RADIO
The NASCAR Xfinity Series heads to Michigan on Saturday for 250 miles around the fast, 2.0-mile speedway. Noah Gragson rolls off the grid first.
Last week at the Brickyard, A.J. Allmendinger dominated, leading 42 of the 62 laps on his way to the victory. The win pushed his lead in the point standings to 17 over Justin Allgaier, with Ty Gibbs in third, 30 points back of Allmendinger. Allmendinger now has three wins on the season, but Gibbs leads the series with four victories.
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 New Holland 250 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 8/6/22 at 3:32 p.m. ET.
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Xfinity DFS Picks - DraftKings
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Justin Allgaier ($10,500) - Starting 3rd
It was really close for me between Allgaier and his teammate (and polesitter) Noah Gragson to fill this high-priced slot in my lineup, but I ultimately settled on Allgaier because he feels a little bit safer. Similar upside, but Allgaier is less likely to make a mistake that kills his race.
Allgaier has six top 10s in 10 Xfinity starts here, which includes three of them in a row. He's only failed to record a top 10 once here since joining JRM.
Last year, Allgaier started fifth here and finished sixth, leading nine laps.
Gragson probably has more raw speed, but Allgaier has three wins this season and always seems to be lingering there at the end. I'd suggest also having lineups with Gragson, but if I had to make just one lineup, I would go Allgaier, especially because I think he'll be a less popular play than Gragson and I want some differentiation before I fill my lineup with a couple of chalky plays...
John Hunter Nemechek ($9,600) - Starting 31st
Chalk.
Nemechek returns to the Sam Hunt Racing 26 this weekend, making his fifth start of the season in this car.
So far, his worst finish this season in this car was 18th at Road America. He has a pair of top fives while driving it and he led 11 laps at Phoenix. (He also dominated at Richmond, leading 135 laps and finishing second, but that was in a Gibbs car.)
At Michigan, Nemechek has one Xfinity top 10 here in his two starts.
Starting 31st means that there's a ton of place differential points at play for Nemechek. I'm a little concerned that this car was also slow in practice, but the results this year with JHN piloting this machine have been too encouraging for me to fade him because of some practice/qualifying laps.
Sam Mayer ($9,400) - Starting 26th
Chalk, part two.
In practice, the JRM cars were all very fast. That qualifying didn't go Mayer's way doesn't change the fact that I expect all the JRM cars to be fast during the race itself.
For fantasy purposes, this is good, because it means a super quick car is going to start in the back half of the field, which gives us a really clear place differential play. Sure, there's the concern that everyone else will also be playing Mayer, but sometimes you've got to take that risk. Besides, plenty of people will fade Mayer because he's too chalky, right?
If we have two clear chalk place differential plays, I think playing both provides a nice edge, because you're going to get a lot of people playing only one because they'll think "everyone is going to have these guys in a GPP."
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Riley Herbst ($8,800) - Starting 13th
Not the most exciting play, but with how Herbst has been running, he's someone who can gain a few spots and score a solid top 10.
Herbst is having his best season in NASCAR. He's already equaled his number of top fives and top 10s from last year and his average finish is 13.0. He finished ninth at Fontana, which is the closest track to Michigan when it comes to track comparisons.
Last year, Herbst was seventh in this race. He also had a win in 2020 in the ARCA race here and while you can take that one with a grain of salt since he was in a Gibbs car, I do think that his experience running here will come in handy on Saturday. Herbst has logged a lot of laps here between ARCA and Xfinity.
C.J. McLaughlin ($6,200) - Starting 34th
Now we move on to the value options.
McLaughlin has run solid laps for RSS this year. His average finish is 24.0, which includes Daytona, where he crashed and finished 35th.
McLaughlin's last race was at Loudon, where he started 33rd and finished 13th.
And while he didn't race at Fontana, other RSS cars did. Ryan Sieg was 10th there in the 39, while Joe Graf Jr. drove this 38 to a 15th. Kyle Sieg was 18th in that race as all three RSS cars scored top 20s.
Since this track races similarly to that one, I think McLaughlin is a great place differential sleeper.
Bayley Currey ($5,100) - Starting 35th
Currey was solid in practice, finishing with the 23rd-best time. But qualifying didn't go as well, as the 4 car ended up just 35th.
But hey—that just means more place differential opportunities for us, right?
Currey has an average finish of 24.3 this season, with one top 10. He did have one of his worst races at Fontana, the best comparable to Michigan, though.
Last year, JDM cars finished 21st, 25th and 26th here. Currey could pretty easily end up finishing around 25th, which would be 27 fantasy points. At this price, that would be solid, and you never know when a race gets weird and he finishes closer to 20th. 20th would be 37 points. ?
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