Welcome to my NASCAR DFS Breakdown for the Wise Power 400 at Auto Club Speedway! In this article, I will preview the race, lineup construction, and offer some of my favorite drivers to target for Sunday’s race! You can find all of our Core Plays throughout the NASCAR Premium Package, or you can click here to join our free Discord! By signing up, you’ll get access to our Final Thoughts, all our Core Plays for DraftKings, FanDuel, and SuperDraft, as well as our Prop Plays for MonkeyKnifeFight and PrizePicks! Remember, our NASCAR Premium content extends to ALL series (Trucks, Xfinity, Cup).
Race Preview/Lineup Construction
The Cup Series will be heading to Auto Club Speedway, a 2 mile track that has high tire falloff because of its older surface. Something to keep in mind is that this will be the first we’ll be seeing the new cars on an intermediate track. Practice and qualifying will definitely give us some data to look at, but no one really knows how these cars are going to race together throughout. The cars look like they’re very hard to drive, so I’d expect more cautions than usual. In terms of lineup construction, this race is 200 laps which means there are only 140 dominator points available (50 for laps led and 90 for fast laps). With all of the drivers starting near the back, it probably makes sense to have 1-2 in lineups today. For GPPs, it all comes down to getting the right dominators with the right place differential plays. There’s plenty of pivots off of the chalky drivers, so it should be pretty easy to make some good tournament lineups today. With all of that out of the way, here are some of the drivers that I’ll be targeting this weekend for Auto Club.
Kyle Larson (DK $11,600 FD $14,000)
Larson won at Auto Club back in 2017 when he was driving for Chip Ganassi Racing. He also has three wins at Michigan in the Cup Series, which is a similar track even though tire falloff isn’t an issue there. He’s great at the tracks with tire falloff and offers plenty of place differential starting 13th. The Hendrick cars showed good speed in practice and qualifying, so I’d expect them to be fast on Sunday. Coming off of his dominating season last year of 11 wins, it’s hard not to like Larson here given the upside he brings each and every week.
Kyle Busch (DK $10,400 FD $13,000)
Busch has a great track history at Auto Club with three wins, seven top 5’s, eight top 10’s, 564 laps led, and an AvFn of 5.1 over his last nine starts here. Starting 3rd, he has a great opportunity to dominate from the start with Cindric and Jones on the front row. In cash games, I think he’s risky just because of all the place differential plays we can target but in tournaments, I love Kyle here. My guess is that he’ll be the 2nd highest owned dominator play behind Larson. Pairing these two together is a great way to start in GPPs even though they’ll both have ownership. If Kyle Busch starts from the back, it’ll lower my interest significantly.
Kurt Busch (DK $8,800 FD $9,200)
Of the drivers starting in the back, Kurt is probably my favorite driver to target. I know that he has to do a pass through penalty to start the race, but he’ll have plenty of time to get his track position back. Busch has plenty of experience at Auto Club and also has four top 5’s over the last seven races here. He offers a ton of place differential starting 36th and should be able to compete for a top 10 finish. The thing that makes this slate fun is that there’s a lot of chalk but a lot of pivots as well that can help get you to the top of the leader board. I will have a lot of exposure to Kurt, but there are definitely some options around him I like as well.
Tyler Reddick (DK $8,400 FD $9,500)
Auto Club is a track that suits Reddick’s driving style riding right up against the wall. With all of the drivers starting near the back in his prince range, he might fly under the radar, so I love being overweight on him in tournaments. It’s definitely a riskier play starting 11th, but he has top 5 upside and can rack up some fast laps as well. I’m not an expert when it comes to predicting ownership but if I had to guess, Reddick will probably be around 15-20% owned today in GPPs. If that’s the case, I’ll probably double the field on my exposure. A lot of the guys in the back are sketchy plays in my opinion, so maybe the strategy is don’t play all the place differential plays in tournaments.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr (DK $6,200 FD $4,000)
There aren’t a ton of value plays this weekend, but Stenhouse is a guy I love targeting here in tournaments. He showed strong speed in practice and only has to finish top 15 to hit 5x value. It’s scary playing Ricky knowing how hard the cars are to drive, but he offers a lot of upside here and should benefit his racing style at a track like Auto Club. I wouldn’t go here in cash games just because there’s safer options we can target for that. Ricky has been in the Cup Series since 2013, so he has plenty of experience here which is always a good thing.
Cole Custer (DK $5,900 FD $4,000)
Custer won the Xfinity Series race here yesterday in a dominating fashion and also has the home track narrative being from California. He only has one start here in the Cup Series, but his laps from the Xfinity Series race should help him on Sunday. With the lack of value options, I expect Custer to pick up a decent amount of ownership considering he’s one of the better cheap guys to target. In GPPs, I don’t mind being underweight just because he seems to make a lot of mistakes in these Cup races.
NASCAR Auto Club Picks:
Winner: Kyle Busch
Favorite Play: Kyle Larson
Favorite Low Owned Play: Tyler Reddick
Fade: Alex Bowman
Guy I’m playing you shouldn’t: Martin Truex Jr
I hope you guys enjoyed reading my free article for Auto Club, and I wish you the best of luck in your DFS contests! Make sure to follow me on Twitter if you haven’t already @DFS_NASCAR_Zone, so you can see when I post NASCAR DFS content or ask any questions! I’ll be live streaming on the DFS Karma YouTube channel, so make sure to come in there and ask your questions as well! If you want access to our final thoughts, core plays, prop plays, and betting card, make sure to sign up for the NASCAR Core Plays Package! You can click here to join our free Discord! Good luck!
