NASCAR DFS Playbook: Food City 300

We’ve finally made it to the season finale for the Xfinity series. This will be the final opportunity for a majority of the field to qualify for this race. 25 races have been run this season and eight have been won by drivers not eligible for the Xfinity series playoffs (Kyle Busch and Ty Gibbs). That’s probably why the playoff landscape currently looks like this…

As you can see… Not a lot of drama heading into this race. But any driver outside the playoff window can still get in the playoffs with a win.

We are gifted with 300 laps around Bristol on Friday night which means we have about 200 dominator points to work with for this race. You can easily target two-to-three dominator builds but most of mine have been two-dom builds at the moment. The stages will be broken into 85-85-130 lap segments with a competition caution following lap 40. Teams will only get four sets of tires so even during the competition caution, don’t be too surprised to see some teams stay out and wait until the stage break to throw on new tires.

Driver Pool

Right off the top, I’m not writing up Cindric or Allmendinger in depth. However, you can certainly get exposure to both since I will have some too. They both offer a little PD, but neither of them really jump off the page at me heading into the race. I did want to mention them though because this is the final regular season race for the Xfinity series and these two are fighting for the regular season championship. For that reason alone they’re both in play. Cindric has a couple top fives here and Allmendinger finished tenth here last June. If I had to prefer one over the other it might be Cindric.

 Ty Gibbs ($11,500; Starting P3) Gibbs has great track position and while he may not lead laps early, that doesn’t mean he won’t collect them late. He ran in the ARCA race on Thursday night (and won with ease) and he finished second in last year’s ARCA race at Bristol to Sam Mayer. He absolutely needs the dominator points and a strong finish to hit value. Given the price tag I think we could see less ownership on Gibbs than normal. But we know this kid pisses talent and he’s in some of the best equipment in the field. He’s eligible in all formats. 

Justin Allgaier ($10,800; Starting P2) Allgaier was a massive favorite to dominate the race last week in Richmond. That didn’t happen. But he still finished fourth and collected 42 points on DraftKings. He has a ton of great finishes at Bristol including a win over 11 years ago. In his last four races here, he’s led over 120 laps in each, but unfortunately he wrecked out of two of those races. Still, he’s finished in the top five in 45% of his races here and if he can dominate like he has in recent years then he’ll be in the optimal. Plus, it was announced late Wednesday night that he’d be returning to JRM next year so he’s already got good vibes heading into this race.

Noah Gragson ($10,200; Starting P1) We get a pair of JRM drivers on the front row for this race and perhaps no one in the field is hotter at the moment than Noah Gragson. He’s peaking at the right time having picked up his first two wins of the season over the last two weeks. He won this race in June 2020 and he’s on the pole for dominator points. He’s far from the driver he was at the beginning of the year. He’s done a complete 180 and won’t let up. He’ll push for his third straight win Friday night.

Sam Mayer ($9,900; Starting P22) Mayer surprised no one as he drove an unofficial fifth JRM car to a top 12 finish at Richmond. It was a track that suited his style. He loves short track racing as evidenced by his win in the Truck series one year ago at Bristol and he also won the ARCA race that year as well. He ran the ARCA and Truck series race on Thursday, and while the results weren’t idea, he was able to get some extra practice in. It’s hard not to like him despite the heavy price tag. He basically needs to finish eighth to hit value.

Harrison Burton ($9,600; Starting P6) Burton is the new Noah Gragson. I expected Burton to make great strides this season. A slow start kind crushed my expectations, but he’s been incredibly consistent following the Olympic hiatus. He has six straight top ten finishes including three top fives and he was the runner-up at Darlington. Plus, he led 43 laps last week at Richmond. He finished fourth in both Bristol races last year including leading over 80 laps in one of them. He hasn’t been carrying a ton of ownership in GPP’s and he’s a nice target in two-dominator builds. 

Brandon Jones ($9,400; Starting P16) Jones is offering PD and as much as we like to poke fun at him for wrecking, he’s performed well here and I wouldn’t be surprised if he grabbed a top five Friday night. He led over 100 laps here back in April 2018 and over his last four races here he’s finished 8th, 3rd, 11th, and 14th. He has also been in position late in races here to score a win, although that just hasn’t yet happened. Plus, this is a JGR car and this organization knows how to set up their cars for Bristol.

Ty Dillon ($9,000; Starting P31) We’re possibly looking at the most popular driver on the slate. He’s far too cheap so he’s easily eligible in Cash and GPP contests. Dillon will step into the 23-car for Our Motorsports. If you get the right driver behind this car they can get the most out of it. We’ve seen Dillon finish 7th and 5th on intermediate tracks in this car and we have to value the experience he brings to Bristol in a field where it’s easy to bully inexperienced drivers. Even in the Cup series he grabbed a couple top 20 finishes here. He needs a top 15 for value, but he can easily get a top ten out of this ride which would return 6X value.

