 One of the most exciting tracks in all of NASCAR, coming up this weekend is the GEICO 500 in Talladega and if you've never watched a NASCAR race in Talladega, things get pretty wild. They draft off of each other, they run three and four wide at times. There are a lot of crashes which make me personally kind of nervous but I realize other people have different reactions to those and maybe excited by those. I get very nervous so I'm not a huge fan of that part but the racing is objectively really fun to watch and that leads to a really interesting DFS product because it's easy to pass, you can have random winners at times. There are a lot of different elements that are intriguing here for Talladega. This week though is interesting because our usual strategy for NASCAR DFS has a little bit of a wrench thrown into it. We're going to break that down and what it means for setting your lineups for Sunday's race here today. Welcome on into the Heat Check Fantasy podcast powered by Number Fire. That's right here on the FanDuel Podcast Network and NumberFire.com. My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a senior writer and analyst for NumberFire.com here to break down the GEICO 500 from a NASCAR DFS perspective focusing specifically on FanDuel's product. The qualifying order for the race was set last night. Lock is at 3 p.m. Eastern so you have plenty of time to fill out lineups. You could fill out lineups again as we go right now because we have all the information we're going to have before the green flag drops already. So feel free to hop on over and fill out lineups as we go. Here's drivers that I like and find some that you like as well based on your process. We are pretty much back in the full swing of things here on the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed. We've got PGA Podcasts, a UFC podcast previewing Saturday Night's fight. Saturday Night's card just went up on Wednesday with myself and Austin Swain. You can check that out there. And if you're getting into EPL DFS, I talked with Austin Cass of Number Fire to get thoughts on roster construction, how scoring works, stacking, et cetera, et cetera. Really good conversation if you are like me trying to get more into the EPL now that is back. Make sure you find all that by searching for the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed. Wherever you get your podcast next week, NASCAR podcast, PGA podcast, likely a UFC podcast as well. So a lot of good stuff popping. Make sure you are subscribed there. Before we take a look at the track breakdown, the Belmont Stakes are coming up on Saturday and you can stream and bet all the races on the TVG app. TVG has been the home of horse racing for over 20 years and they've got all the action anyone could want. And right now, TVG is offering a risk-free bet on any horse to win any race to all new users. Any race, any horse, you can do it. Just use the promo code FDPOD on TVG and the TVG app. Again, the promo code is FDPOD, F-D-P-O-D as an annual podcast. Then get up to $200 back if you don't win. That's the TVG app, promo code FDPOD, age, residency, and other eligibility restrictions apply. New users only. Refund issued as a non-withdrawable site credit that expires after 30 days. See terms at tvg.com, gambling problem called 1-800-522-4700. Let's dive into the track breakdown here for Talladega and normally in Talladega and Daytona, the two pack racing tracks on the Cup Series circuit, we want to stack the back. The problem is that there was no qualifying this week, which means the best cars for 2020 are all starting right at the front. So the question we have to ask from a DFS perspective is whether we can still stack the back with that being the case. The answer is yes. Let's go through why that's the case here. The big issue with using drivers who start at the front is that they have to finish basically in the top four spots in order to pay off for DFS. Let's look back at the past two spring races in Talladega. Both those spring races had multiple drivers who started at the front who wound up in the perfect line. The 2018 spring race had four drivers who started in the top 12 and the 2019 spring race had three. That could lead us to being more okay with using drivers starting in those positions. But it's a bit more complicated than that. In the 2018 race, three of the drivers who made it after starting in the front had high salaries. One was a pretty big value place. You didn't need a ton for him to pay off. But the three studs who made that perfect lineup finished in the top three spots in that race. In the 2019 race, it was the same thing. The three drivers who made the perfect lineup after starting inside the top 12 finished first, second, and fourth. They finished well, which is why they paid off. So let's say you decided to use that strategy for this race and plug in three drivers starting inside the top 12 spots. What you're doing there is basically making a three driver podium finish parlay bet. If one of those drivers does not finish well, that lineup is not going to cash. With the drivers starting further back, you've got a lot more flexibility. You do not need them to finish inside the top three for them to pay off. In the past six Talladega races, 20 drivers have scored at least 60 fandom points while starting 20th or lower. And 60 is a pretty big number for a Talladega race. Some of those drivers did finish really well, but none of them won the race and they still scored a bunch of fandom points. Two of those drivers who scored 60 points starting 20th or lower finished outside the top 10. 