The 2022 NASCAR Season heads to Charlotte Motor Speedway this Memorial Day Weekend! The Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend always shapes up as one of the greatest days every year if you’re a motorsports fan. We have the luxury of waking up and watching the F1 World Championship Monaco Grand Prix, then in the afternoon we get the Indianapolis 500, and then Sunday night we get the Coca Cola 600. It’s the perfect day to grill out and devour some adult beverages and enjoy over 1,200 miles of racing. Matt Selz and I have you covered with this week’s NASCAR DFS Podcast, and Matt will have a betting guide for all three races, in addition to DFS coverage for the F1 race and NASCAR Cup Series.

Friday night’s Camping World Truck Series race clearly did not go as planned. Only playing the Happy Hour contest, I took a $12 loss on that one. Kyle Busch looked slow and it appeared very difficult to pass on the track overall. And of course Hailie Deegan, in an extremely chalky position, struggled to maintain speed. But let’s turn our attention to today’s Xfinity Series race.

We get 200 laps (45-45-110 lap segments) and it wouldn’t surprise me if 25% of this race is run under yellow. We’ve seen plenty of chaos in the Xfinity Series. It’s probably my least favorite series to cover for DFS (coming from a guy who used to cover MTV’s The Challenge). In the last five races at Charlotte there have been at least ten cautions for 50+ laps in each race. We’ve seen polesitters do okay here and return value but that came from the likes of Ross Chastain and Brad Keselowski. Daniel Hemric led over 100 laps in last year’s race but in true Daniel Hemric fashion, he did wreck in stage three. A two-dominator approach is once again in play, but I’m also going to consider some one-dominator builds. There are no shortage of PD plays in today’s driver pool. I almost feel bad publishing this article because it’s pretty obvious who you can target for PD, and who you can target for dominator points. But I won’t be mailing it in, I’ll still have you covered and be in the NASCAR DFS channel leading up to today’s green flag.

Practice Results

Driver Pool

Ty Gibbs ($11,000; Starting P36) Let’s start with the obvious chalk with Ty Gibbs. You could simply look at the starting spot and know why he’s in play. Aside from the fact there’s win equity in playing Gibbs (he won this race last year) and he won Vegas earlier this year, the PD alone means he’s an easy play. Rarely do I recommend going completely 100% on a driver, but if you’re playing a reasonable amount in relation to your bankroll you can make that decision for yourself. But it is easily a day to have him in your Cash lineup and probably 50-60% of your GPP builds. Even if Gibbs doesn’t collect any laps led he only needs a few fastest laps and a top 12 finish to return 5X value. Both the floor and ceiling are pretty high today, but the one thing keeping me from going “all in” on Gibbs is the fact we have so many other drivers in play for PD in the value range. So you can easily make a lineup that pays up for two dominators and fits in other PD plays and if Gibbs wrecks or has a costly penalty late, then you’re sittin’ pretty.

Noah Gragson ($10,800; Starting P7) Last week was a massive letdown and a disaster of a weekend for Gragson. But that shouldn’t deter us from him. We know he can go out and win, and we know he can collect those precious dominator points as well. I’m not really paying much attention to track history since he wrecked out of last year’s race. Gragson’s on our radar by default almost every week because of his upside. He has eight finishes in the top four this season and while he may not lead the race early on, he can certainly collect his dominator points later on in stages two and three.

Justin Allgaier ($10,600; Starting P2) If we’re going off recent form, there’s no one hotter right now than Allgaier. He has top five finishes in his last three races with a combined 176 laps led and 84 fastest laps. That equates to 81.8 dominator points. So he’s been well worth the price tag this month. He has  never won Charlotte but in his last 16 races here he has ten finishes of 8th or better. Now he also hasn’t really gotten out front too many times at Charlotte so you have to weigh whether you’re buying into recent form or track history. Fortunately he is on the front row for Saturday’s race. It’s just a question if he can get around his teammate for early dominator points.

Trevor Bayne ($9,800; Starting P6) Bayne has shown speed anytime he’s stepped in for JGR this year. He’s led at least 24 laps in each of his three appearances this year and he has a pair of top five finishes. There is some win equity, but not a ton. But I liked what I saw in practice and we should expect the car to be fast once again and he should contend.

Josh Berry ($9,600; Starting P4) You’ll find that every single JRM driver is in play today. And why not? They’ve all been incredibly fast. As a team they’ve been hard to keep up with, even Kaulig just hasn’t looked the same in terms of pure speed. But Berry has been getting to the front lately and probably should’ve won last week’s race. Regretfully I was underweight on him last week. Won’t make that mistake again.

Sam Mayer ($9,100; Starting P1) WHY DID HE HAVE TO GO AND WIN THE POLE?! That’s my one complaint about this starting order. That will draw more ownership to him and if you’ve been playing Mayer like me lately, you’ve enjoyed the leverage. Mayer has three straight finishes in the top five and he’s been finding more speed recently. He’s been a driver that’s been starting to get in that discussion of grabbing his first win. Unfortunately he starts next to his teammate, Justin Allgaier, who has been fast lately  as well. If Mayer can just collect some dominator points early on and still finish well then he could be optimal. It just kind of sucks we don’t have leverage this week.

