June 1, 2025
Don't count out Austin Dillon from sneaking in a top-10 finish in Sunday night's Cracker Barrel 400 at Nashville Superspeedway. The Richard Childress Racing driver has had quite the consistent track record here since the Cup Series started racing in Nashville, with three finishes between 12th and 14th in the four races thus far. The exception? A 32nd-place result in last year's race after Dillon wrecked out. This weekend, the No. 3 Chevrolet will roll off the starting grid from 21st-place. At $5,800 on DraftKings, Dillon now becomes a viable tournament option in DFS formats, as his strong track record could turn into a good FPTS day on Sunday evening. With that being said, Dillon struggled to find speed in practice on Saturday, Even so, he's worth a roll of the dice in DraftKings tournaments on Sunday night.
--Jordan McAbeeSource: Speedway Digest
June 1, 2025
Don't count out John Hunter Nemechek for a cheap DFS option at Nashville this weekend. The driver of the No. 42 Toyota got loose during his qualifying lap and will roll off the starting grid from 36th-place for Sunday night's Cracker Barrel 400, but he should be able to move up a bit during the race and grab some Place Differential FPTS along the way. In practice on Saturday, Nemechek showed mid-pack speed, ranking 24th-best in 15-lap average during the session. Additionally, the Legacy Motor Club driver has been relatively strong on intermediates this season, including top-10 finishes at both Texas and Kansas recently. As far as Nashville Superspeedway goes, Nemechek only has one start under his belt here in the Cup Series (finished 31st last season) but he has a win and a sixth-place finish here in the Xfinity Series. For a cheap DFS option on Sunday, John Hunter Nemechek can provide some cap relief along with Place Differential upside for DraftKings players.
--Jordan McAbeeSource: Racing-Reference
June 1, 2025
If you're looking to save some cap space when building your DraftKings lineups for Nashville this weekend, consider Riley Herbst ($5,100). The 23XI Racing Toyotas showed a good amount of speed in practice on Saturday, and Herbst's lap times were actually a little faster than where he normally is. In simple terms of lap average, the No. 35 Toyota ranked 29th out of the 39 cars. In qualifying, Herbst ended up in 37th-place, which means he has some room to move up and get Place Differential FPTS on Sunday night. As far as track history goes, Herbst was strong at Nashville in the Xfinity Series (four top-10s in four races, with two podium results) and he does have some Cup Series experience here (finishing 37th last season with Rick Ware Racing after hitting the wall). If the No. 35 team can pull off a mid-20s finish on Sunday night, this punt play could work out for DFS players.
--Jordan McAbeeSource: Racing-Reference
June
1,
2025
Tyler
Reddick
is
currently
having
a
pretty
overrated
season.
As
compared
to
2022
and
to
a
lesser
extent
2023
when
he
had
blinding
speed
and
was
a
lethal
passer
but
was
also
both
unlucky
and
mistake-prone,
and
2024
when
he
seemed
read more...
June 1, 2025
Although Joey Logano won at Nashville Superspeedway last year, don't expect him to repeat that performance this year, as his performance in last year's race was very mediocre. He was only running 14th with two laps left in regulation when his teammate Austin Cindric won, but he ended up inheriting the lead because he could stretch his fuel mileage through the absurd five overtimes when the leaders couldn't. The race had more to do with luck than skill, although it locked him into the playoffs. Since Logano has already locked himself into the playoffs this year, he's not going to be that desperate and he and the No. 22 team are likely going to ignore this race since there is no playoff date at this track. Even though his past finishes are solid, judging by how slow he was in last week's Coca-Cola 600, he seems unlikely to maintain his ninth-place starting position and will probably finish worse than he starts.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
June 1, 2025
Although Nashville Superspeedway did not become a part of the NASCAR Cup Series schedule until after Kyle Busch's elite period ended, Busch has still been a solid performer here, even if it hasn't been reflected in his finishes. He led 10 or more laps in each of his first three starts despite never finishing better than ninth, and even in his disastrous 2024 summer stretch, he was running fourth at the end of regulation before crashing twice. On paper, Busch should be a great selection for DFS place-differential points since he is starting 25th. However, in addition to his past mediocre finishes, he's been significantly slower on intermediate tracks this year and doesn't seem to have the speed he once did, especially after last Friday's Craftsman Truck Series race where he only finished 15th while his teammate Rajah Caruth won. Despite his past strong record here, Busch is likely to run worse than expected based on his 2025 form.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
June 1, 2025
Although 10th-place Nashville starter Chris Buescher got a bit of a reprieve as his penalty from the Kansas race was reduced from 60 points to 30, he's still having a somewhat baffling season. The once-poor qualifier is having a career year in qualifying with the second-best average start, but is simultaneously running a lot worse in the actual races than he did in 2023 and 2024. Given owner-teammate Brad Keselowski's downturn in speed, it does seem the RFK Racing cars are likely slower, but the really odd part is that the previously-mediocre Ryan Preece has been consistently faster than Buescher. Because Buescher remains one of the cleanest and least mistake-prone drivers, he's still good at finishing better than he runs, but he seems to be running worse despite qualifying much better. Given his recent race backslides and another strong qualifying run, expect him to fade again and consider starting his teammates instead.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
June 1, 2025
