The first race of the 2021 NASCAR Trucks Series playoffs begins tonight in Illinois with Austin Hill and John Hunter Nemechek on the front row. This one will be a dandy, with quite a few drivers making a run for the finish line. Let’s get right to it and dive into the top NASCAR DFS Trucks plays for the Toyota 200 this evening at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway.
Toyota 200 NASCAR DFS Picks for DraftKings
Austin Hill, 1st ($10,400) | John Hunter Nemechek, 2nd ($11,600)
With 160 laps on tap for Friday, there is plenty of room for discussion about dominators. That discussion begins with the duo starting on the front row, Hill and Nemechek.
Hill comes into Gateway with an average finish of 9.8 across four starts with just four total laps led. Even with an average finish just over 1oth, Hill only has one top-five finish. That came in last year’s event when he started fourth and finished third. Before that top-five, Hill’s previous three starts were all 14th through 11th. For the season at tracks, either measuring at or shorter than 1.3-miles, Hill has no finish worse than 13th (Darlington) but just one landed in the top-five. That top-five finish was a win at Knoxville, but projecting any correlation between the dirt track at Knoxville and this egg-shaped oval at Gateway is a fool’s errand. In whatever direction you slice up the numbers, Hill has been finishing where he should but his laps-led numbers are more than lacking with just 25 through the 5 “shorter” venues.
Nemechek oddly enough has been eerily as consistent in terms of finishes. In these five races (Bristol, Richmond, Darlington, Nashville, Knoxville), Nemechek has several high finishes but just one win back at Richmond. The one separating factor between Hill and Nemechek has been the latter showing his capability to take over a race for a stretch. At Richmond, Nemechek led 114/250 laps (a race with Kyle Busch in it) and then led 65/147 laps at Darlington. On the other hand, in the other three events, Nemechek didn’t log a single lap led.
Hill is rolling into Gateway with more momentum after winning his last two events. Still, Nemechek has been the better driver overall after winning the regular-season championship on the back of five victories.
Todd Gilliland, 3rd ($9,400)
If you’re looking for a potential lap-leader with a stronger profile at Gateway, go no further than the second row. No, it’s not last year’s winner in Sheldon Creed, it’s Gilliland. In 2018 and 2019, while still running for Kyle Busch, he had back-to-back second-place finishes. Although he led just one lap in both events, he showed a knack for finishing well at this 1.2-mile oval. Gilliland was well on his way to following those finishes up with another high finish after leading 75 laps. However, issues struck the 38 team and he ended his night three laps down.
Now, he returns to Gateway in perhaps the best form of his career with a win at COTA and no finish worse than seventh since then. In the Trucks Series five races at venues shorter than a mile and a half, Gilliland owns four top-10 finishes including second at Nashville, and led 61 laps recently at Knoxville. Gilliland has run so strong of late he doesn’t even need either Hill or Nemechek to screw up early. He’s been running well enough he has to be a threat to outright pass them early on.
Matt Crafton, 10th ($10,100)
The list of former winners at Gateway is a bevy of drivers who advanced from the Trucks Series into Xfinity and finally into Cup. Thus, over the past ten winners at Gateway, just two of them are in this evening’s field – Creed and Nemechek. Those last 10 starts have only resulted in just two top-five finishes. Thus, Crafton is off the radar as a potential winner or lap leader. However, with experience on his side, and no one having the benefit of practice or live pit stops for that matter, Crafton is in play for tournaments as a finishing position play.
Johnny Sauter, 20th ($8,400)
Sauter missed his chance to make the playoffs two weeks ago at Watkins Glen. So, when a driver isn’t concerned with their standings in the playoffs, what else do they have to race for besides wins? In this case, nothing really. This factor pairs well with a driver who in eight career starts at Gateway has failed to finish within the top five just once. That poor finish came last season when he finished 33rd after retiring early due to a vibration. Outside of that mechanical failure, Sauter has continually run strong here in Illinois. With no concern towards stage points or how a poor finish will affect them in the playoffs, betting on Sauter to go for glory makes sense for DFS tonight.
For anyone concerned about current-form Sauter versus that driver of a few years past, Sauter did finish top-ten at both Richmond and Darlington this season.
Ty Majeski, 25th ($9,000)
Despite this starting grid being based on results from Watkins Glen, there aren’t a lot of notable place differential options on the board for tonight. Majeski is one of the standout options though with this starting position. In his ThorSport 66, Majeski may have the highest potential place differential of anyone on this evening’s slate. In this race last year, Majeski finished ninth. For the year, in just three starts, he has no finish worse than 14th along with two top-ten finishes.
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