 The true Super Bowl coming up on Sunday with the Daytona 500, the field is set for NASCAR DFS, which means we can fill out our lineups now and try to win some cash on Sunday to build some bank role for this 2022 NASCAR Cup Series. We're going to break down the optimal strategies for this race, break down my top drivers in each salary tier on FanDuel, what to do with the chalk, and much more to get you set for Sunday's race. 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 Sadas. I am a senior writer and analyst for NumberFire.com here to break down the Daytona 500 from a DFS perspective and let you know my favorite drivers in each salary tier on FanDuel.com for this week. Before we dive in though, got a quick reminder. We do have our podcast here every week for NASCAR DFS on the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed. So if you are looking to get into NASCAR DFS for this year, search for the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed. Wherever you get your podcasts, hit subscribe. And if you like what you hear, leave us a rating and review as well. Of course, we have NBA NHL podcast via Tom Vecchio, USC via Austin Swain, PGA via myself, and Brandon Goduo too. So a lot of good stuff here over on the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed. Just search for that, hit subscribe, and leave a rating and review. Also, NBA All-Star Weekend is coming up. You can win thousands of dollars in a VIP draft experience just by answering a few questions about the action this weekend. State Farm is teaming up with FanDuel to present the State Farm NBA All-Star Saturday Night Pickham Contest with a $25,000 prize pool. It is free to enter. All you got to do is answer 10 questions about the NBA All-Star Weekend, get a certain number right, and you can win part of the $25,000 prize pool or a VIP NBA draft experience, which includes two tickets, NBA merchandise, and a legend meet and greet at the NBA draft. Again, it is free to enter the State Farm NBA All-Star Saturday Night Pickham Contest. You can sign up by going to fanDuel.com slash free slash hub fanDuel.com slash free slash hub or by downloading the FanDuel app. Have fun and good luck. Let's dive in here to our track breakdown for the Daytona 500. If you're new to the podcast format here as we go through your strategy to this race based on the track, based on the length of the race, etc., etc., we go through drivers, tier by tier breakdown, and some win picks at the end. And if you listen to our podcast on Thursday about the duels, we talked about how you wanted to gun for finishing points over place differential because those races would be less chaotic. The fields are smaller and stuff like that. Everything I said on Thursday, you can now throw out the window for Sunday for the Daytona 500 because the Daytona 500 is a very different race and the dual races and it's very much a traditional super speedway race for a DFS. For those of you who may be new to DFS, playing NASCAR DFS, you play DFS in a super speedway very different than what you do for other tracks because you want to target drivers starting lower in the order or stack the back, however you want to call it. They can get you placed differential points if they finish higher than where they start. Other routes for scoring points on Fandall are lap sled and finishing points. Lap sled, harder to predict because a lot of drivers lead laps. It's harder to predict who will lead laps. That also means they're more spread out. The laps that are less concentrated than they would be for a typical race. And finishing position isn't necessarily dictated by where you start. There can be a lot of crashes, which pushes drivers running lower in the order up artificially and that can get you good finishes. And you can make passes here even when things aren't as chaotic. And I think that even with things getting strung out on Thursday, not super concerned just because of the bigger packs, higher stakes, guys not trying to conserve their cars for Sunday. So we could see stuff get strung out, but that just means the race is less chaotic, which I'm not going to complain about personally because it's better for my heart health. So the easiest, most predictable path the upside is via place differential. We typically get those guys at Daytona in the 500. And this will be the fourth time that Fandall has offered contests for the Daytona 500. That means that 15 drivers have been in a perfect lineup for Fandall at the 500. Of those 15 drivers, 11 of them started in the back half of the field. So 21st or lower. That means that they didn't finish well in their dual races on Thursday and they didn't finish top 10, but they still ran well on Sunday. Of the four drivers start inside the top 20 to one the race. That's the other key takeaway from looking at these perfect lineups is you do want to stack the back. You do want to get guys starting deeper in the order second, the back half of the field, but you also want the winner on your roster, even if they do start a bit higher in the order. Back in 2019, Denny Hamlin won the race after starting 10th. He made the perfect lineup. The 43 points you get for a win are huge. And we want that driver inside our lineup. That's why we'll play what we call the assumption game here on the podcast. And again, that's for new listeners where you pick an assumed winner for each lineup. Like let's say you fill out a lineup, you're looking at it. You're like, okay, I think Denny Hamlin's going to win this race. Maybe not Denny Hamlin. We'll go with Chase Elliott starting up in 10th or 11th. We'll say Chase Elliott wins. You'd put Chase Elliott into your lineup no matter where he started. The 43 points for a win will likely be enough to put that driver inside