 A NASCAR Cup series playoff race at Talladega. Need I say more to draw you in for Sunday in the Yellowwood 500 and it's a fun race always to watch if you're, you know, less anxious than I am because I have a hard time watching these for sure. But it's also going to be an interesting one for DFS because in the area of no qualifying, you could throw a wrench into our plans of loading up on place differential guys, taking advantage of the randomness of the finishing order because the good drivers are up front. So our job for today is to go back through past races with similar starting orders and decide can we still go our usual round at Talladega or do it to change things up as a result of the way the playoffs break. Welcome on into the heat check fantasy podcast powered by Numberfire. That's right here on the fan dual podcast network and numberfire.com. My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a senior writer and analyst for numberfire.com here to break down Sunday's Yellowwood 500 lock is set for 2pm Eastern on Sunday. So got about an hour after NFL is done to set your Linus, but honestly, like, I would just do it now. Like the starting order is set. We know who was starting where we know how things are going to break. So I would just do your Linus now to avoid the headache on Sunday morning. So feel free to follow along as we go through the the stuff for today. We'll go tier by tier later on the first starting off with strategies for this race. First of all, a quick reminder to check out the Numberfire Daily Fantasy podcast, not just to this NASCAR podcast, but also for our week for NFL DFS preview via myself and Brandon Godulla breaking down our favorite plays for this week, favorite games to stack, how we want to stack them and much more favorite plays at each position. And they'll be podcast posted for Friday. We have USC, the Austin Swain and then of course PGA back next week as well. So a lot of good stuff here on the Numberfire Daily Fantasy podcast. So you just search for that wherever you get your podcast, hit subscribe and make sure you leave a rating and review as well because those do help us out a ton. Hey, football fans, Fandals giving you the chance to bet on week four, the NFL season. All you got to do is go to sportsbook.fandall.com or download the Fandals Sportsbook app. Place a three plus like Parley, same game Parley, on any week for NFL game. And if your bet loses, get a refund inside credit. Max refund is $10, not only four of the NFL season with Fandal by heading over to the Fandals Sportsbook day and placing a risk-free, same game Parley. Must be 21 plus to and present in Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia refund issued as a non-withdrawable site credit that expires in seven days. Max refund $10 restrictions apply. See terms of sportsbook.fandall.com, a gambling problem, call 1-800-Gambler or visit Fandal.com slash RG in Indiana, 1-109 with it. For confidential help in Michigan, 1-800-270-7117 in Tennessee, call the red line at 1-800-899-789 in West Virginia, 1-800-Gambler.net or in Arizona, 1-100-next-step or Tex-next-step to 1-800-533-42. Let's take a look at the track breakdown here for Talladega again, discussing if we need to alter our strategy because this is a playoff race where the playoff drivers are starting inside the top 12 spots. And if you've been playing NASCAR DFS long enough, you know our optimal approach for the super speedways is to stack the back, take advantage of place differential because the finishing order is a bit more random. There is a larger pool of drivers who can compete. There are a lot of crashes. So usually our ideal way to play things is loading up on drivers starting further back who can get us place differential. The problem again is that all the good drivers or a lot of them are starting up at the front. The 12 remaining playoff drivers are starting in the top 12 spots. So you can stack the back, but it means you're passing up on a lot of the guys most likely to win this race. Luckily, we do have races we can look at to see how we should alter things in this format. Last year's playoff race had the same starting procedures and last year's spring race also had the top 12 drivers known or points in the top 12 spots for the race. Both of those races tell us the exact same story and we should use the assumption game and still get place differential after that. So it's very similar to our typical approach at Talladega. For new listeners, the assumption game is where you pick an assumed winner for the race and put that driver in your lineup. You get 43 points for a win and you want those 43 points because it's a race where you can basically make it in the perfect line to get those 43 points no matter where you start. In those two races last year, the winner started in the top 12 bullet times. It was Ryan Blaney in the spring, Denny Hamlin in the fall. For both those races, those are the only two drivers in the top 12 who made the perfect lineup. So even though the top 12 playoff drivers, the 12 playoff drivers started inside the top 12 spots last year, there was still just one guy from those playoffs in the perfect lineup and that one guy was the winner. It wasn't a ton of guys all the way in the back for the rest of the lineup. It wasn't like 30th through 40th filling out the lineup. The spring race had nobody starting deeper than 21st, but the template of one playoff driver and then seeking a place differential is very helpful for us. That's what I want