 We've got another cutoff race this weekend in the NASCAR Cup series playoffs, the round of 12, coming to an end with Sunday's Bank of America rule of the 400, and it's going to be pretty fun. I'm not sure it'll be as calamitous and chaotic as people tend to think of this course and how the drivers know it better and stuff like that, but still should be pretty fun to watch. We're going to break things down here from a DFS perspective, let you know what the playoffs do for our strategies, who grades out well based on where they're starting and more. That's what you said for NASCAR DFS at the Roval welcome on into the heat check fantasy podcast powered by number fire. That's right here on the fan dual podcast network and number fire.com. My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a senior writer and analyst for number fire.com here to break down Sunday's Bank of America Roval 400. That is at the Charlotte road course lock is set for 2pm Eastern on Sunday. 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Let's take a look at the track breakdown for this week and it's going to be a very similar mindset to what we were doing in Talladega last week, which is weird because I know there are very different tracks, you know, super speedway versus road course, et cetera, et cetera. But the strategy for DFS is very similar. There we wanted to pick our student winner and then we wanted to gun for place differential after that. This week has some key similarities to that race. This race this weekend, 109 laps long. That's super short. It's 10.9 fandal points available for laps led this week and a shorter race tends to push us toward favoring place differential. And we did see that in last year's playoff race, both for that race and for this race, the 12 remaining playoff drivers started in the top 12 spots of the race. Those are the drivers most likely to win this week. And finishing points do matter a lot, but only one of the playoff drivers last year made the perfect line up at Charlotte. Two drivers starting the back half of the field made it as well. So that does tell us the place differential is huge here as you expect for a shorter race, such as this one. I would say, though, that last year's perfect lineup is a tiny bit misleading. The the main thing is that the driver who won that race was not in the perfect lineup, and that is just the way things worked out. But it's exceedingly rare on fandal for that to happen, regardless of how long or how short the race is. I don't think that will happen again this week. 43 points for a win is a lot. So the assume the winning driver will likely be in the perfect lineup. Second, two drivers who made the perfect lineup started right behind the playoff cut off. They started 13th and 14th. And that tells me you can absolutely use two playoff drivers if you find a way to do so. I would very much prefer one of them to start near the back half of the top 12 to get some place differential points. We do have some guys who fit that this week. I am OK with targeting them if it does deviate from what we saw last year. So last year was one playoff driver in the perfect lineup. This year, I would not be shocked to get a second one. But in general, our mindset should be to accept place differential where we can find it, whether that means two playoff drivers or one doesn't matter as much. We just want to accept it where we can find it. And this week we've got a whole lot of there are a lot of guys with place differential juice scattered throughout the starting order of the top 17 drivers in my models projected average running position. Five of them, five out of 17 will start in the back half of the field. A.J. Albendinger is starting 33rd, Ross Chastain, 27th, Chase Briscoe, 22nd, Tyler Redick, 29th. Matt DiBenedetto is 30th. All those guys have had success on road courses this year. So our mindset is to accept place differential where we can find it and finding it this week. Isn't that tough? To me, that says build around those guys and make them our core plays for tournaments because the upside is definitely there. And they fit exactly how we want to play things in such a short race. That does not mean I'm going to abandon the top of the charts because Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott both have win odds and at least 16% in my win simulations. That means a healthy chunk of the time one of them is going to win. And despite last year, that means a healthy chunk of the time. One of them is going to wind up in the perfect fan duo line. And it does help that Larson starting 10th, Elliot is eighth. So there actually is some place differential juice there. So I want to be in on those guys for sure. But my core tournament plays like the guys, the building blocks here if we filter in as often as possible, those be the guys starting deeper in the field who can make their way forward as the race goes along. As far as data to value for this week, I just think we can look at the road courses because we got a ton of road course data to look at. That's not been the case in previous year. But this year we've had six road course races already. They're obviously super unique. So I'm just going to go all in on those six races and value those as being the key data for this week. To me, I think that if we've got good data, it'd be foolish to ignore it. So to me, I will just set out and lean heavily on the drivers who've been best on the road course this year. They have had their salaries jacked up for sure. Like we're not catching people off guard here, but I still think that it is the correct way to play things. And they do they are guys who are in a position to