the perfect lineup. Then the other four drivers are drivers who can pay off for DFS without winning the race. Typically that will be guys starting further back who can get upside via place differential. This build would have been very successful in both 2020 and 2019 over on Fanduel. Last year, Austin Dillon and Chase Elliott made it despite not winning and starting inside the top 12. So a bit different that year, but Michael McDowell, Denny Hamlin, Ross Chastain all started at 17th or lower. So it was still a back-centric lineup, even if there were some exceptions. But like going back to 2019 and 2020, the assumed winner plus place differential model was very, very successful. So that would be my default build here. An assumed winner plus four guys who can pay off without winning. The assumed winner will not always be starting in the back because like, again, Denny Hamlin is starting further back. He could win this race. So could Joey Logano in 20th. A lot of guys could win this race despite starting further back. So even taking that approach, I might still wind up having five drivers starting outside the top 20. The other thing to consider here is pairing teammates and manufacturers together. We talked about this for the duels and it paid off because Ford swept the podium for both races. Teams and manufacturers typically work together on these super speed ways. That's both with drafting and pitting and it can sometimes lead to correlated perfect lineups. Back in 2019, there were three Joe Gibbs racing cars inside the perfect lineup. Last year we had two Penske drivers leading on the final lap with other fours right behind them. They wrecked so it didn't pan out, but it's not always going to work and that's very possible. But if one team or manufacturer dominates this race, that's going to translate to stuff like this. That's especially true for the winner. Let's say Kyle Busch is your assumed winner starting up in 10th for Sunday, then you might want to think about pairing him with Denny Hamlin, Bubba Wallace, Kurt Busch, Christopher Bell, guys like that who can benefit if Kyle Busch runs well on Sunday. So if Busch wins the race, your odds of picking the right guys who finished second, third, fourth, fifth, et cetera, et cetera go up in that scenario. I wouldn't do this for every lineup because again, it doesn't always work out. We can see stuff like last year where the Penske drivers are dominating and then wreck each other. So it's not a lock to happen, but I do think that I'm accounting for it for sure. Looking at quarterly lineups, looking at drivers who may work together, stuff like that. It gives a wise way to play things for Sunday. So to recap strategies for Sunday, you do want to stack the back more so than we did for the duels at Daytona because there's more chaos here. It's a less efficient starting order stuff like that. You want to prioritize drivers starting further back and who can finish well. Like there are some guys further back who I might not be as interested in stuff like that. So you do want them to finish well, but we're not going to be hurting for options there. You do want to get the assumed winner in your lineup, even if they're starting close to the front, kind of check out, you know, betting odds to see, okay, what are the odds that chase Elliott wins? He's 12 to one over at Fadal right now, which is 7.7% implied odds. You know, use that number to guide your exposure levels to guys starting close to the front, things like that. And then consider stacking, especially when you have an assumed winner who starts towards the front, try to figure out who might benefit if you're right in that assumption and make things be tied together that way. So that's how I want to play things overall on Fandall on Sunday. Let's now go tier by tier and break down the top drivers in each salary tier based on the salaries at Fandall.com. And you'll be hearing a lot of the things we discussed during that, that, uh, the strategy discussion playing out here in the tier by tier breakdown. So the elite tier is Denny Hamlin at $14,000 through Kyle Larson at $12,000 on Fandall. And two of the best plays of the race are up in this range in Denny Hamlin and Joey Logano. Hamlin missed pit road last night during the dual race. He lost a lap, did not finish well, but we know Denny Hamlin is filthy here. He has won two of the past three day 20, 500s. He also won it back in 2016. He's just consistent. It's a key if you're going to go overweight on a popular play because the odds that he doesn't finish well are lower than for a lot of guys because Hamlin has a good feel for these tracks. You know, he dipped out of traffic last night when he thought things were getting chaotic. Obviously it didn't work because he lost a draft, but that was mostly due to the pit stop. So I think that, uh, Hamlin is more trustworthy as Chuck than most guys would be. He is the number one play in this race at any salary. Logano is number two in this range. He's starting in 20th, but he will drop to the rear to start because he's going to a backup car after a wreck last night. Place differential will be as if Logano is starting 20th though. So keep that in mind. He'll start dead last, but it's as if he's starting 20th from a place differential perspective. Not a huge issue here for me because Logano can win this race. He's been leading on the final lap in two of the past three races at Daytona. Do not ask what happened after that, but you know, he says to not wreck basically. Logano is more chaotic than Hamlin. He's aggressive. He blocks a lot, but he's also starting higher in the order and thus should be less heavily rostered than Hamlin. Between the two of them inclined to try to go overweight on both just because people will