After delivering his teammate Joey Logano the ultimate gift last year in Nashville when his spinout with two laps remaining allowed Logano to climb from 14th to back into the playoffs after five overtimes, that will likely forever define his career here. Although Cindric finished 7th as a rookie, he has never had an average running position better than 22nd here. While he has run better on intermediates this year than any other, he often isn't getting finishes commensurate with how he ran. Both his stage wins came before Roger Penske's firing of Austin's dad Tim Cindric, which seems like it will likely cause instability and affect the remainder of Cindric's season. Austin must likely be worrying about his future now that Tim is gone especially since he'll probably never be as good as Logano or Ryan Blaney. Combining all that with Penske's typical complacency after their drivers qualify for the playoffs, Cindric will probably fail to meet expectations tonight.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
June 1, 2025
Ryan Preece has been this year's biggest positive surprise as after years of mediocrity, he has been seemingly consistently faster than his more highly-regarded teammates Chris Buescher and his boss Brad Keselowski and is even beating them in points despite being disqualified from his apparent second-place finish at Talladega. Although Preece finished fourth in last year's Nashville debacle, he didn't actually run any better than previous years as his average running position of 24th was only barely better than the previous two years, but he's been a lot faster this year than he ever has been before. His 19th-place qualifying position is his best here and he's been pretty consistently finishing better than he starts with five top tens after starts of worse than 20th in four of them. He's probably starting too well to be one of the top DFS choices, but he would definitely be a strong underdog pick who other players looking at his past performances might ignore.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
June 1, 2025
Although Noah Gragson has had a pretty invisible season, he shockingly ran in the top 10 for most of last week's Coca-Cola 600, and this week at Nashville, he's coming to a track where he did finish in the top 10 last year. However, that deserves a giant-size asterisk in that race, as he was only running 21st before the endless string of five overtime restarts. On Saturday, Gragson qualified 30th, and the Front Row Motorsports cars seem to be nowhere near as fast, as Zane Smith qualified 27th and Todd Gilliland qualified 35th. For this race, he will likely be let down by his qualifying position as passing will likely be at a premium, so he will likely have to rely on strategy or a fluky race like last year to be a top DFS option. However, he qualified poorly enough that he should definitely be considered.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
June 1, 2025
Although Michael McDowell starts eighth on Sunday at Nashville, this has not been one of his better tracks in general as he has never finished better than 13th nor posted a better average finish than 14th, so he will likely lose positions in the race. The Spire Motorsports cars have seemed to have a significant improvement in speed this year with all three drivers winning poles with Carson Hocevar battling for the lead last week in the Coca-Cola 600 before his engine failure, and McDowell himself improbably fighting for the win at Texas after never scoring a top-10 finish there before. McDowell might have some speed, but past history suggests he will likely finish worse than he starts, and there's no reason to consider him when Hocevar is a vastly better driver and is starting significantly worse.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
June
1,
2025
Erik
Jones
and
his
Legacy
Motor
Club
teammate
John
Hunter
Nemechek
have
definitely
seemed
to
pick
up
speed
on
intermediate
tracks
in
recent
weeks
and
although
Jones
has
still
been
rather
anonymous,
he
has
seemed
to
regain
his
strong
passing
abilities
read more...
June 1, 2025
Although Corey Heim is only making his fifth NASCAR Cup Series start at Nashville on Sunday, he actually finished last year's race where he started and finished 29th. Last year's race was so chaotic and unrepresentative that it's necessary to look at average running positions to predict this year's speed. While Heim's average running position of 22nd wasn't awful considering his inexperience, he was significantly slower than his veteran teammates Tyler Reddick and Bubba Wallace, who had average running positions of sixth and 14th, respectively. Both of them also qualified much better in Sunday's event, and it seems like they will be likely faster, which is not surprising since few drivers learn the Next Gen car quickly. Having said that, Heim was the highest finishing 23XI car in his last start at Kansas, but Reddick certainly ran significantly better despite his late collapse. The car is fast enough that he might be worth starting for DFS, but at $6,700, he's probably a little too overpriced.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
June 1, 2025
Cole Custer makes his return to Nashville after his two-year return to the NASCAR Xfinity Series, starting from the 29th position on Sunday evening. In his two previous starts at Nashville, Custer actually qualified pretty well, starting seventh in 2021 and 17th in 2022 before eventually falling to 31st and 26th, respectively. His average running position was 21st in both races. Since he has been rather slow all season, he has tended to steadily lose positions here and is driving for a Haas Factory Team that does not seem to be as fast as Stewart-Haas Racing. He also qualified significantly worse, and it's hard to see a good reason to start him unless you think the race will be chaotic like it was last year. The only good things are that his DFS salary is only $5,300, and that not many of the top drivers qualified poorly.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
June 1, 2025
Ty Dillon qualified 31st for Sunday's race at Nashville Superspeedway, which is consistent with his 31st- and 32nd-place finishes in his two previous Nashville starts in 2022 and 2023, respectively. Since he got lapped multiple times in both races, it's hard to envision Dillon gaining enough positions to obtain sufficient place-differential points to be worth starting for DFS play on speed. However, last year's Nashville race was the most chaotic race of last season, as the actual finishing order was entirely unrepresentative of how drivers ran in the race. If you believe the race will be wacky like last year's, there might be a case to consider Dillon, especially since his DFS salary is only $5,000. However, if you think it will be a more humdrum affair like 2022 or 2023, you should likely look elsewhere.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
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