to do is my default for this week. I will pick a playoff driver as my assumed winner, most likely. My wind simulations have playoff drivers winning 66% of the time. The eight most likely winners are all in the playoffs as well. So more often than not, I am going to have one playoff driver in my lineup as my assumed winner and the rest will be guys who can get me place differential. And we do have good place differential options for this week. We'll go through those in the tier by tier breakdown. So it is truly the same process we've always had at Daytona and Talladega. We can get our assumed winner and get place differential after that and go from there. We don't change things just despite the fact that 12 playoff drivers are starting in the top 12 spots. As far as data to emphasize, we've got three super speedway races to lean on this year. There is some overlap between Daytona and Talladega, but they are very different. So track history specifically at Talladega will matter a ton for me this week. I know it's not like a hot take, but I don't tend to care about track history too much. I care a lot here given the way the track sets up, given how different it is from Daytona. I do care about Daytona results too, but they are very different tracks. The other thing I will consider, which is typical of these tracks is a team or manufacturer stack. They don't always pay off, but I'm still fine leaning on it because we've seen it enough on these tracks. Like last year in that Blaney race, three of the five drivers in the perfect lineup were Fords. Last year when Hamlin won, he was paired to this teammate or teammate of the time, Eric Jones. So if I decide to use Denny Hamlin or Kyle Bush as my assumed winner, I'll bump up Bubba Wallace for non-playoff guys. He's a Toyota, one of the few Toyotas in this race. Chris Bush or Matthew Benedetto pair well with guys like Logano, Keselowski, other Fords, Harvick and stuff like that. But you don't have to do it. You don't have to stack, but I do tend to do it quite a bit just because we do see some correlated plays wind up in perfect lineups. So to recap here, we did still the same attack we've had previously at super speedways, despite the fact that 12 playoff drivers are starting in the top 12 spots. You get an assumed winner, most likely a playoff driver, and then you gun for place differential after that. You will get some guys deeper in the pack who can work for sure. And we will talk about those in the tier by tier breakdown. Lean heavily on Talladega history to determine who you want to lean on. Daytona history is okay. It's better than non-super speedway races, but definitely secondary behind Talladega. And then do consider stacking when you're filling out your lineups. That is our strategy for this week. And I think we've got some drivers who mesh well with that approach. So let's go now tier by tier based on the salaries over at FanDuel.com and list out my favorite plays for this week. The elite tier is Denny Hamlin at $14,000 through Ryan Blaney at 12-5. And these guys are all starting in the top eight spots. So we can just rank them based on their win odds. I'm okay glossing over this tier for cash games. For tournaments though, I will be hiding the two Penske drivers, Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney. Blaney has won two of the past four Talladega races. He constantly runs near the front. Any one Daytona that last month as well, I guess two months ago now since it's October. So the appeal with Blaney is pretty obvious. Logano has had a lot of bad crashing luck recently, like got wrecked on the final lap of Daytona back in the, back in the winter. He has no top tens since the start of last year in super speedways, but he is a three time winner at Talladega. He's had a top 10 average running position in 11 of the past 12 Talladega races. When he's wrecking, he's generally wrecking late in the race. So as long as he doesn't crash, he's going to contend for the win. My simulations give Logano slightly higher win odds, but I'm going to go Blaney a hair higher because I love it. So we'll go that Blaney over Logano there. I obviously adore Denny Hamlin and Chase Elliott. Chase has tremendous speed here. He's a past winner here. Speed does matter at Talladega. Denny Hamlin is the best super speedway racer in the sport right now. Hamlin always feels a bit better at Daytona than Talladega. That could be totally off. He did win here last year and he's won here three times total, but I'm going to put Blaney first than Logano second. I should put Hamlin above Logano, but I have a really hard time turning it on the Penske guys here. Chase is fourth. I've got him at 5% win odds. So he'll still be an assumed winner at times, but I'll put him fourth this year behind Blaney, Logano and Hamlin. The second here is William Byron at 12,000 through Brad keselowski at 10,000. Here we get our first non-playoff drivers. Those are Bubba Wallace, Eric Almorel and Ricky Sennows Jr. They will start 19th through 21st. They're all in this tier and I love all of them. My favorite guy here is Bubba Wallace. He's starting 19th. He is $11,500. He ranks ninth in my model's projected average driving position for this race, and I don't disagree. Across the past two years in super speedway races, Bubba ranks fourth in average finish. The only guys ahead of him are Hamlin, Blaney and Harvick. He has been better at Daytona than Talladega, but he led 10 laps last year, 16 this year. His car has had stupid speed on super