The NASCAR Xfinity Series gets take its turn around Darlington Saturday afternoon continuing a great weekend of racing. Friday night’s Camping World Truck Series race went about as unpredictably as we should have guessed. Tanner Gray was running well until he got caught up in a wreck with Hailie Deegan and Austin Wayne Self. Tate Fogleman once again busted as an obvious value play. At least we had exposure to Danny Bohn and Spencer Boyd. Christian Eckes unfortunately collected damage on pit road from John Hunter Nemechek and lost track position. And a late tire strategy cost him spots as well. And who could have seen Ross Chastain getting stuck in second gear on the final restart? Races like last night are why I’m constantly worried about playing Cash games for the Truck Series. But now we turn our attention to the Xfinity Series. Darlington is considered a Crown Jewel race for NASCAR and rightfully so. Darlington Raceway is rich with NASCAR history and phenomenal finishes. Darlington is often considered the track too tough to tame, or the lady in black. You’ll see plenty of drivers scrape the wall and collect their Darlington stripe. Matt and I will have you covered all weekend with NASCAR DFS coverage and be on the lookout for the NASCAR DFS Projections following qualifying and NASCAR DFS Rankings for Sunday’s Goodyear 400. Additionally, we have the 2022 F1 World Championship in Southern Florida for the Crypto.com Miami Grand Prix and we’ll have you covered with the F1 DFS Top Plays.

To say we come into this race with some controversy is a little bit of an understatement. For starters, qualifying for this race was cancelled and that means Chase Elliott’s 88-car failed to qualify for the race. I can’t remember the last time the most expensive driver failed to run a race. Dale Earnhardt Jr. is too respectful of a team owner to go out and buy another team’s spot on the track so unfortunately, we’re losing an obvious chalk play with Elliott. And since qualifying was cancelled, they had to set the qualifying order based on points and Dover’s results. They were lucky enough to get the practice session in and you can find those results by clicking here and then just select “Practice 1.”

Once again, I am not playing Cash games today. The cancellation of qualifying means we’re getting the best drivers starting up front. However, there are some exceptions. Tyler Reddick is in the 48-car for Big Machine after Jade Buford and Kaz Grala collectively got off to a rough start this season. John Hunter Nemechek is in the 26-car for Sam Hunt Racing. Ryan Truex is in the 18-car for JGR. All three of these drivers start outside the top 20 and should move up and be reliable sources of PD. And their salaries aren’t completely prohibitive either. By starting your Cash lineup with those three you’re left with $21,600 for your last three drivers. If you plug in someone like Timmy Hill or Tommy Joe Martins who start farther back and just need to survive the war of attrition like Spencer Boyd last night, then you have about $16,000 for your last two drivers. You could easily target a potential dominator and another value play or take a more balanced approach with two drivers in the mid-range. But I’m of the belief that most Cash lineups will start with Reddick, JHN, and Truex for today’s race and you have to find a way to differentiate your build after that.

Driver Pool

The Cash Game Chalk – I’m going to just lump these three guys together since I’ve already discussed them. Tyler Reddick ($10,000), John Hunter Nemechek ($9,400), and Ryan Truex ($9,000) are the obvious chalk. You can play them in all formats. I almost don’t feel the need to dive too deep on these guys because the PD alone is enough of a reason to plug them in. This is the kind of track Reddick can thrive at by running along the wall. It comes with its risks, but he does well on high tire wear tracks and he should get the most out of his equipment. John Hunter Nemechek won last night’s Truck Series race, and he’s had good performances in this 26-car with a pair of top five finishes at Phoenix and Richmond. And lastly, Ryan Truex might be my favorite play of the three. He’s probably not on the level of Reddick or JHN, but he’s easily in the best equipment. Do not be fooled by his DraftKings profile. It says he’s in the 26-car for Sam Hunt Racing. He is not. JHN is running the 26 this week. Truex is in the 18 for JGR and he’s brought speed every time he’s been in this car. He wasn’t overwhelmingly fast in practice, but he did have the 11th-fastest single lap and he’s starting P28.

Noah Gragson ($10,800; Starting P4) With Chase Elliott not qualifying for Saturday’s race, Gragson becomes the most expensive driver in the field. As long as Gragson is running a clean race he’s likely finishing in the top five. He’s never finished worse than eighth at Darlington and he has an average finish of 5.0 here with an average driver rating of 116.52 in those five races. He’s led at least 40 laps here on three different occasions and last year he consistency finished in the top two in every stage with the exception being the final stage of the Spring race where he still finished fourth. Need I say more?

Ty Gibbs ($10,500; Starting P1) Gibbs is on the pole and we know the car will be fast. He’s won three races this year and likely has Darlington on his list of tracks he’d love to score a win at. Here’s my concern: we don’t have a large enough sample size for him at high tire wear tracks. He did win Richmond earlier this year, but that’s a shorter track and one that JGR almost demands you win (I’m exaggerating). At Auto Club, he started P12 and finished 13th with an average running position of tenth throughout the race. That’s good, but that’s disappointing for a driver of his caliber. Last year at Darlington, he learned how difficult this track can be. Last year he started P29 and only finished 18th with an average running position of 14th. With him landing on the pole he’s obviously in contention for dominator points and if he gets enough of those and finishes top five then he can still be optimal. But this is still a track he doesn’t have a ton of experience on. I will obviously be getting exposure here, but I may just try to match the field in terms of exposure.