12 of them finished outside the top 5. So basically what you're doing by using drivers starting further back is you're giving yourself additional leeway, additional flexibility from a finishing perspective. They will still need a decent finish, like if they crash, like, you know, that's not going to help you anyway. But your margin for error is so much smaller with those drivers starting up at the front. That's why for cash games and for your core for tournaments, you still want to use drivers starting further back. There are legitimately good drivers starting the middle of the pack for this race and there are some starting outside the top 30 who I like quite a bit and will consider for cash games. Those are the drivers you should lean on for cash games and for your core in tournaments. That's going to lead us, lead to us leaving a bunch of salary on the table and that feels uncomfortable because we don't usually do that, but that is okay here. The average perfect lineup in the past four or a talladega races has left almost $5,000 on the table. One race left over $10,000 so a good chunk of your lineups this week will leave money on the table and you'd likely be wise to do so in cash as well, especially in cash games and that we want to gravitate towards the back and there aren't a ton of expensive drivers back there. So you got to be comfortable leaving salary on the table and potentially a lot of it. When you're doing sprinkles for tournaments, that is where you can use drivers starting at the front. There, we can afford to make bets on who will win the race, so the lack of leeway there is less of an issue. And the driver who wins the race is probably going to be in the perfect lineup regardless of where they start the race. So I would say for each tournament lineup that you build, you can feel free to pick an assumed winner, lock that driver in regardless of where they're starting and then build from there. So that's one situation where you can use drivers starting closer to the front if you assume they are the winner. The other situation in which I am more okay using drivers closer to the front is when I'm stacking teams or manufacturers, which is a key for a track like this. What you'll often see here is that a certain team or manufacturer will dominate a race and fill up the top of the leaderboard. Last year in Talladega, Hendrik Motorsports had the top two drivers. Ryan Priest was a Chevy as well. He finished third. Joe Gibbs raced in some of the top three spots in Daytona in 2019. So this happens pretty often where we see teams or manufacturers dominate the race. If you correctly pick which team that is, your odds of hitting that three driver podium bet parley that we discussed are much higher. So let's say I'm stacking Penske Racing. I'm definitely going to use Matt DiBenedetto who is starting in the middle of the pack and is aligned with that team. But I can also think about using two of Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano or Brad Keselowski in that same lineup even though those guys are starting closer to the front. And you can do this with drivers further back too. Like you can still stack while doing that because Stuart Haas Racing has one driver at each tier. So if you wanted to stack them, you could do so without overexposing yourself to the front of the pack. But that's another situation where I am more on board with drifting closer to the front. It's a lot easier to bet a three driver parley if you can find the correlations. And the way to do so with Talladega and Daytona is by stacking teams and manufacturers. I gravitate towards one manufacturer over the others, but we'll talk about that more in the tier by tier breakdown. So to recap here, the strategies for Talladega. You still want to try to target place differential drivers even though the starting order was set by points. That is especially true for cash games and when building out your core for tournaments. That is even true if it leaves salary on the table. It can be very uncomfortable. I get it. But you could be flirting with $10,000 on the table this weekend and I want you to be aware of that before you start to build lineups. We can assume winners and use them for sure regardless of where they're starting. They can start on the pole if you think they're going to win. You can plug them in and use them for tournament lineups and for tournaments as well. Make sure you have some team stacks, some manufacturer stacks and load up on them in case they happen to be that team or manufacturer that dominates this weekend's race. So with that said, let's dive into our tier by tier breakdown based on the salaries on Fandals starting with the elite tier that is Chase Elliot at $13,300 through Kyle Bush at $11,800. And this entire group is starting inside the top 12 spots. The three drivers are starting near the bottom of that tier and those three drivers all grayed out pretty well. They are Chase Elliot starting 11th, Joey Logano in 9th and Ryan Blaney in 12th. Those three also happen to be the top three drivers in my model for