get place differential, so is go all in on value road course races so far this year to recap strategies for Sunday's race. We do want to accept place differential where we can find it. That's the key tenant. We do still want the assumed winner. Despite them not being in last year's perfect lineup, they probably will be on Sunday. So we could wind up having a couple playoff drivers in our lineup at times with the way the field breaks down. I want all the fun place differential options that I can get. They will be the core place here. And then lean on road course data to decide which drivers you want to utilize this week, both for your assumed winners and for your value plays starting deeper in the field. So the question is, who fits that? Let's dive in and go tier by tier here, breaking down the top drivers for Sunday's race based on the salaries over at Fandall.com. We got Chase Elliott through Kyle Bush in the elite tier. Chase Elliott, $14,500 Bush down to $12,500. And in this tier, we have Elliott and Larson. They are the two guys who dominate on road courses. I do have Elliott higher here. I prefer between the two, but the gap between him and Larson is minimal. Larson is a 21 percent to win. In my simulations, and I bet him last night at plus 450, you can actually get him at 550 at Fandall for some reason. So if you have access, take advantage of that. But we've seen Larson win twice on road courses this year, which is the same number as Elliott. The Watkins Glen race that Larson won, Elliott would have won. So it barely counts. But Larson was running down Elliott at the circuit of the Americas. He could have won that race as well. We've also seen Larson run well with this track back in 2018. He led 45 or 47 laps, had a fifth place ever running position. He was great in that race, had some issues later on. But like we've seen him run well here. The equipment is obviously very good. And I don't think that people view him as being in the exact same tier as Elliott on these tracks. Larson is starting 10th. Elliott is eighth. So I'll have more exposure to Elliott. But the levels of exposure between these two will be very close. And they are the clear standouts in this field in terms of trying to get your projected projected winner in there. I'd rank Kyle Bush above Denny Hamlin here. I like Hamlin on road courses a lot, but Bush has had nice upside. Might not have a ton of either this week just because their salaries are very close to Elliott and Larson, but I would favor Bush between the two. So ranking the top tier, Elliott won Larson two and then a gap followed by Bush and then Hamlin. The second tier is AJ Almond Dinger at $12,000 through William Byron at $10,000. And Almond Dinger starting back at 33rd. He is one of the best plays in the field as a result. Potentially the best play. I don't know. He's pretty close. He's definitely up there. We saw Almond Dinger win the Indy road course and he's got that upside. I do think that win was pretty fluky because his average running position there was 12th. And it's actually his best mark on a road course this year. So I don't think he can win again, but he doesn't have to win to pay off from 33rd. My default lineup, like I think the optimal way to start things this week is to pair Almond Dinger with either Elliott or Larson and then go from there. It is very top heavy and you will have to scramble. It find a punt play in there. But I think that we kind of got to do it the way that these drivers grayed out. The rest of the guys in this tier are all starting near the front. So we can view them pretty much straight up based on, you know, with their win expectancies. The two guys I think are most interesting are Kurt Bush and William Byron. Probably because they do have some place differential upside. Bush is starting 13th. Byron is 11th. Byron needs a win to advance. Bush is not in the playoffs. So both these guys can focus on a win and disregard stage points this week. Kurt ranks sixth in aggregate average running position on road courses so far this year. And Byron is eighth. So I'd favor Byron because he has more on the line. But Kurt has had the better results. So both these guys are really solid to me. I'm going to rank this tier Almond Dinger 1, Byron 2, Kurt Bush 3, Martin Truex 4, Joey Logano 5. I might need to put Truex above Byron and Bush, but I just think that Larson and Elliott are going to control this race. So it's hard for me to assume he wins. And then he doesn't have as much place differential upside as those two guys. So I feel like I should be higher on Truex. Maybe I will be by Sunday. But for right now, I'll put him behind those guys just because I think that it's really Larson and Elliott's race to lose. The mid-range is Alex Bowman at $9800 or Matthew Benedetto at $8500. And this range has four of our guys who are starting the back half of the field. Those are Ross Chastain, Chase Briscoe, Tyler Redick and Matthew Benedetto. I'm going to rank those guys Redick 1. Maybe that's kind of spicy. I don't know. Chastain 2, Benedetto 3 and Briscoe 4. Redick, I'm willing to be higher on due to this race being in the playoffs because during the regular season, we saw Redick emphasize stage points. So he would stay out while others pitted and put him behind, but he got a lot of points. So it was our thing to do, but it wouldn't translate for DFS. Now, points do matter to an extent because he can still work his way forward relative to the non-playoff drivers, but I think they might let him gun for a win. And I think he can. Redick is starting 29th and I kind of love it. So I'm okay being high on Redick here and potentially higher than