Interview with DraftKings King of the Speedway Winner: "Slah"
With NASCAR’s season finale complete at Miami and Kyle Busch being the last man standing in Victory Lane, so too did DFS crown their inaugural NASCAR champion, David Goetz – ‘Slah” on RotoGrinders – as he took down both 1st and 4th place in DraftKings’ $100k King of the Speedway live final.
Slah, congrats man! Now that you’ve had some time to let the win sink in, how does it feel?
It’s pretty darn cool. The fields and prize pools will undoubtedly grow over the years and render my windfall a mere pittance, but only one can be the first ever champ. In the immortal worlds of Al “Smizzle” Zeidenfeld: “Money comes and goes, but banners fly forever”. Also, I was told that 1st and 4th are the best 2 finishes in the same live final in ANY sport in DK history, so that’s a pretty awesome distinction.
Before I forget, let me make sure to credit the other half of team ‘ADS78’, my friend Andrew Sacher. For those who don’t consider this a skill game, maybe DFS crowning a Harvard alumnus as a champ can help convince you otherwise. I’m pretty certain that Harvard Econ grads don’t make a habit of investing in state lottos and spins of the roulette wheel. Needless to say, Andrew’s modeling and analytics were integral components of our success and in taking home the title. It’s on roughly 1/50th the scale, but, respectfully, I consider us the ‘RayofHope’ of DFS NASCAR. At least until the actual ‘RayofHope’ decides to enter the NASCAR fray and demolish us.
Awesome stuff. So why NASCAR? How did that come to be your niche?
A few buddies were playing in a season long NASCAR league on Yahoo!, and talked me into joining five years ago. I hate having to admit this to true NASCAR die-hards, but I’d never seen a race before that. Anyway, I’m pretty competitive, and the desire to figure out how to beat my friends quickly overtook my ambivalence towards the sport.
As you know, Stevie, I was clamoring in the forums for NASCAR DFS since the day I discovered RG, over a year before the game was introduced. Once DK and Fantasy Feud rolled it out, it was “on”, as the kids say. Coming from those years of playing season long and already having a built in base of knowledge and view of the field of drivers from exclusively a fantasy perspective was/is undoubtedly an advantage for me.
So, take us through your roster construction for the final. What was your strategy?
Well, for starters, I fortunately won two of the 16 finals seats (a Dover Q, then a Charlotte Q the following week), so that made building my lineups a little easier, but not much. The nature of NASCAR DFS lends itself to multi-entry, more so than any other game, in my opinion. Risk-management, assessing driver exposure, projecting ownership percentages – all things that you’re doing in other sports too, but sub-par performances can’t really be overcome in this one if you’re going to finish atop large-field GPPs. You have to end up with a combo that nails all six drivers. So, long story short, picking your optimal one or two lineups is hard, and not something that has been necessary for me in past play.
My 1st lineup was set after qualifying Friday, and nothing post-qualifying (particularly practices on Saturday) did anything to change my mind. Off the bat, having 2 entries, I knew the 1st question I was facing was: Harvick on both? Or Harvick on only one? The DK championship tournament, for readers who don’t know, was in Phoenix, where Harvick has been more dominant than any other driver has at any other track. So, I knew the #4 car was going on Team 1, at minimum. Jimmie Johnson and Kurt Busch were starting on the front row, and both priced low enough that I could easily fit both in along with Harvick. They both seemed fast enough in practice where at least one, and optimally a combination of both of them, could suck up all the lead lap points that Harvick did not. With Harvick starting 8th, I projected that there would be maybe 50 or so lead laps to go around before he got to the front, and I wanted to give myself the best chance of capturing all of them, while hoping that I wouldn’t lose many, if any, start/finish differential with Johnson and Busch by race end. Ryan Newman was under-priced, starting 22nd, and is a top 10 machine at Phx, so he was a lock. For the final two spots, I had apprehensions about Tony Stewart, but he was starting 31st, dirt cheap, has had a good history at Phx, and I knew he’d be highly owned, so I was fine putting him on this team.