the race, though the model is trying to predict winners rather than best DFS values and the model not as effective in Talladega as it is almost everywhere else. But it is enough for me to rank Logano first and Blaney second among the studs for this race. Logano has won three of the past nine Talladega races. He has six top fives in that time. So he almost always runs at the front. He almost always lead laps. So if I were to power rank drivers and just pick them straight up for this race, even outside of DFS, Joey Logano is my favorite to win this race. As for Ryan Blaney, he won here last fall. It is one of only three top 10s for him at this track, but I know he has great equipment. He has relevant teammates in Logano and Keselowski and clearly he has the talent to get it done. He's starting back in 12th. So a little bit more place differential juice there for Blaney as well. So Logano number one for me, Blaney number two. The reason I'm lower on Chase Elliot, even though he is technically first in my model, is because the Chevy's had a hard time linking bumpers and Daytona this year. They ran well in the qualifying races. They had a ton of speed. But during the race itself, it really seemed like the Fords and Toyotas had an edge because they were better able to bump draft. So of the Chevy's, Chase Elliot is my favorite. I like him a lot. But overall, I'm going to wind up being lower on the Chevy's than I am on most other cars in this race due to that fear. I will still have stacks of Hendrick Motorsport, stacks of Richard Childers racing. I'm going to have those stacks, but I'm going to be lower on them than I am on Stuart Haas racing, Penske racing, and other teams like that. So just making that clear. I will still use Chevy's, but I'm going to have less of them than I have stacks of the Ford. So to me, this tier is ranked Logano one, Blaney two, then Keselowski, Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliot, and Kyle Bush. Hamlin is starting the front, but he is a tremendous pack racer and consistently finishes towards the front. I'm okay with him and would rank him right ahead of Chase Elliot. The second tier on Fandall is Kevin Harvick at $11,600 through Jimmy Johnson at $10,500. In this tier, we do have one driver starting further back. That's Eric Almirola in 15th. And I think he is among the top studs for this race for DFS. Almirola is a recent winner here. He did that in the fall of 2018 and the Stuart Haas cars dominated that entire race. And Almirola had just enough fuel to get the job done. A couple of his teammates did run out of fuel at the end of that race, but Almirola won. That's one of seven consecutive top 10 finishes for Almirola at this track. He has four top buys in that time. And to have that level of consistency at such a wild, erratic, crazy track is basically unheard of. So I think Almirola is the highest starting driver that I am definitely comfortable using in cash games. And I'll still have a good amount of him in tournaments too. I think that Blaney and Legano kind of in consideration for cash games. Legano 9th, Blaney 12th, but Almirola for sure for me is an option there starting back in 15. The rest of this tier is all starting inside the top 10. So I think we can rank them basically by win odds. The only forward in this group is Kevin Harvick and he's team is with Almirola. So there's a potential stack there. The issue I have is that Harvick hasn't had a ton of success on these tracks in the recent past outside of the Talladega fall race that Almirola won. Harvick was one of the dominators in that race. Didn't finish well because he ran out of fuel, but ran really well. So although Harvick is a forward, it's hard for me to get super jazzed about him potentially winning the race. Due to that track record, much higher in the Penske Drivers of Legano, Kezelowski and Blaney than I am on Harvick. One guy I do find kind of interesting here despite driving a Chevy is Alex Bowman. Bowman will probably be, I don't think many people will have him in their lineups because his win odds are pretty long. I think he's 22 to 1. So it's harder to get jazzed about him starting up in 8th. But Bowman has led 20 or more laps in 7 of the past 9 pack racing tracks. Those are since he became a full-time driver for Hendrick Motorsports. Hendrick has a lot of speed on these tracks. My only concern with them is that nose. But Bowman finished second in Talladega last year behind Chase Elliott. And I think that he is someone you can stack with William Byron and Chase Elliott if you want it. But overall, when mixing in winners for tournaments, I do at least want a couple of shares of Bowman just because I don't think anybody's going to have him. And I think there is a path to him winning this race. So Bowman, very interesting for me. Overall, this tier is pretty terrible. I don't like it at all. Almaroll is the only guy I would consider for cash games. Everyone else is tournament only. I'd probably put Bowman at the top of this tier followed by Harvick. But it's kind of gross across the board. And if I wound up underweight on literally everyone in this tier outside of Bowman, I'm not going to shed a tier. Moving down to the mid-range on Fandall, that's Ricky Stenhouse Jr. at $10,100. Through Matt Di Benedetto at $8,100. And this tier is a lot better than