Welcome back fantasy racing fans. The start of the 2025 season is just over a week away as teams pack up and head south to Daytona for Speedweeks. Before we talk Duel races or the Daytona 500 let’s go over some of the ins and outs of daily fantasy NASCAR including scoring, strategy, track types, and more. There are plenty of different formats you can play but for this article we will be concentrating on NASCAR DFS on DraftKings and FanDuel. Let’s jump right in!
NASCAR DFS Tutorial
Point Scoring
Drivers receive points based on those finishing positions. There is a slight difference between the sites as DraftKings awards 45 points to 1st place, 42 points to 2nd and then one less point per place for the rest of the field. On FanDuel, the winner gets 43 points, 2nd place gets 40 points, 3rd gets 38 points and then one less point per place for the rest of the field.
The second way to earn fantasy points during the race is by Place Differential which is +/- 1 point on DraftKings and +/- .5 points on FanDuel. To calculate this, you subtract a drivers finish position from his starting position. For example, a driver starting 30th who finishes 10th receives 20 “place differential” points on DraftKings and 10 on FanDuel. On the flip side, a driver who starts 10th and finishes 30th receives -20 “place differential” points on DraftKings and -10 on FanDuel. One thing to watch for when constructing your lineup is drivers who had to go to the back AFTER qualifying. For fantasy, they keep their original starting position despite having to go to the back. For example, a driver who qualifies 10th but changes an engine before the race, and goes to the rear, will start with a negative place differential based on that new spot he will be starting the race.
The final way both sites are somewhat similar in scoring are by way of laps led. You may also hear “dominator points” used to reference this part of the scoring system. On DraftKings, a driver receives .25 points for every lap they lead while on FanDuel they receive .1 points.
Adding to the dominator points calculation on DraftKings is fast laps. A driver receives .45 points for every fastest lap recorded during the race. On FanDuel, they award .1 points for every laps completed.
General Strategy
When building a lineup on either site, we almost always want a combination of dominators and place differential plays. What I love most about fantasy NASCAR is the fact that this balance changes weekly depending on salaries, which drivers have strong cars, and also very dependent on what track and track type they are racing on.
Practice and Qualifying
The key factors for selecting dominators and place differential plays are practice and qualifying. Practice gives us a great indicator of what cars, teams, and manufacturers could be strong on a certain track. When breaking down practice, I find it much more important to look at lap averages vs. single-lap speed and rankings. Teams will almost always put a qualifying setup on the car at some point in practice to prepare for the qualifying run and this tends to not translate over to what we see in the race. I will weigh 5, 10, and 15-lap averages to see which cars are faster over a longer run and which cars maintain that speed and avoid the same falloff as others.
Place differential ties directly to qualifying which sets the field for the race. I also weigh the difference between where a driver qualifies and how they performed during practice. We can find value in drivers who start farther back but displayed much better speed during practice.
Track Types and Strategies
There are 27 different tracks used during the 36-race season and of those, several different track types. They are grouped and/or classified differently around the industry but here is my list and the strategy which I tied to each.
Superspeedway Tracks
Daytona, Talladega, Atlanta (2022-present)
This track type was once categorized as a track that is two miles or longer. With recent changes to rules and track configurations, I categorize it as a track where drafting is prominent. I say this as Atlanta converted their mile and a half track back in 2021/2022 to fit this model. This gives us three tracks and six races per season with drafting-style racing.
The biggest thing, strategy-wise, about this style of racing is that place differential becomes the number one thing to focus on. With the assistance of the draft, we see a lot of cars move from the back to the front in a fraction of the time it would take on a short or intermediate track. It is also rare that we see one or two drivers dominate the race in terms of laps led. It is obviously dependent on the starting lineup but I will almost always have at least four drivers in my lineup who are starting outside the Top 20 with a couple starting outside the Top 30. This gives us a higher floor and a chance for a ton of upside. I also try to limit drivers in my lineup who are starting inside the Top 15 and almost always avoid drivers starting inside the Top 5.
The draft also creates a lot of risk of crashes which create a ton of chaos in our lineups. With that, these tracks have the largest available player pool in terms of viable fantasy options.
Intermediate Tracks
Las Vegas, Homestead, Darlington, Texas, Kansas, Charlotte
There are nine races on intermediate tracks with Vegas, Darlington, and Kansas each hosting two this season. Eight of the nine races fall between 250 and 280 laps with the Southern 500 at Darlington coming in a 367 laps. With the additional laps and a collection of tracks that are much tougher to pass on, dominator points become very important on intermediate tracks. In 2024, there were 15 drivers to lead 50 or more laps and five drivers to lead 100 laps. That is second only to the short/flat tracks. Practice data becomes much more useful on intermediate tracks and like I mentioned above, I look closely at lap averages for both short and long runs. For lineup construction, I am always looking for two to three potential dominators, and how many we can fit comes down to those practice speeds in combination with salary.
Short/Flat Tracks
Phoenix, Martinsville, Nashville, Iowa, Richmond, Gateway, New Hampshire
My short/flat category is defined by a track that is one mile or shorter in length and has banking under 15 degrees. There are nine of these races on the schedule with only Phoenix and Martinsville getting two races.
In terms of strategy, dominator points become even more important on these tracks than on intermediate tracks. The main reason for this is that there are, on average, about 70 more laps per race on the short/flat tracks. In 2024, there were 29 drivers who led 50 or more laps and 11 who led 100 or more laps. Only five times last season was there multiple drivers to lead 100 or more laps in the same race and four of those times came on short/flat tracks.
Nailing the dominators in your lineup is crucial and that is where I start my builds on these tracks. Passing is generally much more difficult on short/flat tracks which boosts finish position while downgrading place differential to a degree.
Short/Steep Tracks
Bristol, Dover
These tracks are one mile or shorter in length and have banking greater than 20 degrees in the turns. There are only two tracks and three races in this category but it is an exciting one. The Dover race is 400 laps and the two Bristol races are 500 laps each making for a whole lot of available dominator points. All three races easily saw at least one driver lead 100 or more laps with the first Bristol race seeing two of them. We occasionally see an absolution domination at these tracks like we saw in the second Bristol race where Kyle Larson led a whopping 462 of 500 laps. With a tight, high-banked track, we see a lot of chaos which causes cautions and these cautions definitely assist drivers moving up in the field. This gives us a nice balance of dominator and place differential targets.
Road/Street Courses
Roval, Watkins Glen, Sonoma, Chicago Street Course, Mexico City, Circuit of the Americas
This category has evolved a ton over the last few years and what used to be just road courses has become road and street courses. This season, the NASCAR Cup Series is going even further and heading south to Mexico City for a race this summer. The fun part about this category is that each track races much differently than the other. One of the only comps is that there are both left and right turns throughout the race.
From a fantasy standpoint, with the challenges of both turns, elevation changes, and traffic it almost feels like you need to be perfect with your lineups. The room for error is small with limited dominator points available combined with limited passing opportunities. With that said, this style of racing has been right on par with Intermediate and Short/Flat tracks in terms of the number of drivers getting double-digit place differential per race. In qualifying, look for drivers who maybe missed a turn or two but showed a lot better speed in practice.