Justin Allgaier ($10,200; Starting P3) Allgaier will (hopefully) start on the outside in the second row which is a pretty good starting spot right behind Gibbs. Allgaier went through a stretch of poor finishes, but he got back on track at Dover last week, but he historically kicks ass at Dover. Dating back to 2016, Allgaier has finished in the top 11 in seven of the eight races run at Darlington. He also won this race a year ago and finished sixth in the Fall race while collecting some dominator points. I’ll also get some exposure to his teammate, Josh Berry ($9,800) who is coming off a win at Dover and he finished second to Allgaier a year ago. He finished fourth at Auto Club earlier this year and he had top eight speed in practice.

Sheldon Creed ($9,200; Starting P10) If you noticed one thing missing from last night’s Truck Series Playbook, I didn’t have many previous winners to talk about. That’s because the trucks have recently returned to running Darlington and because Sheldon Creed won two of the three races in the last two years. In the third race he finished 18th but still led 82 laps in that race. And you know what else is weird? He also has two wins at Gateway in the Truck Series. And that’s a completely different track in terms of banking. It’s much flatter than Darlington. But it still has the similar egg shape to Darlington. So we can officially call him the Egg Man. What I like about Creed is that I don’t anticipate ownership being heavy. What I don’t like about Creed is that he hasn’t shown much of a ceiling this year with RCR. He’s had good races. But nothing great yet and $9,200 from P10 basically means we need a top five from him. I still like him for GPP’s with the hope this turns out to be a slate breaking performance, but his teammate might be a better value who we’ll get to shortly.

Sam Mayer ($8,600; Starting P7) Mayer did not look good in practice and he rolls off P7. But I really like this kid. I doubt anybody plays him because of the practice speed, but I love targeting him in GPP’s. Think about what he had to overcome last week at Dover. He won the first stage, had a tire come off following his pit stop and he had to restart at the rear of the field. Then another pit road penalty late in the race forced him to once again come through the field. He even said it felt like he passed 200 cars on the day. After all that crap, he finished fifth. So I’m not dwelling too much on the practice speed. He’s getting better and better and is due to score his first win. I don’t think it comes this week, but I think he can get a solid finish with low ownership. I do have concerns about the lack of experience and the fact he could endure another pit road penalty. But I will still throw him in because he’s been rising to the occasion.

Daniel Hemric ($8,400; Starting P11) He’s definitely a frustrating driver to roster any time in DFS and he hasn’t exactly had a great start in his first season with Kaulig Racing. With JGR last year he finished 5th in the Spring and 24th in the Fall at Darlington (but he led a combined 56 laps between both races). And he was on his way to winning Atlanta last Summer before Kyle Busch wrecked him and even Busch admitted that he screwed Hemric out of a win and he felt terrible about it. Hemric also finished third at Homestead last season. Maybe there’s some legitimacy to Hemric performing well on high tire wear tracks. He had top ten speed during practice. I would limit exposure to just GPP’s. I don’t trust him enough for Cash games.

Austin Hill ($8,200; Starting P12) As excited as I am to get some contrarian exposure to Sheldon Creed, his teammate is the better value. Hill starts two spots behind Creed and is $1,000 cheaper and has shown more upside this year than Creed. He won Daytona and then grabbed top five finishes at Atlanta, COTA, and Martinsville. He had some good showings at Darlington in the Truck Series and he should return decent value if he finishes 7th or 8th on Saturday.

Ryan Sieg ($7,500; Starting P9) Given the lack of qualifying, Sieg is starting in the top ten and is largely a GPP play. In his last four races at Darlington he’s finished 11th, 9th, 3rd, and 7th. It’s also worth noting Sieg has done pretty well historically at Auto Club, another high tire wear track and he grabbed a top ten at Homestead last year. It’s pretty cut & dry for Sieg this week. He’s a good GPP play, but a bit risky for Cash games in the event he does go backward.

Alex Labbe ($6,400; Starting P18) I can’t really put my finger on it, I just like throwing Labbe into some builds. If you’re playing Cash games, I think he’s perfectly fine in that format because he provides a good enough floor and he’s about $400-$600 cheaper than where he should be priced. His worst result was at arguably one of DGM Racing’s best style of tracks (road courses) but he’s coming into Saturday’s race with four straight top 20 finishes. Barring a complete disaster he’s good for about 25-30 points, which is fine for Cash games. He’s never finished worse than 19th at Darlington and he had a pair of top ten finishes here last year.

Alpha Prime Racing – I’m going to lump these two drivers together because they start almost dead last. Josh Bilicki ($5,900) and Tommy Joe Martins ($5,400) start P37 and P36 respectively. These cars are not the greatest and the only driver we’ve seen have success in the 44-and-45-cars has been Ryan Ellis. But both these guys are starting far enough back to warrant some exposure. Bilicki, in particular, showed decent speed in practice. The risk we’re taking is still trying to get these Alpha Prime cars to finish. The speed has been there, but let’s hope the wheels don’t fall off.

Timmy Hill ($5,300; Starting P38) Hill exceeded my expectations last night. I had him in some builds, but not my single-entry lineups and he delivered by finishing 16th in the Truck Series race. He’ll make his 2022 Xfinity Series debut in the 13-car, which isn’t great but he’s used to running in crap equipment. He’s starting dead last and has an average finish of roughly 27th. He can’t get you negative points. And this is similar to Spencer Boyd last night, you just need him to survive the war of attrition. If you can afford it, I’m perfectly fine going up to Mason Massey ($5,700) as a pivot. Massey’s had some good performances in this DGM ride. Unlike Hill, Massey can get you negative points if he goes backward, but he did grab a top 20 last Fall at Darlington in worse equipment.

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