The Xfinity Series will join the Cup Series in the final race of the Round of Eight. The drivers who still have a chance of winning the championship include John H. Nemechek, Justin Allgaier, Austin Hill, Sam Mayer, Cole Custer, Chandler Smith, Sheldon Creed and Sammy Smith. There are three tickets to the championship race up for grabs Saturday since Riley Herbst won at Las Vegas and he is not in the playoffs. I expect a lot of dram in the final laps this week as the points will move around a lot. The Dead on Tools 250 can be seen Saturday at 3:30 p.m. ET on USA Network.
PRACTICE AT MARTINSVILLE
The Xfinity Series teams had 20 minutes to shake down their cars for the race Saturday. Martinsville is a .526-mile, short, flat track. Most of the drivers had no problems make long runs in practice. It is tough to see which drivers truly had the fastest cars since traffic can skew a driver’s lap times. The best way to see which driver was fast is to see who is at the top of the single-lap speed chart, the 10-lap average speed chart and qualifies up front. The drivers who check all of these boxes are the drivers we will want in our lineup Saturday.
Here are the lap times from the practice Friday’s practice at Martinsville…
AVERAGE DFS POINTS MARTINSVILLE
Martinsville is a unique track. There are other short, flat tracks on the schedule (Phoenix, New Hampshire and Richmond), but the driving styles at those tracks are different from what it takes to get around Martinsville. The best way to handicap Saturday’s race is to look at the drivers who have a history of running well at Martinsville. I used the data from the last three races at Martinsville to help predict the race Saturday.
Here are the average DraftKings Points from the last three races at Martinsville…
STRATEGY FOR MARTINSVILLE
There are 250 laps in the race Saturday. That means there are 62.5 points available for leading laps and 112.5 points available for fastest laps. We need to score as many of these 175 dominator points as possible.
The trend at Martinsville is for two drivers to lead roughly 100 laps each. One driver scores about 60 fastest laps (52 dominator points) and the other driver scores 45 fastest laps (45.25 dominator points). A third driver leads roughly 40 laps and scores 30 fastest laps (23.5 dominator points). I plan to pay up for the three drivers I think will lead the most laps Saturday.
The drivers with the best chance to lead laps and score dominator points include John H. Nemechek, Justin Allgaier, Cole Custer and Sammy Smith
The drivers with the best chance to score place differential points include Sam Mayer, Daniel Hemric, Brett Moffitt, Jeb Burton, Kaz Grala, Blaine Perkins, Kyle Sieg and Devin Jones
DRIVER RANKINGS FOR MARTINSVILLE
CORE DRIVERS FOR MARTINSVILLE
TOP-TIER DRIVERS: JOHN H. NEMECHEK ($11,500), COLE CUSTER ($11,200), JUSTIN ALLGAIER ($11,000), JOSH BERRY ($10,800), SAMMY SMITH ($9,500), BRANDON JONES ($9,300)
VALUE-TIER DRIVERS: DANIEL HEMRIC ($8,700), LAYNE RIGGS ($8,400), PARKER KLIGERMAN ($8,200), MYATT SNIDER ($7,900), BRETT MOFFITT ($7,600), RYAN SIEG ($7,400), JEB BURTON ($7,200), PARKER RETZLAFF ($7,100), KAZ GRALA ($6,900),RAJAH CARUTH ($6,600), KYLE SIEG ($6,200)
PUNT PLAYS: JOSH WILLIAMS ($5,800), DEVIN JONES ($5,700), Jeffrey Earnhardt ($5,500),JOSH BILICKI ($5,300) BLAINE PERKINS ($5,000)
DRAFTKINGS CASH CONTEST LINEUP
DRAFTKINGS TOURNAMENT CONTEST LINEUP
DRIVER GROUP GAME PICKS
Good Luck Saturday!
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