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Justin Carter's DraftKings DFS lineup picks for the NASCAR Xfinity Series United Rentals 300 at Daytona International Speedway. Read his daily fantasy NASCAR advice and Xfinity sleepers.
The 2024 NASCAR Xfinity Series season gets going on Saturday at Daytona International Speedway. This is set to be an exciting season in the series, with a pretty wide open field when it comes to the championship battle. This has a shot to be one of the best Xfinity seasons ever.
I'll be doing things a little differently this season than in the past—for now, at least. Peeling back the covers here for a second, my wife and I recently had our first child and it's exhausting. With how close qualifying is to the start of the race usually in the Truck Series and Xfinity Series, it would be tough to do the traditional version of this that goes deep on six drivers. Instead, I'll spend some time looking at race trends and past data since that can be written up before qualifying, and then I'll add some thoughts on individual drivers right before publishing.
Here at RotoBaller, we want to help you make informed decisions about your DFS lineups, which is why I'll be breaking down the slates for the Xfinity Series. Let's look at some NASCAR Xfinity DFS lineup picks for the NASCAR Xfinity Series United Rentals 300 on DraftKings. Be sure to also check out our NASCAR Premium Tools for Xfinity Series including our DFS Lineup Optimizer and powerful Research Station. This slate locks on 2/17/24 at 5:00 p.m. ET.
Xfinity DFS Preview - DraftKings
Be sure to also check out all of our other weekly NASCAR DFS articles and analysis to help you set your optimal DFS lineups on DraftKings and FanDuel.
Daytona Race Trends
Welcome to Daytona, one of the toughest places to win when it comes to daily fantasy. This is one of three tracks—Atlanta and Talladega are the other two—that we can call "drafting tracks." What this means is that drivers are reliant on different things than usual. All the cars are mostly equal and run in large packs, so unexpected names have a better shot at getting a good finish than usual. There's also likely to be some big wrecks, which really shakes up the field. DFS players should never go too heavy on any particular driver at one of these drafting tracks, because they could easily go from the lead to the garage in the blink of an eye.
For example, when the series was here in August, we saw a number of good drivers like John Hunter Nemechek, Trevor Bayne, and Brandon Jones caught up in crashes throughout the race. Race winner Justin Allgaier was a top contender, but unexpected names like Ryan Sieg, Parker Retzlaff, and Gray Gaulding all had top-10 finishes on the day.
No one is going to lead a ton of laps here and the expected chaos makes place differential more important than at most tracks. You'll want to build a lineup that reflects this, focusing on bigger names that qualify poorly as well as deep value guys who you might not usually play.
Drivers Who Could Dominate
Written before qualifying.
This is Daytona, so "dominate" means different things than it usually does. No one is going to lead half the laps in the race or anything, because the pack racing makes that nearly impossible. Last year, the most laps led were by winner Austin Hill with 39, which is a lot for this track. But that shouldn't have come as a surprise, because Hill has been really good here.
That's why Austin Hill ($10,000) is the favorite here. Hill has won this race two years in a row and just excels on superspeedways. I mostly chase place differential at this track, but I'll have exposure to Hill no matter where he starts.
Will he do it again? @_AustinHill 🤝🏼@DAYTONA pic.twitter.com/TjiXvWYQAJ
— RCR (@RCRracing) February 17, 2024
Then there's A.J. Allmendinger ($9,800), who hasn't won here in the Xfinity Series but has come close. In six races here, he has four top fives, plus another that was negated by disqualification. The one time he wasn't up front at the end was the second race here in 2020, when Allmendinger crashed out late after leading 58 laps.
Those are the two guys I'll play regardless of starting spot, but I'll have interest in Justin Allgaier ($9,600), John Hunter Nemechek ($9,400), and Cole Custer ($9,300) if any start outside the top 15 or so.
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Top Place Differential Plays
Check back after qualifying for updates.
Normally I’d go in depth on a few drivers here but since Daytona is just so much about place differential, I’m just going to list a bunch of names here who I’ll have in lineups:
Brandon Jones - 22nd
Kyle Weatherman - 25th
Daniel Dye - 26th
Hailee Deegan - 28th
Jordan Anderson - 30th
Ryan Sieg - 32nd
Sage Karam - 33rd
Ryan Ellis - 36th
B.J. McLeod - 38th
Thought about Frankie Muniz, who starts 37th, but this is his first Xfinity Series start and I just can't get there, especially because I sorta imagine he might go overused on this slate.
NASCAR Xfinity Series Deep Sleepers
Written before qualifying
Normally, I'd have a list of really cheap drivers that you can consider here, and it'd be a relatively short list because there isn't usually a ton of value in the backmarkers. However, at a track like this, everyone is in play.
And when I say everyone, I mean it.
🏁 Jeremy Clements gets the win!
His first win in 164 starts and second career NASCAR Xfinity Series victory! The 51 wins at Daytona! pic.twitter.com/sMcb1wUnzT
— Always Race Day (@AlwaysRaceDay) August 27, 2022
While I doubt the wreckage will be as bad as Friday's Truck Series race, there's still bound to be some carnage, which allows drivers you wouldn't expect to finish well. Last year in this race, two RSS Racing cars had top-10 finishes. In the August race, we saw Gray Gaulding get a top 10. Jeremy Clements won here in 2022. Anything can happen. This means that pretty much every cheap driver is in play unless that driver has a surprisingly good qualifying run since we're still looking for place differential above all else.
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