GEICO 500 NASCAR DFS Track Breakdown

Talladega week is upon us with the GEICO 500 firing up for Sunday. Finally, we get a change of pace, literally, from the short track run we’ve been on the last three races. The 2.66-mile behemoth of a track known simply as ‘Dega is the longest track on the NASCAR schedule and the fastest as well. Just like Daytona though, chaos will ensue throughout the race on Sunday. Looking over the DFS strategy for the week, the Talladega facts to know, the track data, and the weekly track stats, should give us a shot to finish in the green.

Talladega DFS Strategy

‘Dega as it’s known, looks like pure chaos from the outside and to the general viewer. However, there is a DFS strategy that ups your shot of landing in the cash in your contests. We’ve heard over the last few years the idea of #stacktheback but that’s not actually the best strategy to use. As we dive into previous races in this style of racing, and specifically at Talladega, there’s a better strategy to use though. While the graphs in the Playbook will show a general strategy as well, let’s highlight some of the more specific one here. While it’s tempting to just load in the drivers starting outside the top-30 in the grid and wait for accidents to happen, we actually want more drivers starting inside the top-30 to have a shot at winning. As counterintuitive as that sounds, the best shot at putting up the most points is filling your lineup with drivers starting between P11 and P30. It is still a dart throw for who will make it through the wrecks, but statistically it’s those drivers that have provided the biggest chance at scoring well. In terms of finding the winner of the race, in the last 10 races at Talladega, not including shortened ones, the winner has only come outside the top-12 starting spots once.

Track Facts

We’ve mentioned that ‘Dega is the longest oval track on the schedule at 2.66 miles per race but it’s also the most steeply banked. At well over 30 degrees of tilt in the corners and a the steepest front straight in the sport as well, the speed continues to build each lap. Even with the pack racing that happens here, the speeds going into Turn 1 will approach, if not routinely exceed 200 mph, especially in the middle of the draft. The 500-mile race distance means there are 188 laps for the scheduled distance. That doesn’t mean that laps led should be a focus of your builds as the plate style of racing leads to their being a lot of lead changes throughout the race.

Talladega Stats To Know

• Not a single driver in the field this week has an average finish better than 12.5 in the last eight Talladega races.
• This is a race where we can leave salary unspent as average winning lineups leave between 5-10 thousand on the table.
• There are only four drivers with an average Driver Rating over 90 in the last eight ‘Dega races.
• The drivers at $7K or less on DK have combined for 15 top-10s in the last eight races here while the drivers at $9K or more on DK have combined for 21 top-10s.

Last Five Talladega Races

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

For the tables below:

• 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 Talladega races for the data.
• The Similar Races table: The data is comprised of stats from the last 16 races at Talladega and Daytona.
• The Weekly Track Stats Table: The stats are based on every race at Talladega Superspeedway since 2012 based on starting spot regardless of the driver in that starting spot.