Drydene 400 NASCAR DFS Track Breakdown

The Monster Mile. NASCAR is in Dover this weekend for the Drydene 400 and the 11th race of the NASCAR Cup series season. Dover is known as a very tough test for drivers and cars alike as they try and concur the steeply banked concrete 1-mile track.

Dover DFS Strategy

The races at the Monster Mile have been far more predictable than some of the recent tracks we’ve tackled for DFS. What does that mean for strategy? Well, it’s pretty simple really, we’re focusing on track position quite a lot this week. If you look at the Weekly Track Stats table below, you’ll see that the drivers that start nearer to the front have a better shot at finishing nearer to the front as well. They also lead more laps in general. With 400 laps in this race, there’s plenty of chances to get laps led points — and fastest laps on DraftKings — just like a typical short track. Don’t get confused though, this track isn’t all that similar to any other short tracks that are raced on. For laps led dominators, we’ve seen an average 1.6 drivers a race lead over 100 laps in the last five Spring races here. So banking on a two-dominator build is a good idea for roster construction this week. We also need to be careful of drivers being lapped as no more than 17 cars have finished on the lead lap in the last five Spring races here. One other concern here is the tires and just how many will go flat. This isn’t a problem we’ve escaped yet and with the heat and forces on the tires this week, there could be several flat tire incidents that occur.

Track Facts

Dover is a 1-mile, concrete oval that has some steep baking in the corners. That banking makes all the difference for how this track races. It’s more like a track that’s twice as long as Bristol rather than twice as long as Martinsville. It’s a tight racing surface as well. That means that one driver’s issue can quickly turn into a 2-3-4 car pile up. Dover is also known as a self-cleaning track because cars that wreck tend to slide down to the inside wall due to the banking. Cautions can take less time to clean up because of that self-cleaning concept. Speaking of cautions, there have been an average of roughly 10 cautions a race in each of the last five Spring races — aside from 2020 — with typically about 5.5 laps per caution being run.

Dover Stats

• There are only five drivers in the field this week with Driver Ratings over 100 in the last five Spring races.
• All four Hendrick Motorsports drivers rank in the top-eight of average finish in the last five Spring races.
• Drivers starting in the top-10 spots in the grid account for six of the top-10 scoring starting spots on DraftKings and five of the top-10 options on FanDuel
• Drivers starting P20 or further back haven’t had good scoring days in DFS at Dover. On DraftKings only three of of those starting spots (P22, P23, and P28) are better than average. On FanDuel there are six spots better than average (P22, P23, P24, P25, P28, and P30).
• In the last three Spring races here, there’s been an average of just three drivers to pick up double-digit PD spots.

Last Five Dover Spring Races

The table below shows the number of drivers to reach each stat-type over the last five Spring Dover 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 Spring Dover races for the data.

The Similar Races table: The data is comprised of stats from the races at Auto Club, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Richmond, and Martinsville this year.

The Weekly Track Stats Table: The stats are based on every race at Dover since 2012 based on starting spot regardless of the driver in that starting spot.