Chastain. Chastain, three top 10s, got a top five on road courses this year. People will be odd him and so will I, but I don't mind being higher on Redick. I think Redick is really, really fun for this week. Dibon Odedo gets the edge over Briscoe because he's starting 30th, whereas Briscoe is 22nd. Dibon Odedo finished fifth in Indy. He was top 11 at Road America and Watkins Glen. So if they were even, I'd favor Briscoe because Briscoe almost won the Indy road course, if not for some Tom Fullery at the end. So I would go Briscoe, but I think that with Dibon Odedo starting a bit deeper, I'm okay favoring him. I do like Alex Bowman starting 12th. He makes sense. It's just hard to target him above the other guys in this range. Someone ranked this tier, Redick one, Chastain two, Dibon Odedo three, Briscoe four, and Bowman five. The value tier is Brad Kazalowski at $8,200 through Eric Amarola at $6,500. Cole Custer kind of interesting in this range. He's starting 23rd, $7,100. He's not regarded as being a good road racer, but he does have some upside because we saw him have a 12th place average run position in Daytona. He was 10th in Indy. Didn't turn those into good results, but the good runs matter. It shows that he has at least some speed on these tracks. And I will take some swings there. So Custer kind of a banking on talent slash speed at that salary. Michael McDowell $7,300. He will start 19th. He is a good road racer. He doesn't have the best equipment. He still finished top 10 in both Daytona and circuit of the Americas. So we can get the job done, but I'll favor Custer because the equipment gap here is pretty massive between those two guys. After them, I can get to some of the guys starting up front here. They won't give me place differential, but they can finish well. And they've got discounted enough from a salary perspective where I can actually at least entertain the idea of using them. So this year to me is Custer one McDowell two. I will go Ryan Blaney three, Blaney one here in 2018. He's talented. Finally showed some speed a bit at the Indy road course, which he hasn't showed most of this year in road courses. I'll go Kevin Harvick four, Eric Elmerola five and Eric Jones number six in this tier. The punting tier is Coyla Joy at $6,300 on down. Ryan Priest is my favorite guy in this range. He's starting 31st at $5,500. Priest finished top 10 in Daytona. He has 15th in Kota. He's a good road racer, which is pretty hard to find at this salary. He hasn't gotten help from his team so far, but I think that there's some talent there. So I like Priest at $5,500. I mentioned before that if you wanna go Elliott's and Almond Dinger or Almond Dinger said that really weird for some reason. If you wanna go Elliott and Almond Dinger or Larson and Dinger, it does help to have a punt guy. And I think that Priest is my favorite option from that perspective. I'd put Priest as team and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. second tier. He's starting 18th, so it's not super deep, but he could push for a top 10 finish. And I can live with that. Coyla Joy interesting at $6,300. He'll start 26th. Daniel Suarez at 25th. Those guys all work. And I will need them again if I wanna jam in a couple of super high salary guys. So I will be in this tier more than usual. And I'll start with Priest first, Stenhouse second, Lajoy third, Suarez fourth. Justin Haley is kinda interesting. Super talented guy on road courses. I don't like the equipment, but he's back with Spire this week as opposed to with Collig. I think that I'll have some Haley this week just because I need the salary savings and he is pretty talented and starting back in 38th for this week. So that wraps up the tier by tier breakdown. Let's finish up this week with some win picks for this week as always one winner above 10,001 below based on the salaries at FanDuel.com. For the guy above, I'm gonna go with my win simulations and go with Kyle Larson. I think that Larson is just being undervalued relative to Chase Elliott. So I think he's the best bet for this week at plus 450 or plus 550 if you're at FanDuel. And I think that he grades that really well. So Kyle Larson to me, the win pick above 10,000. The guy below will be Christopher Bell. We saw Bell win on a road course this year. He was second at Road America as well. He's $8,700 and starting fourth, which means he's not like the best DFS play, but I mean, among the guys below 10,000, I think he's a pretty easy pick as the potential most likely winner for this week. So the official win picks for this week, Kyle Larson and Christopher Bell. That is all that we have here for today on the Heat Check Fantasy podcast should be a fun race. On Sunday, looking forward to seeing how things break down, trying to win some money as well and seeing if we can get Kyle Larson back in victory lane one more time. Do not forget to subscribe to the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed. Wherever you get your podcasts, again, check out the week five at DFS preview for NFL, via myself and Brandon Gendula already posted. We have our snake draft later on today for PM Eastern on the FanDuel YouTube Twitch, Facebook and Twitter pages, talking week five with me, Brandon and JJ Zacharyson after that as well. If you've got more questions for me, I am on Twitter at Jim Sonnis, J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S. You can also follow the FanDuel podcast network at FanDuel podcast. Big thank you to everyone for tuning in for today. Good luck to you with your NASCAR DFS lineups and we'll talk to you once again next week. This has been the Heat Check Fantasy podcast powered by Number Fire.