It is the penultimate race for the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series regular season. NASCAR returns to Daytona International Speedway for the second time this season. Earlier this year, William Byron claimed his first Daytona 500 win. Superspeedway racing, or drafting, can be unpredictable. Especially for DFS, we don’t need to spend every dollar in the budget. In fact, we can often leave thousands of dollars on the table. These races are famous for chaos. Plenty of cars will wreck out. And who knows, perhaps a longshot goes on to win the whole race. It’s exciting and frustrating all at the same time. This style of racing isn’t for everyone, but let’s take a look at how qualifying shook out for tonight’s NASCAR DFS Coke Zero Sugar 400 picks.
Coke Zero Sugar 400 Picks: The Top 10
- Michael McDowell (#34 Front Row Motorsports)
- Todd Gilliland (#38 Front Row Motorsports)
- Joey Logano (#22 Team Penske)
- Ryan Preece (#41 Stewart-Haas Racing)
- Josh Berry (#4 Stewart-Haas Racing)
- Chase Briscoe (#14 Stewart-Haas Racing)
- William Byron (#24 Hendrick Motorsports)
- Austin Cindric (#2 Team Penske)
- Kyle Larson (#5 Hendrick Motorsports)
- Chase Elliott (#9 Hendrick Motorsports)
Look at Front Row Motorsports really living up to the name! Both McDowell and Gilliland qualified for the top two spots. Overall, seven of the top eight starting positions are occupied by Fords. Stewart-Haas Racing even had a great showing with three drivers qualifying in the top six. However, for our Coke Zero Sugar 400 picks, we don’t want to be too heavy here. For cash game lineups, we shouldn’t play any of these drivers. For tournaments, we probably don’t want more than two. Position differential is the name of the game. Granted, these drivers will carry low rostership. But they’re also killing our lineups if they don’t finish well. Austin Hill started P2 in Friday’s Xfinity Series race and was 20-25% owned in tournaments. He wrecked early on after dropping to the rear and finished with -19 fantasy points on DraftKings.
Which Value-Priced Coke Zero Sugar 400 Picks Got A Points Movement Bump?
DraftKings
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr. – $7,900; Starting P35
- Ty Gibbs – $7,600; Starting P26
- Erik Jones – $7,000; Starting P40
- Corey LaJoie – $6,300; Starting P34
- Carson Hocevar – $6,000; Starting P37
- Justin Haley – $5,500; Starting P36
FanDuel
- Tyler Reddick – $8,500; Starting P25
- Ross Chastain – $8,000; Starting P24
- Erik Jones – $6,800; Starting P40
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr. – $6,000; Starting P35
- Corey LaJoie – $5,500; Starting P34
- Justin Haley – $4,500; Starting P36
I love it when NASCAR goes to superspeedways. For DFS, sure it can be annoying. However there are always wide discrepancies in pricing between DraftKings and FanDuel. I’ll also point out that no driver is truly off the table for the Coke Zero Sugar 400 picks. Even drivers that are starting up front. While they’re far riskier, anyone can win this race. For cash games, we’ll see ownership flock to plenty of these drivers. Erik Jones is an absolute lock for cash games. Additionally, he’ll be very popular for tournaments. Corey LaJoie will be a trendy name as well. He tends to circle Daytona, Talladega, and Atlanta on his calendar. He’s a good driver in the draft and has top-10 equity. And sure, there are drivers not mentioned that could certainly pay off. Don’t be afraid to get contrarian with those names if you want to lay off the chalk.
Which Higher-Priced Drivers Got A Similar Bump?
- Christopher Bell – Starting P24
- Denny Hamlin – Starting P19
- Bubba Wallace – Starting P18
- Martin Truex Jr. – Starting P17
It was a tough qualifying session for the Toyotas. Not a single one was able to qualify in the top 10. And yet, they managed to qualify together in a sense. Truex, Hamlin, and Bubba will start near each other. While Reddick, Gibbs, and Bell are lumped together a few rows back. Erik Jones and John Hunter Nemechek are value plays starting outside the top 30. This is actually interesting. If the six cars for Joe Gibbs Racing and 23XI Racing can get together, they can move up effectively. But that’s an aggressive strategy early on. Denny Hamlin and Bubba Wallace will certainly be popular. At superspeedways, they always carry win equity and DFS players will like that they offer PD for this race. Martin Truex Jr. might be my favorite play as someone that may go under-owned, and who has looked strong in the draft this year.
Coke Zero Sugar 400 Picks
DraftKings
- Bubba Wallace – $9,000; Starting P18
- Kyle Busch – $8,800; Starting P11
- Martin Truex Jr. – $8,500; Starting P17
- Alex Bowman – $8,000; Starting P21
- Erik Jones – $7,000; Starting P40
- Corey LaJoie – $6,300; Starting P34
This will be the only lineup I play on DraftKings this week. I mentioned in last week’s White Flag Thoughts that I don’t particularly love these races for DFS. They’re fun to bet if you can do so. But at the end of the day, we need a lot of things to fall in our favor. We plug in some popular options that I’ve already mentioned. Jones and LaJoie, while chalky, are relatively “safe” plays. And I’m chasing some position differential points and win equity with the likes of Bubba Wallace and Martin Truex Jr. And while I didn’t touch on Kyle Busch or Alex Bowman in this particular piece, I like their starting spots and Busch is my pick to win this race. The lineup leaves $2,400 on the table for pivots.
FanDuel
- Ryan Blaney – $13,000; Starting P14
- Brad Keselowski – $11,500; Starting P12
- Alex Bowman – $7,800; Starting P21
- Erik Jones – $6,800; Starting P40
- Corey LaJoie – $5,500; Starting P34
This lineup ends up leaving $5,400 on the table. We were always bound to leave more salary on the table on FanDuel as there’s a much wider gap between the most expensive plays and the value options. Either way, we have Bowman, LaJoie, and Jones transfer over from the DraftKings lineup. We plug them into this one for the same reasons we did the DraftKings build. But we round out the FanDuel lineup with Keselowski and Blaney. Both drivers are very good drafters and have won on superspeedways in the past. Similar to my approach on DraftKings, this will be the only lineup I play on FanDuel tonight.
White Flag Thoughts Before You Go
Within this article, you’ll see that not every driver was mentioned. Heck, I’m picking Kyle Busch to win and he wasn’t even mentioned until the bottom of the piece. Because nobody truly is off the table. We know the theory behind constructing our lineups for this race. However, we still need a lot of luck to go our way. Whenever the variance of a track is high and we do require more luck, I’m inclined to scale back how much I play for a particular race. And with that said, the contests will gradually get worse and worse into the fall with the NFL’s return looming. So still get in on some action, and by all means, you may just increase your chances of profiting on this race if you play more cash games. If that’s the case, try to target drivers starting outside the top 30.