The field is set for Friday night’s NextEra Energy 250 with Johnny Sauter and Sheldon Creed on the front row. Therefore, let’s jump into the top DraftKings NASCAR DFS picks for tonight’s Truck race at Daytona.
[DAYTONA]
Lineup Building Guidelines
If you’ve ever dabbled in the Trucks Series, it may have gone badly for you. I know it has for me. There is a blind assumption that what is good for the goose is good for the gander. What worked on Sunday will work in this case on Friday. There is a bit more nuance than that. A lot of what makes lineups optimal in the Trucks Series comes down to raw fantasy points scored.
For example, you can’t just split the field down the middle and ignore half the field in your lineups. In last year’s Daytona Truck race, the number one scoring driver started 11th (Grant Enfinger). Furthermore, the sixth, seventh, and ninth-highest scoring drivers all started 16th or higher. Doing the simple superspeedway trick for Cup races would have removed four of the top ten highest scores from your player pool.
That all being said, drivers with place differential will be valuable. In the previously mentioned race, the second through fifth-highest scoring drivers all started 21st or worse. Coincidentally, those same drivers all picked up at least 18 or more positions from start to finish. Perhaps the point that should really be driven for our NASCAR DFS purposes tonight is that corollary all of these drivers had in common was finishing in the top 10. In fact, only two drivers who went on to score top-10 fantasy days finished outside of the real-life top 10.
Don’t overexpose yourself to just drivers in the back half of the field because you’ll limit your upside. On the flip side, don’t go crazy with drivers starting in the single digits or teens as one or two wrecks will sink your roster. You need balance, a sort of balance we don’t often look for when building Cup lineups at Daytona.
DraftKings NASCAR DFS Picks: NextEra Energy 250
Cash Picks
Austin Hill, 18th ($10,200)
The surprise single-truck qualifying speed has to go to the 2019 Daytona winner, Austin Hill. His misfortunate time becomes our no-brainer pick, whether in cash or tournaments. Hill has the capability to march forward and win this event, something we can’t say for many drivers starting 15th or beyond. In Hill’s last three starts at Daytona, his finishes have gone 6, 1, and 11.
Codie Rohrbaugh, 27th ($5,300)
If this were not a superspeedway race, we would stray far from a driver whose team name is “Grant County Mulch Racing”. However, all bets are off, and this is generally the one race we can count on these lower-funded teams to actually compete in. Regardless, in Rohrbaugh’s two superspeedway races last season, he finished third at Daytona and fifth at Talladega. If your eyes stray away from those finishes you see a guy consistently finishing in the 30s and late 20s. Don’t add those finishes into your expectations for Rohrbaugh tonight. This evening I expect him to compete and if he mirrors what he did last season, we could see another top-10 finish.
James Buescher, 36th ($6,900)
I’ll save you the nice jokes about his salary. What is nice though is his dead last starting position, giving him nowhere to go but to the front. It’s been a while since we’ve seen Buescher behind the wheel of a Truck at Daytona. However, this is a former Trucks Series Champ (2012) and he’s behind the wheel of a Niece Motorsports Truck. He’s safely a top-20 driver tonight, if not top-15.
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Tournament Picks
Tonight looks like a place-differential heavy build based on the way the field qualified. I would advise going after safety with the myriad of talented drivers who qualified 14th or worse. Yet, if you do want some exposure to a driver starting higher up with dominator points potential, I do have one name in mind.
Grant Enfinger, 3rd ($9,600)
Last season’s Daytona winner rolls off the grid 3rd. In terms of recent success at superspeedways, Enfinger may be the best in the Series with three straight top-10 finishes at Daytona and two top-13 finishes at Talladega. Although the starting position may scare you, your tournament lineups will need exposure to drivers this high. What Enfinger lacks in place-differential, he makes up for with finishing position potential as well as possible dominator points.
Buried under the radar is that Enfinger is not running a full-time schedule this season. He’s currently scheduled to only run a partial schedule for ThorSport in 2021 splitting time with Christian Eckes. If Enfinger were able to win this race, it might open the door for him to run the rest of the schedule with another team. Something he’s made known through numerous interviews.
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