard drivers make this a bit dicey. Overall, as long as all four drivers finish the race, they should be in the top 5. We just need everyone else to stay out of the way.

Harvick is the most consistent performer at Phoenix in the entire field, but he has been very on and off this season. He has the safest floor of the group but probably the lowest ceiling. Since none of these drivers will be racing for a win, I like Harvick to sneak in the best finish.

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

Be sure to download the NASCAR Cup Series Championship and find me on Twitter Good Luck!