Riley Herbst ($8,500; Starting P37) Starting dead last will be Riley Herbst. I was going to include Herbst in the Playbook anyway based on the fact that he’s been impressively consistent in 2022, but the added PD just makes him a lock in Cash games with Gibbs. Herbst has finished in the top ten in six straight races and seven of his last eight. He’s basically returning solid value by finishing in the top 20 and a top ten would return 60+ points.

Richard Childress Racing – Let’s touch on Austin Hill ($8,300; Starting P20) and Sheldon Creed ($7,900; Starting P18). This is good equipment and it’s frustrating that these two are priced in the mid-tier. Sure, they’re rookies but every week they show top ten speed and then one or both of them seem to disappoint once we get to the end. Hill is likely the preferred and safer play. He has a safer floor and is coming off back-to-back top ten finishes. Hill also offers a little more PD and it would take some chaos for Creed to pay off although he should be the lower-owned of the two. Hill had the slightly better resume in the Truck Series although Creed had a fast truck in last year’s race before he wrecked. Play both, but don’t exceed 30% ownership on either.

Anthony Alfredo ($7,600; Starting P30) The Alfredo chalk busted last week. Do we think it happens back-to-back weeks? I hope not even though I’ll still be slightly underweight on him. He just doesn’t have a ton of experience here aside from a top 25 finish in the Cup Series a year ago. He’s not someone I’m plugging into my lineups with the mindset that I need to play him as a PD core member. I think he’s fine for Cash games, but you can save money elsewhere looking for PD. He needs to finish 17th-18th to really hit value. He can certainly do that if you look past last week’s result. If you want to spend an extra $100 you can certainly look at Jeffrey Earnhardt in Cash games. He’s starting in the last row and can’t get you negative PD points. I like the floor, but I’m just not convinced there’s much of a ceiling for him.

Ryan Sieg ($7,400; Starting P22) We know that Sieg is arguably a top 12 driver and has top ten upside. Prior to last week’s race at Texas he rattled off eight straight finishes in the top 12. If he finishes around there this week then he’s returning value. And he likely comes in at a slightly lower ownership clip simply because of drivers like Alfredo, Brandon Brown, and maybe even Jeremy Clements who are cheaper and offer PD as well. But I like Sieg per usual for GPP’s. 

Brandon Brown ($7,000; Starting P32) If he finishes the race clean he should be in the top 20. We know he can pilot this ride to a top 15 as he did last week at Texas. You don’t need to go all in here given that so many drivers are offering PD today. But this is easily one of his best tracks. In three races here he’s finished 20th, 8th, and 4th but keep in mind he was doing better last year with the “show up and race” model. Clearly practice and qualifying hasn’t been to his advantage at times, but he easily returns value with a top 20 finish.

Myatt Snider ($6,800; Starting P33) Another value play offering PD. Hopefully with all those drivers under the average price tag you don’t need to go dumpster diving today. In the Jordan Anderson car, Snider probably shouldn’t be $6,800 but at this starting spot we can stomach it. In two races here he finished 26th and 10th but that was with RCR. You’re kind of looking for a top 20 finish today from Snider. He can do it, but it’s not a guarantee. I think a sneaky pivot off Snider could be Garrett Smithley ($6,700; Starting P34) who I don’t think many people will play. Ryan Larkin of Daily Fantasy Racing may disagree with me, but you know how you cling to one driver who really came through and helped you with a GPP takedown? That’s Smithley for me. He gave me some real nice hits in iRacing DFS two years ago and last year he was in a lineup that helped me win big as well for XFIN. And he’s not in awful equipment as he’ll step into the 36-car for DGM this week. You don’t want to be particularly heavy on either driver. Snider is easily the safer option while Smithley is a GPP pivot.

Jeremy Clements ($6,400; Starting P23) I still don’t get what DraftKings is doing with this price tag. They barely raised it following last week’s $6,200 tag. Clements now offers more PD than he did last week, but it’s worth noting his resume here is all over the place. He finished 10th here last year and 13th back in 2019. But baked into his results across 23 races at Charlotte are some finishes outside the top 30 and for the most part, just a few top 15 finishes. A 17th-place finish will return 5X value. So if you can afford it, I prefer Brown in Cash games, but Clements is a lower-owned GPP pivot.

Punt Options – Hopefully you don’t need to go down this low. I don’t hate playing Ryan Ellis but I don’t think intermediates are his preferred track. Additionally, he is that guy that crushes it when you don’t play him, and then when you do play him he’s off the pace. Bayley Currey and Shane Lee are really the only two drivers I’d entertain playing in the $5K range. Again, given how qualifying shook out we shouldn’t need to go down here. And if you absolutely need to you can look at CJ McLaughlin at $4,800 starting P35. He’s in the 38-car for RSS Racing and managed to drive this car to a pair of top 25 finishes at Texas and Vegas.

Example Lineups

Example Lineups will be posted in the NASCAR DFS Discord around 12:00pm ET.

 

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