the tier above it. The only guy starting at the front is Clint Boyer and he's about in 10th. My favorite option in this middle range on Fandall is the one guy starting outside of the top 24. That's Christopher Bell. And Bell is starting all the way back in 35th, which is as good as it gets from a process perspective. In this car last year was Matt Di Benedetto and Di Benedetto was a threat to win the Daytona 500 in this car. So the equipment, although not great, is good enough for Bell to be competitive. And Bell himself was running near the front in Daytona this year as well before some late race issues. Bell never won here on these tracks in the Xfinity series, but he was third in three of the six races there. He was sixth in another. He also had a second place finish in the truck series at Talladega. So the talent is there. And realistically, you don't even need a top 10 finish for Christopher Bell to pay off for DFS. You just need a solid top 15 or so to be an awesome DFS asset. So Christopher Bell is a cash game option and he has shown we should build around for tournaments. $8,900 is a lot, but his salary got jacked up because of where he's starting. I don't care. He's someone I'm going to use a lot on Sunday. The rest of this tier is really good too. I do like Ricky Sanchez Jr. We'll talk about him in a second. William Byron, Tyler Radick and Austin Dillon, even though they're all driving Chevy, they're all in consideration. Eric Jones, former Daytona winner. He's starting 18th. So this whole tier is really good. But my other favorite option here is Matt DiBenedetto. DiBenedetto starting 23rd. That's the second lowest in this tier behind Christopher Bell. And DiBenedetto has never finished better than 18th in Talladega, but that was almost always in non competitive equipment. Now he's effectively teammates with Blaney Logano and Kezalowski. He will have the speed to get a win. We have seen DiBenedetto push for wins in Daytona before, so I don't doubt he can do it here too. So to me, DiBenedetto and Bell are the two best plays of the entire slate. And I feel comfortable making that statement and locking both those guys into my cash game roster for this weekend. Let's talk quickly about Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Because he has been getting some betting action this week. He opened a 26 to 1 F. Andrews sports book. He's now 22 to 1 to win. And it makes sense because he's a former Talladega winner. He is awesome on this track type. My hesitance here is in DFS and it's largely because he is driving a Chevy. I think Stenhouse is going to be a bit more popular than he should because he's starting 20th. So I'm still going to have a decent amount of Stenhouse. But I do want to actively try to be lower on him than the field. Because of their hands with Stenhouse as high as it gets. And I don't trust Chevy's as much as I do the other manufacturers. Stenhouse previously was with Ford, now with Chevrolet. He was really good in Daytona. So that's not going to stop him from competing in this race. And he will be in my player pool. My hope is to have less of him than the public. Because there are a lot of paths to failure for Rookie Stenhouse Jr. And there are guys I like more in this tier. Specifically again, DiBenedetto and Bell. So if I'm ranking this tier, to me it's Bell 1, DiBenedetto 2. I'm going to go Eric Jones 3 because he is with Joe Gibbs Racing. I think that's intriguing. He stacks well with Christopher Bell, who is a satellite team of Joe Gibbs Racing. Stenhouse will be fourth despite my reservations. Followed by Byron, Redick and Dylan. But overall, this is the best tier to live in on Sunday. Last week in Homestead, I think I was overweight on every single driver in the 8,000 tier. I'm probably going to do that once again this weekend. The value tier on Fandal is Ryan Newman at $8,000 through Ryan Priest at $7,200. And there are some good options here. Two of them are starting outside the top 24. Those guys are Cole Custer and Ryan Priest. Priest drives a Chevy, but I'm less worried about that because I don't need a win out of him. I'm just looking for a guy who gets a good place differential. Priest finished third in Talladega last year. He was eighth in last year's Daytona 500. So he seems able to wheel it around this track type. And he is Stenhouse's teammate. So you could potentially get a stack there in your Stenhouse lineups. As for Custer, not as sold on the talents at this track type. He had just one top 10 here in the Xinnity series under stricter or on pack racing tracks. But he drives for Stuart Haas Racing, good equipment, good teammates. Fits perfectly in stacks with Almerol and then either Harvick or Boyer. Custer will start 28th. Priest is 31st. I think both are in play. I would rank Priest slightly higher between those two. Chris Busher is another driver I would consider for cash games for Talladega, though he's kind of fringy there. I think Di Benedetto and Bell are like lobster cash games. Busher's on the fringe, but he's a pretty solid fringe option. Busher drives for Roush Fenway Racing. So this is the team that Stenhouse was driving for when he won here and he won in Daytona. That's not to say we should expect Busher to win because Stenhouse is a different breed. He's a wild man and he can will a car to a win. So I'm not