talk about fading these guys into popularity in a vacuum. That makes a lot of sense because it's a high chaos race. We're going to see a lot of people go that way. And I think that that, that there's the people saying that are correct. However, for this race specifically, we're going to see a lot of sub optimal lines, a lot of bad lines, because people are hopping in playing NASCAR DFS for the first time and may not know that we want to target drivers starting further back. So if you have a projected roster right number in your head for Logano and Hamlin, it's probably going to be lower than that in reality because we'll see a lot of not great lineups for this race. So I am okay being heavy on Hamlin and Logano, despite the fact that they will be popular, because I don't think they'll be as popular as they should be. I'm going to rank this tier Hamlin one, Magano two, Chase Elliott, number three, Ryan Blaney, four and Kyle Larson, five, both Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney are solid assumption winners. I've got Chase at 7.6 percent to win Blaney at 6.6 percent. So is you're playing the assumption game both those guys, valid options for that over on Fandle. The second tier on Fandle is William Byron at 11.5 through Bubba Wallace at $9,700. My favorite guy in this tier is Byron at 11.5. He's starting 23rd because the Chevy's got strung out in their dual race, didn't pit as well as the Ford's did in that race, but Byron is great on pack tracks. He won here in August 2020. He was second in that race the year before. Byron does crash a lot because he's not the same experience level as someone like Hamlin. So there is risk here, but he's fast, should have teammates at the front, and it's hard to hate on that. So Byron is my favorite guy in this tier. The rest of the second tier is all starting 17th or higher. So we do need a bit more win juice out of that group. That would push me to Kyle Bush being second in this tier. Bush is starting 10. So you might not need a win, but you kind of do basically do. My win simulations have Bush as the favor right now. I would not hand rank in there personally, but like also, I don't hate it honestly. Bush is consistently constantly running at the front of these races before running into issues late. It could be because he doesn't have like the quote unquote closer gene, but I think it's just variance. I think that's why a lot of the stuff works. Bush will have teammates at the front. I'd rank him above Kurt Bush and Bubba Wallace, but you could also stack those guys with him because they all do drive for Toyota this year. So I'm going to rank this tier Byron one, Kyle Bush two, Bubba Wallace three, Kurt Bush four, and Brad keselowski, number five. The mid-range on Fandula is Kevin Harvick at $9,500 through Christopher Bell at $8,000. Austin Dillon is in this tier, and he and Eric Elmerola are in the Hamlin and Lagana Mold where he is a no-brainer for cash games. So Dillon Elmerola, your secondary cash game plays after Denny Hamlin in the upper tier. Dillon is starting 36. He had issues trying to get to Pit Road last night. He almost ran into his brother on Pit Road, but Dillon won the 500 back in 2018. He was third in it last year. He's generally around near the end. Sometimes bad stuff happens to him at the end as I think it was like 2015 or whatever he wrecked in the last lap right at the finish line, but he's around at the end. He knows how to run these tracks well. He can win this race. I think for cash games, Hamlin is the first guy you plug in. I'd go Dillon two, and then the third one would be Eric Elmerola. He's starting back in 38th. He lost the draft almost immediately on Thursday. Like he ducked out of line, and he said he wasn't sure how well his car would race. It seemed like they had a qualifying setup in that car. Didn't get the front row and that kind of bit him in the butt on Thursday. He's going to be starting super far back. Maybe you're concerned about the race setup not being there for Elmerola, but now they've got a couple of days to fine-tune that thing. Get it better suited for running the draft. That should help Elmerola out quite a bit. He's another former winner here. Won at Daytona back in 2014 with Richard Petty Motorsports. He almost won in 2018, but mentioned that Dillon won that race because Dillon and Elmerola had some contact on the back stretch there. Elmerola wrecked. Dillon won. For Elmerola, the Fords have been crazy good. I think that again, he is the third guy you lock in for cash games after Hamlin and Dillon to me. Kevin Harvick is starting 20 seconds. He lost the draft last night and finished pretty poorly, but he'll be fast, I think. He was running well early in that race. I do like him a lot. If you're looking for a pivot off of Dillon and Elmerola, Harvick is your guy. I would like to be overweight on him. I think that if you're looking for pivots in this race, at the top tier, it's Ligano off of Hamlin. In this tier, it's Harvick off of Dillon and Elmerola. Those guys will be popular too, but they may go a bit more overlooked than they should because they're starting in the middle of the pack versus all the way in the back. I'm going to rate this tier Austin Dillon won. Eric Elmerola, two. Kevin Harvick, three. Christopher Bell, four. Tyler Redick, number five for me. The value tier is Austin Cindrick at $7,700 through Daniel Hemrick and Chase Briscoe at $6,000. I think the key question in this value tier is how you rank Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Ross Chastain compared to Justin Haley and Daniel Hemrick. Haley and Hemrick are starting deeper in the pack. They are 25th and 33rd, respectively. Stenhouse and Chastain, 18th and 19th. The place differential upside is better with