The NASCAR Cup Series will join the Xfinity Series at Daytona International Speedway this weekend. The Cup Series only has two races left in their regular season, while the Xfinity Series has five races left before they start their playoffs in late September. This is a “last chance” race for the drivers in the Cup Series who are not locked into the playoffs. The added pressure will make drivers take chances in this race that they may not have taken in the Daytona 500. That is going to make the race Saturday night crazy, with a lot of drama (just the way NASCAR likes it).
DAYTONA SCHEDULE
Daytona is a Superspeedway, so that means the Cup Series and Xfinity Series will not have any practice time to dial in their cars for the race. Both series will line up for qualifying and then compete in the race. It is also important to remember that both series will race under the lights at Daytona. The Xfinity Series will race Friday night on USA Network and the Cup Series will race Saturday night on NBC. That means you will have a NASCAR-free Sunday to do whatever you need to get done.
The Truck Series will start their playoffs this weekend with a race at the Milwaukee Mile. I have not been able to find any television or streaming coverage of practice or qualifying Saturday, so we may be picking blind this week. The race is scheduled for Sunday afternoon.
Here is the schedule for the races at Daytona and the Truck Series race at the Milwaukee Mile…
RACE RECAP AT DAYTONA
The 2024 season started with Joey Logano on the pole for the Daytona 500. Logano led a race-high 45 laps before he was involved in a wreck on lap 191. The races at Daytona typically have many cautions, but there were only three cautions for accidents in this year’s Daytona 500. That was still enough to take out 12 of the 40 cars. I expect more wrecks this week than what we had in February.
The Hendrick Motorsports cars worked well together in Stage 1. They took home four of the top-five positions (1. Chase Elliott, 2. Kyle Larson, 4. Alex Bowman and 5. William Byron). The second Stage was a battle between the Team Penske cars. Ryan Blaney said before the race that he wasn’t going to help his teammates and he was right. He went around Austin Cindric to win Stage 2.
“The Big One” happened on lap 193 of the 200 lap race. Austin Cindric and Ross Chastain wrecked each other as they battled for the lead on the last lap. This gave the win to William Byron under the caution flag.
The best drivers in the Daytona 500 included William Byron, Joey Logano, Kyle Busch, Christopher Bell, Bubba Wallace, Austin Cindric, Alex Bowman, Ross Chastain and Daniel Suarez.
Stage 1 Results: 1. Chase Elliott, 2. Kyle Larson, 3. Ross Chastain, 4. Alex Bowman, 5. William Byron, 6. Kyle Busch, 7. Denny Hamlin, 8. Bubba Wallace, 9. Martin Truex Jr., 10. Daniel Suarez
Stage 2 Results: 1. Ryan Blaney, 2. Austin Cindric, 3. Daniel Suarez, 4. Kyle Busch, 5. Tyler Reddick 6. William Byron, 7. Bubba Wallace, 8. Ricky Stenhouse Jr., 9. A.J. Allmendinger, 10. Chris Buescher
Click here for highlights of last year’s race: 2024 DAYTONA 500 REWIND
FANTASY STATS FOR DAYTONA
So, how do we predict which drivers will be the best picks for our Fantasy NASCAR lineups Saturday night? I used the stats from the five races at Daytona in the Gen-7 car and the two races on the Superspeedways in 2024 (Atlanta and Talladega) to help handicap this race.
Here are the stats from the races at Daytona in the Gen-7 car and the Superspeedway races in 2024, sorted by Average Finishing Position…
One way we can select our drivers is by looking at their average finishing position at Daytona and how many Stage Points they average in these races. Some drivers like to run up front and go for the Stage Points and others like to ride around the back to make sure their car is in one piece at the end of the race. Once a drive scores Stage Points in the race, they cannot be taken away. This makes the drivers who score the most Stage Points the safest picks for our Fantasy NASCAR lineups, because they will have some points in the bank, even if they crash in the race.
Here are the drivers average finishing position in the five races at Daytona using the Gen-7 car and the average Stage Points they score in these races….
EARLY WEEK PICKS FOR DAYTONA
ONE & DONE PICK: AUSTIN CINDRIC
DRIVER GROUP GAME PICKS: WILLIAM BYRON, KYLE BUSCH, BUBBA WALLACE, ALEX BOWMAN, MCHAEL MCDOWELL, JOEY LOGANO, COREY LAJOIE, JOHN H. NEMECHEK
FANTASY LIVE PICKS: BUBBA WALLACE, ALEX BOWMAN, CHRIS BUESCHER, KYLE BUSCH, AUSTIN CINDRIC GARAGE: MARTIN TRUEX JR.
* I will update these picks this weekend.
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