I figured all five of those drivers to individually be “chalky” picks in the tourney, but in order to fit all five of those on the same team, you had to be willing to scrape the bottom of the barrel for driver #6. Playing a min-priced Brett Moffitt, Landon Cassill, Cole Whitt, etc., is not something that’s easy to pull the trigger on with one entry in a 16-man field and a heap of cash on the line, so I knew that combining all five of those likely highly-owned picks would result in a unique entry. It turned out that one other finalist had the same idea. If the other five drivers knocked it out of the park, I could have faded a poor race from my bottom-feeder, and still come away with a finish near the top of the leaderboard. Cole Whitt had a handful of elements in his favor that I liked, so he was my cheapie of choice. I think he actually ended up being the best possible option among the punt plays, and his 16 points were enough to help that team to a 4th place finish.
My strategy for my 2nd lineup, which proved to be the winning entry, was to hedge my first lineup by removing the biggest risks and replacing them with guys who I figured would be low-owned with high upside. My Harvick dilemma didn’t take too long to sort out. The honest deciding factor was: I didn’t have the balls to fade him. I figured his ownership to be somewhere between 13/16 teams and all 16 teams, and my preference was to have two shots at the top spot among the Harvick-using contingent. I thought either of the other two multi-entry teams may fade him in one of their lineups, and maybe one other team would as well. It turned out 13 teams played him. There was definitely merit to fading him – an early wreck and you’re planted atop the leaderboard – but I just didn’t have the gamble (fortunately, it turns out).
I also knew I was going all-in with Newman, and I knew I was going to have either Jimmie Johnson or Kurt Busch on both teams (I vacillated between the two until near lock). I completely inaccurately assessed that Brad Keselowski would be one of the highest-owned drivers. He just came off a dominating run at Texas the week before, he was starting 18th, and he was in a must-win situation, so it was a reasonable bet that he’d make his way up to the front of the pack, whether by speed or pit strategy, at some point in the race. My incorrect projection of his ownership %, combined with betting on him to not lead a heap of laps even if he got near the front, and just not being able to comfortably build a lineup combining him and Harvick at their high salaries – all ended up making him a complete fade for me. When lineups locked, I was shocked to see that only one team played him. If I knew that in advance, I’d have a tough time excluding him from both rosters.
Through a few panic-stricken hours of middle-of-the-night messaging with a Fantasy NASCAR genius friend of mine the night before lockdown, I was able to land on what proved to be an almost perfect lineup.
Dale Jr. was the giant hiding in plain sight. He was one of the fastest couple cars all weekend. He was priced way lower than he should have been. He’s been strong tracks similar to Phoenix. The problem: he was starting 3rd. I knew that would keep people off of him, and justifiably so. Dale’s value usually comes from starting deep in the field. He’s not somebody who is going to get out front and dominate a (non-restrictor plate) race. So, though odds were against him finishing higher than he started and/or leading a bunch of laps, I figured at his salary, he could finish a little lower than he started and not kill me in a small field GPP, and, on the off chance that he did back up his practice speed and get out front and finish near the front, he could win me the whole enchilada.
Rostering Aric Almirola was basically the same thought process as rostering Dale, on a smaller scale. For some reason, DK seemingly never adjusted Almirola’s salary the final quarter of the season, making him an insta-start most weeks, as he frequently started in the 20’s and finished in the teens at a near minimum salary. That held true again salary-wise at Phoenix, but he qualified way better than usual, and started 17th. That made him a much riskier play, as he was much less likely to realize his upside, and I knew his ownership would be depressed because of it (5/16, as it turned out) Similar to Dale, as long as he finished not too far from where he started, he wasn’t going to kill me at his salary, and if he could do what he actually ended up doing, and finish top 10, it would be huge.
My final spot was David Ragan, and it took some serious convincing by my friend to put me on him. He had been terrible lately, without much success at Phx over his career. Starting 29th, very cheap, some driving-for-a-future-job narrative at play, and solid in practice all factored into his appeal, but not somebody who was really on my radar without my friend’s conviction, and he turned out to be the perfect pivot from Tony Stewart.
