NASCAR Daily Fantasy Helper: Go Bowling at the Glen

If you are looking for an action-packed way to consume sports on the weekend, NASCAR may be a great avenue to explore. Far from just driving in circles, some of the world's best compete nearly every weekend from February to November on tracks across America.

NASCAR drivers are scored ultimately based on how they finish in the race, how many spots they advance from their starting position, and how many laps they finish and lead. Avoiding drivers who crash out of the race is a must, though!

numberFire is always your home for fantasy NASCAR advice. In addition to this helper, Jim Sannes takes a look at the best bets of the weekend in his betting guide.

With all of this in mind, let's preview the Verizon 200 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway from the perspective of playing daily fantasy NASCAR on FanDuel.

Weekend Primer

NASCAR has seemingly honed in on this Saturday schedule, which remains the exact same local timing as last weekend's race in Indianapolis.

We're road racing again this weekend, so luckily, we can stay in the same frame of mind from last weekend. One of NASCAR's original two road courses, Watkins Glen is a 2.45-mile road course using the "short" layout of the track for this weekend's festivities.

It's a high-speed course with more esses and straightaways than tight turns, so a fast car is more valuable than an excellent driver this weekend.

General Lineup Strategy

Last week was a pretty horrific example of how to build road courses. There was just one caution for cause, leading to a dry race without much passing, and if your driver ran into an incident, they were stuck in 30th or worse the rest of the race.

That's certainly a possibility for this one. There's such a wide disparity from the haves and have nots that there isn't a lot of on-track passing at road courses, and the use of "local yellows" can keep the race green for quite a while.

However, Watkins Glen could change this outlook. In general, there's less room for an out-of-control car to run off track and not hit something. I'll take the over one a single caution flag this week, which should lend itself to our normal road course strategy mentioned last week. We want fast cars, and we want them starting as far back as possible.

This is also a race track that's results are very "sticky" from year to year. The same teams and drivers tend to run toward the front, evidenced by Hendrick Motorsports winning this race in each of the last four trips. Chase Elliott, Kyle Larson, and Martin Truex Jr. are the last three drivers to win here, so don't be surprised when they're toward the top of my rankings.

Driver Rankings

Below are my pre-qualifying rankings for each driver based on equipment, track history, recent form, and overall talent level -- in that order. Only drivers with a win probability above 0% in Jim Sannes' win simulations or a top-20 finish this season were included.

MLT Rank is the driver's weighted average median lap time ranking at the relevant sample of similar race tracks to this weekend as a great indicator of overall speed. The prior races in the sample (with weight percentage) this week are:

• 2023 Austin (Spring) - 25.0%
• 2023 Sonoma (Spring) - 25.0%
• 2023 Chicago Street Course (Spring) - 25.0%
• 2023 Indianapolis (Fall) - 25.0%

For dominator viability, the driver is ranked 0-10 on a scale to potentially lead laps and win the race if they start upfront. A "10" is among the favorites to win the race, and a "0" has no realistic chance of leading the race at any point.

For flex play viability, the driver is ranked 0-10 on a scale of potentially finishing inside the top 15 spots. These drivers will be better daily fantasy plays the further back in the field they start for optimal place-differential points.

The pair of "original" road courses in NASCAR -- both at Sonoma and here in Watkins Glen -- are a bit different than some of the new layouts. The series' regulars have more laps here, so it's more rewarding of those with veteran Cup Series careers than "road ringers" like we've seen shine at Indianapolis and Chicago this summer.

As a result, it was really easy to put Chase Elliott ($14,000) at the top of my rankings, and he also tops Jim's sims. Elliott is desperate for a win to make the playoffs in 2023, and there aren't many spots better for him to do so. He won here in 2018 and 2019, and, while a pit-road error doomed him in 2021, he still rallied to a second place finish. Of course, Elliott would have likely won last year's event if Kyle Larson ($13,500) didn't bump his teammate out of the way.

That said, Larson has to be right behind him with the speed to capitalize on those situations. He's the back-to-back winner, but you have to think that he'll give his teammate all the grace needed this weekend. Larson is already into the playoffs with multiple wins. The larger concern? Kyle hasn't really flashed race-winning speed on a road course this year, posting a best finish of eighth.

Martin Truex Jr. ($13,000) is in this same tier to me. Truex has 12 top-five finishes at Watkins Glen and Sonoma with zero at any other road course, so he's absolutely a traditionalist on NASCAR's left-and-right-handers. He won in dominant, no-doubt fashion at Sonoma this year, so if he's quick in practice, he's absolutely a threat to win.

It's been a bit of a downturn for Tyler Reddick ($12,500) on road courses since his March win at COTA, but Reddick's top-five median lap time last week shows his speed is still there. He's just not quite been the same road racer at the two original road courses, scoring top-10 finishes in two starts at Watkins Glen but never really contending.

After Michael McDowell ($11,500) dominated last week, it's hard to leave him out of the top five, but everything broke in McDowell's favor to not face a late restart from faster cars behind him. Add in that Watkins Glen is a faster road course where his lesser Front Row Motorsports equipment might struggle, and he's a guy I'm not expecting to be high on entering practice.

Christopher Bell ($12,000) and Kyle Busch ($10,500) have hovered around the top five too often on road courses to leave out -- even if they lack the upside to win these races. A.J. Allmendinger ($9,500) has been faster than both -- and really everyone with the best blended median lap average -- but hasn't quite executed. Like Elliot, Dinger is in "must win" mode to make the playoffs.

I've got Daniel Suarez ($11,000) behind these guys, but I'd have no issue ranking him as high as McDowell. Entering the weekend, it's incredibly tight in this salary tier. Suarez has three top-fives at Watkins Glen, but unlike Elliott and Allmendinger, he appears to be well-positioned to make the playoffs without a win if he can have two clean runs in the next two weeks. As a result, he may play a late restart safer than many.

Chris Buescher ($10,000) fell one spot short of keeping his top-10 streak alive in Indy, but an 11th-place floor isn't too shabby. Of all the road courses, this is far from his best with a career-best finish of ninth coming in 2022.

Jim's simulations love Ross Chastain ($7,000), but Chastain is an odd DFS play these days. Some weeks, he's shown great speed in practice, blown his opportunity in qualifying, and never recovered. A bulk of Trackhouse Racing's efforts are geared toward Suarez at this stage, but he could be a high-upside value play.

Alex Bowman ($8,000) and Chase Briscoe ($7,200) were other top-10 finishers last week that also had top-15 median times, so they weren't solely beneficiaries of the odd race. Ty Gibbs ($8,200) and Austin Cindric ($7,500) are also potent dark horses in this tier with multiple Xfinity Series wins on left-and-right circuits; they just haven't broken through at the Cup Series level.

This weekend's field is considerably weaker than last week's, which was loaded with extra entries for road-course ringers from top teams. The only top-20 median times from last week that I haven't yet mentioned were William Byron ($8,500), Ryan Blaney ($6,800), and Austin Dillon ($5,800).

Last week, Byron started 39th and was still optimal in daily fantasy despite a mediocre, 14th-place run by his standards. That's a tremendous example of how qualifying can influence which of these drivers are the best DFS plays well beyond their own speed and/or capabilities.

The above author is a FanDuel employee and is not eligible to compete in public daily fantasy contests or place sports betting wagers on FanDuel. The advice provided by the author does not necessarily represent the views of FanDuel. Taking the author's advice will not guarantee a successful outcome. You should use your own judgment when participating in daily fantasy contests or placing sports wagers.