speedways this year. Like in Daytona, if he hadn't had issues, he might have won. He almost did win in Daytona. The second race finished officially second. He finished third. He finished officially second after disqualification, but I've got him at 3.5% to win, which is actually higher than his implied odds at 32-1. I love Bubba here, and I'll be heavy on him for sure. I think he is an amazing play for this week. Between Sennows and Almorela, I will give Almorela the slight edge. I like both a lot, though, truly. Honestly, I might just build around this tier in cash games. Go with Wallace first, then Sennows, then Almorela all together. I think they're all guys who could win this race, and they're all starting in our desired range. I'm not going to overthink it. I think those three guys are all tremendous options here. Among the non-place differential guys, Brad Keselowski is my favorite assumed winner. I have basically sent him out to pasture. I have not considered, thought about, given any consideration to Keselowski for a while now, because he's a lame drunk driver, leaving the team at the end of the year, which could mean he won't get much help this time around from Blaney and Legano, but honestly, they just wreck each other anyway. I'm just so fed up with Penske guys wrecking each other, so who cares? I think that Keselowski is just too good here for me to be too low on him. He's my favorite assumed winner in this tier, followed by William Byron. I'm going to rank this tier Wallace 1, Almorela 2, Stenhouse 3, Keselowski 4, Byron 5, and Kyle Larson, number 6. The mid-range on Fandula's Kyle Bush at 9-8 through Ross Chastain at $8,200, and we do place differential guys here, and I'll touch on them in a second, but one assumed winner I'd like to be higher on than the public is Kyle Bush. He's starting second, so he needs to win to pay off, but he grades out really well in my model. He's probably, it's probably a bit odd for him to do that because he's not one at Talladega since 2008 when he was like 12 years old, and he hasn't finished better than 10th since 2017, but he's always in contention. He has had a top nine average running position in all three super sweet way races this year. That's what you want from an assumed winner. You want a guy who, if the race breaks the right way, will be in contention, and I know that Bush will be there. So I'd like to be overweight on him relative to the field, and it shouldn't take too much to get there because people will choose Hamlin over him as an assumed winner, yada, yada, yada. So I think that Bush is going to be a good play. The place differential guys here are Chris Busher, Cole Custer, and Ross Chastain. I would rank them Busher 1, Chastain 2, and Custer 3. Busher was a maniac in Daytona. I didn't like it at all. I bet Chris Busher basically every super speedway race like the past like 16 years, it feels like. So I was very concerned, but I think that that was a lot of him taking a shot, trying to make the playoffs. This is the final chance to do so. I would not be shocked if he goes back to be more conservative this time around. Plus, it worked. It made my heart want to explode. But it worked. He finished second before he got disqualified after inspection. So he was sixth in the spring race last year at Talladega. He's better at Daytona, but I like him a lot here. So I'm hoping Chris Busher is dialed back a little bit, bud. I know you did some film study and found that you were not being aggressive enough, but let's just turn the dial back a little bit here and try to get to the end of this race. Chastain had a great car in Daytona, too, both Daytona races this year. He was super aggressive, which is fun. I talked about, you know, Busher hopefully being less aggressive, but like Chastain, you know, he's, that's what he does. I'm not going to talk him out of it. He had a 14th place, average driving position, and led 12 laps in this year's spring race at Talladega. I already bet him to win. He was 45 to one where I was. It's longer than the 30, 80s out of Fanduil. So I don't want to bet him at the Fanduil odds, but I think he can win this race. And for DFS, I think that Chastain is pretty fun. Custer, I'm mostly putting here because he's starting 28th, does have a top 10 in Talladega. So he's not bad, but I just don't like his skill as much of these tracks as much as Busher and Chastain. So it's Busher and Chastain and Custer among the place differential guys among the assumed winners. Give me Kyle Busch one, Kevin Harvick two, Alex Bowman three. The value tier is Ryan Priest at $8,000 through Justin Allgaier at $6,100. And my favorite play of the week is in this tier. And that is Justin Haley. He is starting 38th at $7,700. And typically Haley drives for Spire Motorsports. That's fine. Like they're better than the Backmarker Carves. But this week he's driving for Colleague Racing. Kaz Gralov finished six with them back in the spring. A.J. Allmendinger won the Indie road course race with his team. It's not a lead equipment, but it's a lot better than Spire. So an equipment upgrade for Justin Haley this week, he is amazing on super speedways. He's won. I mean, he did win the cup series, but like it was more fluky, but four career Xfinity wins and super speedways. Two of those were in Talladega and all those wins came for Colleague Racing. So Haley is the top play of the slate for me. He's the first guy he lock in for cash games. I desperately want to be overweight in tournaments, even though I know he won't be sneaky. I think that he's still worth it for sure this week. Ryan Priest is the other guy I think is pretty fun here. Potential pivot off of Justin Haley. He is starting back in 28th, I believe. I lost him in my sheet. 