saying expect Busher to win, but it means this car can't have success on this track type. Busher's success in the pack races has all come in Daytona, but three of his five career top fives in the cup series have come in Daytona. So we can get around that track for sure. And this is the best equipment he has ever had for a Talladega race. I consider equipment more valuable in Talladega than it is for Daytona. Daytona more of a handling track whereas Talladega speed does matter, at least in my eyes. So Busher at $7900 is someone I will use a bunch and he'll be in consideration for my cash game rosters. I would rank Bell higher and I think I'd rank De Benedetto higher too because I feel better about the equipment there, but Busher is flirting with third place overall for this race. This tier to me has ranked Ryan Priest one, Chris Busher two, Cole Custer three, Ryan Newman four and Matt Kenseth five. The punting tier is Ty Dillon at $6800 on down and some really decent options here including Ty Dillon and Bubba Wallace, even though they both drive Chevy's. Both those teams have an alliance with Richard Childers racing. So you could stack Bubba with Ty Dillon, you could stack them with Austin Dillon with Tyler Reddick. You've got options there for sure and I think that's kind of a sneaky stack too if you're going to go with a Chevy stack and just stack all the RCR and RCR affiliated cars. See what happens. Ty has never finished worse than 17th in Talladega. He takes care of his equipment, he gets to the end of the race. He might have won a stage year last year too. I could be misremembering that, but I know he won a stage at some point last year. Regardless, he ran well. He's never finished better than 10th, but you also don't really need him to finish better than 10th. So I like Ty for sure. Bubba is starting 24th, so it's a bit higher in the order, but he doesn't have a runner-up finish in the Daytona 500. He will work in 24th though. I'd rather spend up for guys like Ty Dillon, like Ryan Priest starting a bit deeper in the pack. Bubba is someone I'll filter in, but I think Ty Dillon and Ryan Priest will be closer to the core-ish plays for me. John Hunter Nemechek is starting 22nd. I do like him there because he did have success here in the Xfinity series. He had three top 10s on the pack racing tracks there at four races. He's teammates with Michael McDowell, but he more broadly works in Ford stacks. Like if you want to stack, you know, Penske racing and need a final driver there, I think that John Hunter Nemechek would fit that. This team won here in 2013. Front-row motorsports did. McDowell, his teammate, finished fifth in the fall race here last year. So Nemechek works, and I might put him a smidge ahead of Bubba Wallace just because Nemechek is in a Ford. I feel a little bit better about the prospects there. I would also mention that Brendan Gaughan is starting 39th. His equipment is better suited for Daytona than Talladega. He basically runs only the pack racing tracks, but Gaughan did finish eighth here in the spring last year. So he's in play, but all more exposure to the drivers with better equipment. Again, Ty Dillon, John Hunter Nemechek, Bubba Wallace, and the punting tier. So I'm ranking this tier in that order. Dillon, Nemechek, Wallace, Brendan Gaughan next, Michael McDowell, and Cori LaJoy. All those guys, at least options. But I do think that I want to focus mostly on Ty Dillon there. Let's finish up shop with the picks to win for this race. I am going to stick with what we talked about before. Going to the Ford and going with a driver who has a tremendous track history in Talladega. That guy is Joey Logano. He'll be my pick to win this week. I picked him a lot. Sorry, not that sorry though. Logano, my pick to win are the guys above $10,000. The guys below it, I think there are good options, but the best Ford below $10,000 to me is Matt Di Benedetto. So Matt Di Benedetto will be my pick. We're going to load up on the Penske cars or Penske-ish cars for Di Benedetto's case and make them the picks to win for this weekend. But again, still look for drivers starting further back to be part of your core. Still look for them in cash games, even though it will be uncomfortable to leave what will likely be a large amount of money on the table for your tournament and cash game rosters. That is all that we have for today. Hopefully that was helpful in helping you fill out your lineups. And again, we got more good stuff coming up next week here on the Number Fire Daily Fantasy Podcast Feed and a UFC podcast for tomorrow's card already posted. So search for the Number Fire Daily Fantasy Podcast Feed wherever you get your podcasts. And if you like what you hear, please be sure to leave a rating and review as well. If you have questions for me, I am Jim or at Jim Sonnis on Twitter, J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S. You can also follow the FanDuel Podcast Network at FanDuelPodcast. Big thank you to Calvin Theobald, our video producer for on the video side of things here today. Thank you, Cal, as always. And thank you to everyone for tuning in. Good luck with your DFS lineups for Talladega, UFC, PGA, whatever it may be. Have a good sports weekend. We'll talk to you again next week. This has been the Heat Check Fantasy Podcast, powered by Number Fire.