Quaker State 400 NASCAR DFS Preview: DraftKings & FanDuel Fantasy Racing Advice

Following Tyler Reddick‘s first career NASCAR Cup victory, the NASCAR Cup Series heads back to Georgia for the Quaker State 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Let’s dive into the track information NASCAR DFS drivers need to know, what to expect for this weekend’s running of the Quaker State 400 at Atlanta and some early NASCAR fantasy picks.

NASCAR DFS Preview: 2022 Quaker State 400

Atlanta Motor Speedway Information

  • Track: Atlanta Motor Speedway
  • Location: Hampton, Georgia
  • Length: 1.5 miles
  • Banking: 28 degrees in the turns
  • Dominator Points:
    • DraftKings: 65 – laps led, 117 – fastest laps
    • FanDuel: 26 – laps led
  • Past winners: William Byron (2022)
  • Betting favorite: Chase Elliott, Ryan Blaney +1000 (BetMGM)
  • Entry List: 37 drivers, including Garrett Smithley (15), Noah Gragson (16), and Josh Bilicki (77).
  • Weather: High of 87, scattered thunderstorms
  • Watch: USA
  • Listen: PRN (PRN, NASCAR.com, NASCAR Sirius/XM Channel 90)

On Track Schedule (All Times Eastern)

  • Saturday, July 9
    • 11:35 a.m.: qualifying (no practice this week)
  • Sunday, July 10
    • 3 p.m.: green flag (15/30/62 laps)

2022 Quaker State 400 DFS Picks

2022 Points Standings

Then there were 13. Tyler Reddick finally put a full race together and sealed the deal on his first career Cup Series victory after five previous runner-up efforts. With his victory, Reddick moved from the outside looking in, into what appears to be a playoff-clinching spot with just eight races before the regular season ends, currently sitting 11th in the playoff standings ahead of such drivers as Kurt Busch, Chase Briscoe, Daniel Suarez and Austin Cindric.

However, Reddick can’t just ride out this victory. 2022 is shaping up to be a season unlike any other. No driver (five in total) has more than two victories through 18 races while a total of eight have won at least once. This currently only leaves three open spots for drivers to make their way into the playoffs via points. Ryan Blaney has a fairly comfortable margin of 112 points while Martin Truex Jr. sits 61 points above the cutoff. The final playoff spot is currently held by Christopher Bell, just 20 points above veteran Kevin Harvick, who managed to have another solid finish on a road course but fall out of the playoffs thanks to Reddick’s victory.

NASCAR Atlanta Preview

With Atlanta on the schedule this weekend, Bell could easily join the likes of Harvick outside of the playoffs.

For those unfamiliar with the new version of Atlanta, or just plain forgetful, following the second race at Atlanta in 2021, the owners of Atlanta Motor Speedway set out to make drastic changes to the track. Instead of just simply repaving the venue, last done in 1996, the track got an extreme makeover as the banking was adjusted throughout the venue. The result was Atlanta no longer resembling its intermediate brethren (Kansas, Las Vegas, Texas) but evolving into a miniature version of Daytona.

Expectations were all over the place in the Spring about whether the whole race would look like a superspeedway event or just the initial green flag starts/ restarts and then as the field spread out, it would revert back to a typical intermediate race. In the end, the track delivered the results the owners wanted. By the end of the 325 laps, there had been 46 lead changes by 20 different drivers including every driver that started in the top 10. Excluding a competition caution on lap 47, there were 10 yellow flags thrown on the day with just two resulting from debris. Atlanta even got its own “big one,” a lap-146 accident that collected 12 drivers in the carnage. In all, 12 of the 37 drivers failed to finish the race, with only one of those DNFs resulting from a mechanical failure. Atlanta had become the new Daytona.

Due to these factors, it should be no surprise at all if a driver with a solid superspeedway history finds their way to victory lane on Sunday. This includes the likes of Bubba Wallace, Chris Buescher, Michael McDowell, Austin Dillon, Ty Dillon, Erik Jones, Corey Lajoie, or Justin Haley; all drivers outside of the playoff picture who could take one more spot away from a driver making it in via points.

As far as DFS, with this track taking on its superspeedway characteristics, the optimal lineup had shades of a superspeedway race at Daytona or Talladega. The optimal DraftKings lineup left $2,900 on the table while the optimal FanDuel lineup left $15,000 over. However, that’s where the similarities start to diverge as the drivers who comprised these optimal lineups started closer to the front than the back. In fact, just two of the optimal drivers started 20th or worse. For those that employed a “stack the back” strategy, they probably faired well as nine of the top-15 DraftKings scores came from drivers who started 20th or worse. However, as seen in other superspeedway events, unless there is carnage throughout the entire race, just simply stacking the back often doesn’t yield the optimal lineup. There has to be nuance and often that includes exposure to drivers up front who have the potential to lead. In this case that was William Byron who won the event after leading 111 laps, and Ross Chastain who finished second and led 42 laps with 14 fastest laps.

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Phill Bennetzen is the creator of the RaceSheets; all-inclusive stats and data NASCAR DFS spreadsheets for the Trucks, Xfinity, and Cup Series. Phill and the RaceSheets can be found at racesheetsdfs.substack.com

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