Brett Moffitt ($8,500; Starting P20) Not a lot of people are going to play Moffitt, but I like getting him into GPP’s when he is offering PD. He went backward and had a poor showing in his lone Xfinity series race at Bristol, but he had great success here in the Truck series. In four  races he finished second twice and scored a win while leading 182 laps over his last two races. Now that is the truck series, but he still has experience here which we value. As more and more cars fall multiple laps down, I think we can possibly count on Moffitt to gain spots as the race goes on. 

Michael Annett ($8,300; Starting P15) Annett has had some troubles in his last couple trips to Bristol. 2020 was not kind to him as he wrecked in both races and finished outside the top 30. However, if you take away those two wrecks he has an average finish of 12.86 in the other 15 races. From August 2011 through August 2019 he had an average finish of 10.3. Now I am cherry picking stats a bit because we can’t ignore what happened last year and his top ten results haven’t been as much of a lock lately. He needs to gain six spots and finish ninth to hit value. I think it can happen, but he’s only a GPP play this week. Update: Michael Annett will not run in tonight's race. He will be replaced by Josh Berry. Annett is now eliminated from playoff contention.

Myatt Snider ($7,800; Starting P17) This is a great spot for Snider. Last year he finished 5th and 35th at Bristol, but the top five came in RCR equipment (which he’ll be driving on Friday) and the 35th place finish came in less equipment that ultimately blew an engine. I wouldn’t use him in Cash games, but we’ve seen him flash that top ten upside. My lone concern with Snider is that he’s already locked into the playoffs with his win at Miami. I don’t think that’ll necessarily mean he’s less motivated, but he just won’t be as desperate as other drivers who know this is their last chance at making the playoffs.

Jeremy Clements ($6,700; Starting P13) Clements isn’t exactly coming into Friday’s race with momentum. He finished outside the top 20 last week at Richmond after starting a bit too high for our liking. Starting P13 will likely scare some people off Clements but in his last five races at Bristol he’s finished 13th or better in each of them. Over his last nine races he finished 18th or better eight times. If you play him you’re just hoping he finishes about where he starts. Limit exposure to GPP’s.

Sage Karam ($6,500; Starting P32) Karam is in the 31-car for Jordan Anderson Racing and I’m curious as to where his ownership will fall. I slept on him for IRC, which I was regretting for most of the race. Ultimately, he finished 26th but he had an average running position of 16th. Now IRC is completely different than Bristol and he won’t have practice like he did previously. I do think this is an interesting way to differentiate your build. You can’t play him in Cash, but I like him as a GPP play if he can run a clean race, but if the lack of experience has you worried you don’t need to get exposure to him.

Jade Buford ($5,700; Starting P30) Ownership could be high on Buford. We’ve seen him push the 48-car to top 20 finishes and in some cases even top 15 finishes. The concern here is the lack of experience at Bristol. It’s a short track and he’s in a portion of the field that’s labelled as inexperienced. You can at least hang your hat on the fact he ran in the ARCA race Thursday night to get a little practice. I think ownership will be moderate because of the PD. I probably prefer him more in GPP’s. There’s a fair chance he could fall too many laps down and not achieve the PD that’s available to him.

Bayley Currey ($5,600; Starting P40) The equipment sucks, but he cannot kill you with negative PD. He’s starting dead last and can only go up from here. The equipment is trash and he’s burned us the last couple times we’ve played him. But I thought at this starting spot he would’ve been $1,000 more. He needs just 28 points for 5X value. That means he just needs to finish 27th. We know he’s not finishing on the lead lap, but if we see a couple wrecks that knock some drivers out, and he simply avoids it, then he could be optimal as a punt. Dare I say I actually like him a little bit for Cash games? Previously he’s finished 30th, 20th, and 27th and in those last two races he gained over ten spots of PD in each. In Friday’s truck series race we saw Sam Mayer ($11,900; Starting P39) get into a wreck early and run numerous laps down the whole race and he pulled off a 22nd place finish. Anything can happen here.

Jeffrey Earnhardt ($5,400; Starting P29) Surprisingly enough, I’m willing to go even cheaper than Currey this week. Earnhardt rolls off P29 and he ran very well here a year ago finishing 15th and 17th in the two Bristol races in 2020. That’s pretty impressive considering he had a sizable layoff from racing. In his career here he does have an average finish of 21.29. If he finishes around there, he’ll be returning value. 

Core Drivers