NASCAR DFS: FireKeepers Casino 400 Track Breakdown

Welcome to the only “normal” race left before the playoffs. The FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan International Speedway is the penultimate race before the 10-race dash for the championship begins but next weekend at Daytona will add a bunch of chaos to the mix and so expect teams to go all out to win this weekend when they can control much more of the race flow.

This is the first and only trip to The Great Lakes State this year after Michigan has long been a twice-a-year trip for the Cup series including a doubleheader weekend last year. In fact, this is the only trip to a 2-mile track this year and only the fourth one in the last two years with Auto Club being skipped this year. The D-Shaped oval that is Michigan is normally a very high-speed track with its wide racing surface and banking that is reminiscent of Kansas in terms of degrees. It is possible to get multi-groove racing here, though in this package it’s been a track that has mostly favored track position, though passing can be done.

Tire Notes

Tires can matter in terms of how teams do and so we’re starting a section here talking briefly about tires for the weekend and where they’ve also been used. For Michigan this year the left sides are the same as what they ran here in 2020 but the right side tires are different than ones in years past. The new ones on the right side were used at Las Vegas and Kansas earlier this year (and will be used at Texas in the playoffs) and the tread is designed to induce tire wear and help with heat. Michigan is a smooth surface, like Kansas and Las Vegas, and so tire fall off has to be built-in to the tire.

Strategy Notes

With what I mentioned above, it might not be shocking to realize that six of the top-12 scoring spots from a DFS standpoint come from the top-12 starting spots in the grid over the last five Michigan races. It’s a track that lends itself to seeing those starting close to the front leading the most laps and getting the fast laps to the point where 76.6-percent of all laps led in the last five races here have been led by drivers to start in the top-10. Due to the high speeds on the track, and the heat build up in the tires, we can see a decent amount of cautions at Michigan with races in the last few years ranging from 6-9 cautions which can add some cheap laps led for some drivers. We also don’t have practice or qualifying this weekend and with that will come a Comp caution in stage 1 which is likely to introduce some contrarian pit strategies into the field. Based on starting spots, cash and GPP are equally viable formats this weekend but for GPPs we’ll need to sell out for a single laps led dominator as just once in the last five races, Michigan 2 in 2019, have we seen two drivers in the same race lead 50 or more laps at the same event.

Facts To Know

• In the last five Michigan races, there’s been an average of 10.4 drivers to move up six or more spots and an average of 6.6 drivers to move up 10 or more spots for PD. *That does include the field being inverted for the second race last year.
• There are only two drivers with five top-10s in the last five races here but there are seven drivers with at least four top-10 finishes in that same span.
• In the last five races this year in the 550-horsepower package like we’ll have for Sunday, Kyle Busch is the only driver with more than three top-fives and he’s posted five top-fives, including two wins.
• Kyle Larson has led nearly 95 laps a race in the last five races in this package this year.
• When breaking down the starting grid into groups of 10 ( i.e.1-10, 11-20) roughly half of each group of 10 averages below-average DFS scoring while the other half is in the top-20 of scoring, and when looking at the scoring charts coming in the playbook, you’ll notice a wave pattern.
• This tends to be a weekend that Ford has circled on their calendar as a weekend to dominate with their headquarters about an hour from the track.

The table below shows the number of drivers to reach each stat-type over the last five races similar races with Race 1 being the most recent.

For the tables below:

* The Category Rankings table: The numbers in the tables for each column represent that driver's rank amongst the other in the field for that particular stat. They are ranked with 1 being the best in each column.

* The DFS Scoring Table: Race 1 is the most recent race in the sample size with Race 5 being the earliest. We are using the Last 5 Michigan races for the data.