Hemrick and Haley in the two colleague cars, but Stenhouse is a winner here. He showed some speed last night. Chastain has had good runs here even when he was in terrible equipment. He's not in terrible equipment anymore. Haley is a tremendous super speedway racer and Hemrick is deep in the pack back in 33rd. This is the range where I want to work hardest to get a read on who will be most popular in this section. If Haley and Hemrick will be overlooked, because they're not like, you know, I guess Haley is the winner, but like not Stenhouse, I am more than happy to go here. I think the most likely situation though is that they both get talked up because they are starting deeper in the pack. Haley specifically is going to be popular on Sunday. I know that for sure. So that could make Stenhouse and Chastain potential pivots if those two guys get talked up. I don't think Hemrick will get a ton of buzz because he doesn't have the same track record on super speedways as Haley and Stenhouse have. So for playing things based on that, assuming that Haley and Stenhouse get talked up because of what they've done in super speedways, I think for tournaments, I might be willing to pivot to Hemrick and Chastain because they could fly under the radar relative to those two guys, whereas objectively, they're pretty similar to those two guys, all things considered. And I have the winning backgrounds on the super speedways, but they've got enough speed to pay off here. So if we're looking for cash games, I'd go Hemrick and Haley highest because they're starting deeper in the pack and both those guys should have the speed to get the job done. But for tournaments, I think Hemrick and Chastain could be the best plays here. Not off of Stenhouse and Haley and I want to have plenty of them in my player pool, but I think if we're looking for tournament pivots for this race, Chastain works out well and Hemrick might too, but keep an eye on the buzz he gets on DFS Twitter leading into Sunday. The punting tier on Fandal is Eric Jones and Cole Custer at $5,500 on down. I think my three favorite plays down here are Cole Custer, Ty Dillon and Todd Gilliland. Custer starting 31st. Gilliland is 29th and both those guys are in forwards. They have teammates who figured to be in contention on Sunday. You might see Amarola take Custer with him up to the field. Because Amarola is Custer's teammate. Custer is pretty risky because he doesn't have the best track record here yet. Kind of the same thing for Gilliland. When he was in the truck series, he didn't finish well at Daytona, but did a pair of podiums at Talladega. As for Dillon, Ty Dillon that is, he was good here when he was in really bad equipment. He had a stretch in 2018 and 2019 where he finished 6th, 6th and 4th. And now he's a petty GMS. I'd expect that to be a step up from Jermaine Racing, which is where Dillon was with previously. Dillon didn't do a lot in the duals, which is why he's turning 26th. But I trust his talent. I think that Ty Dillon is a quality super speedway driver. I think he's my favorite guy here because he has proven he can get the job done at this track. So I'll rank Ty Dillon 1 here, Cole Custer 2, Todd Gilliland 3. Custer gets the edge of Gilliland because he has better equipment, but I think both those guys work out pretty well. Gilliland's equipment, not a concern, given that Michael McDowell ran well last night, won the race last year. So I'll be in on all three of these guys, but would rank Dillon first of the group. All right. Let's finish up here with the picks to win for the Daytona 500 again, changing things up from last year, where I just give my favorite guy above 10,000, my favorite guy below 10,000. We're going to just go with my favorite betting values, based on the odds that were at Fandull Sportsbook. And the two guys I like most, relative to their odds, are a pair of Joe Gibbs racing drivers, Kyle Bush and Christopher Bell. Bush is 17-1 at Fandull Sportsbook. Bell is 29-1. I think both those guys are undervalued. They're starting 10th and 12th respectively, finished fourth and fifth in their dual race last night. Bush, again, always at the front at the end of these races, just doesn't always finish there. Bell, really good on the super speedways last year. A top 11 average running position in all four races. Not the same pedigree on this track type as guy like Hamlin or something like that, but I think that 29-1 accounts for that. So the win picks for Daytona, for me, are going to be Kyle Bush at 17-1 and Christopher Bell at 29-1. That's all we got for here today on the Daytona 500 NASCAR heat check podcast. But again, we are here every single week on the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed. Not on YouTube every week. So we'll be kind of rotating through there for the bigger races on YouTube, but we'll be on the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed for every single race. So search for that wherever you get your podcasts, hit subscribe. If you like what you hear, leave us a rating and review 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 Fanduel Podcast Network at Fanduel Podcast. If you want more betting stuff, I do have a betting guide up on NumberFire.com. Just find that there. Talk more about Kyle Bush, Christopher Bell, a matchup bet with Kevin Harvick in there too. So go check that out over at NumberFire.com. But otherwise, enjoy the lineup filling out process. Enjoy the day 2500. Enjoy the truck race, the Xfinity Series race this weekend too. It's going to be a fun weekend for NASCAR. The fun season too. Can't wait to talk more with you about it soon. But until then, go win yourselves some money. Let's build that bankroll for 2022. This is the Heat Check Fantasy Podcast powered by NumberFire.