27th for $8,000. So Priest is a pivot. Priest, three top tens in super speedways, the past seven races. One of those top tens is in Talladega. He finished top 15, the other two Talladega races. He's starting 27th. So I'm very in on him. I would also say that there is a tier of drivers in this range who are starting in the teens and they are all guys I am willing to use and kind of hoping they go a bit overlooked in this tier. Those guys are Kurt Busch, Matty Benedetto and Austin Dillon. Busch starting 14th, D Benedetto, 15th, Austin Dillon, 16th. Dillon can win this race. He has shown that plenty of times in super speedways. D Benedetto will have good speed. He's kind of like Kazalowski where he's a lame duck driver, so might not get the cooperation at the front, but really good the past couple of Talladega races. Kurt Busch, skilled veteran. Hasn't been as good in the super speedways recently, but I think that Dillon, D Benedetto, and Busch all in play in terms of guys who potentially could go overlooked because they're in kind of this weird dead zone in the teens, which means they're not going to be super logical place differential guys, but you're also not thinking that they'll win the race. So I think all those guys are pretty interesting. I'd rank this tier Justin Haley 1, Ryan Priest 2, Austin Dillon 3. I would go Kurt Busch 4, Matty Benedetto 5, and then I'll go Mike McDowell, followed by Eric Jones. McDowell and Jones starting a bit further back, so they do make sense, but I don't like their win odds as much as the other guys in the tier above them. The punting tier is Tyler Redick at $5,900 on down, and I think Redick is similar to Dillon, Busch, and D Benedetto where he could do well despite starting in the teens. He was awesome on these tracks in the Xfinity series. He's been up front in the Cup series, but he keeps making mistakes that cost him, and he said that he is aware of this. He's working on it, trying to make it better. And the good thing is you've got more room for error in Talladega than at Daytonics. This is just a wider track. I think that's great for him. I'm still going to use Redick, even though he's starting in the teens. And I think, again, all he of him, Busch, Dillon, D Benedetto, Borderline, they're not core plays, but they're like the step below that secondary plays for me. And Redick and Dillon, I'm willing to stack together, getting an RCR stack there as well. I am similarly unopposed to Christopher Bell, starting in 12th, which is the lowest of the playoff drivers. And these tracks are not his forte. His average finish in the Cup series is 24th, but he's run up front. He stacks really well with Wallace and the other Joe Gibbs cars. So if I decide to go with two playoff drivers in one lineup, it's very likely that that guy, that second guy, will be Christopher Bell. I'm going to rank this tier, Redick one, Bell two, Chase Prisco three, Cori LaJoy four, and then Ryan Newman, number five. Let's finish up here with our win picks for Talladega. And I don't know how to feel about this, because again, I mentioned that, that Kyle, which is not one at Talladega since 2008 when he was like five, but my win simulations actually have him as the most likely winner. That's probably flawed, but like when you're at the front as often as he is on these tracks, you're putting yourself in a position to win. So I didn't adjust it. I ran, ran it without adjustments, without other adjustments. And he was at the top. And I thought about it, like maybe he lowers upsides and then like that didn't make any adjustments. I think it makes sense. So I'm actually going to Kyle Bush, my winner for this week. He's $9,800. So he's technically my win pick below $10,000, which means I could pick anyone for the second one. So I'll go Ryan Blaney. I just think Blaney is super talented at these tracks. He's been great at Talladega, specifically one at Daytona, probably needs a win just because he hasn't been good on road courses this year. So looking forward to the Roval next week needs a win. He wants to go on to the next round. So I think my win picks this week, Kyle Bush and Ryan Blaney. That is all that we have here for today on the heat check fantasy podcast. But again, a lot of stuff on here on the week four, NFL DFS preview podcast, UFC MLB, a lot of stuff next week as well. So search for the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts, hit subscribe and come back next week as well. Plenty of more NASCAR discussion to come throughout this year. We got the Charlotte Roval coming up next week. Also very chaotic. So going to be a tense couple weeks for sure as I'm watching the races, but it should be a blast from a DFS perspective as well. If you've got questions for me, I am on Twitter at Jim Sonnis, J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S. You can also follow the fan dual podcast network at fan dual podcast. Enjoy the race on Sunday. Hopefully it's not too crazy. Again, I just have a hard time watching these races. They really, really get my heart going. So we'll see how things go on Sunday. Good luck to you. We'll talk to you once again next week to get you set for the final race of the round of 12 out in Charlotte. This has been the heat check fantasy podcast powered by number fire.