The final decision, which I struggled with all morning, was Kurt vs. Jimmie. The question here was: “If only one of the two of them lead a big chunk of laps, which”? Another massively incorrect projection by me was the ownership % of these two. I figured Jimmie on the pole would suck up the bulk of the ownership, and Kurt would possibly be low-owned. I also thought Jimmie would be viewed as the “safer” play, since Kurt had to win the race to advance to the final round of the playoffs, so he would be a prime candidate for “checkers or wreckers”. So, my initial preference was to go conservative with Jimmie, but I thought Kurt had the better chance of winning the GPP for me, and finishing 1st was all I had in mind. I also read a stat that week that the outside line leads like 85% of the restarts in Phx in recent history. Though Kurt was starting 2nd, the pole-sitter has to start on the inside line, so Kurt was the better bet to lead the first bunch of laps, which would have been the case if not for an unprecedented penalty to start the race.
Anyway, I switched off of Jimmie to Kurt like 2 hours before lineups locked. If I left Jimmie on, my lineup would have been the best possible lineup, but, luckily, I was still able to take home the title with Kurt.
That’s great insight into the strategy behind building a NASCAR lineup. So, a few laps into the race, they announced that Kurt Busch was penalized for jumping the green flag and crossing the start line before the pole-sitter, and had to go to the back of the field. With him on both of your entries, what were you thinking when that happened?
I’m naturally pessimistic while sweating races – it’s hard not to be, as it’s typically a game of attrition – but, yeah, I thought I was done. Done competing for 1st anyway. Kurt was 75% owned, so I could still battle for some decent money. The fact that he was able to remain on the lead lap added some hope, but all my lead lap dreams were dead. Luckily, Jimmie had to serve a penalty as well pretty shortly after, so some damage vs. the Jimmie-rostering teams was mitigated.
The race ended under a red flag after rain over the track wouldn’t let up. How pumped were you when they called it?
Myself and 2 others were in a 3-way battle for the top spot with some distance behind us going into the original wreck-induced caution, and I pretty much hit gin when the yellow flag came out. Dale was on pit road when the caution came out, and was able to short-pit and dart to the extended start/finish line on pit road to take over the race lead under caution. I was in 2nd, a few points behind 1st when the caution came out, and, as I was able to accumulate those lead lap points as Dale lead all the caution laps, I eventually took over 1st by a few points, then they called the race. If it were to have resumed, I was going into a 2-man shootout with the lead and 100 laps to go, and if chaos occurred, my other team was waiting in the wings in 4th place, so I liked my chances regardless.
But to answer your question, yeah…I was doing a raindance :). I’ve never been so excited to hear an announcer tell me that I won’t be able to watch any more of a sporting event. One of us had to get lucky and be the big beneficiary of that unimaginable rain in the desert though, and fortunately it was me.
Yeah, that’s a crazy way to end a sweat. Tell us about the live DK event. I’ll bet the 2nd place finisher didn’t enjoy the rain quite as much, lol.
It was a ton of fun. DK spares no expense. The DK crew on hand were great, as were the folks from Suggs Sports Marketing, who organized all the stuff at the track Sunday. There was a cocktail party the night we arrived, a cabana on Saturday, and a garage tour, suite tickets + an endless amount of food and drink during the race, and a meet and greet with Clint Bowyer as well as Dale Jr spotter.
It was awesome to hang out with all the finalists, talk strategy, etc. All super-nice, super-smart people, and it was fascinating to hear their stories. ‘2ndButton’ has a successful past of betting NASCAR, so DFS was an easy transition for him. ‘Renegade47’ and ‘Giffenbone’ both go back and watch past races in their entirety as part of their research process. ‘TheHaba’ (aka ‘TheLurker’) spends 6-8 hours every Saturday night manually inputting 200 lineups into the $3 tourney, to extreme success. Easily my favorite story of the weekend was ‘MrGuzzo8’. He was in 1st place dominating the Kansas Qualifier with 5 laps to go, when Logano (now famously) wrecked Kenseth, ending his hopes. The following week, at Talladega of all places, he single-entered the $27 Q, and took it down. Craziest thing I’ve ever heard. As for the King of the Speedway 2nd place finisher, ‘AlexBowls18’, he didn’t even open the leaderboard all race – he wanted to avoid the stress. So, finding out after the race that he finished 2nd was all joy, no agony for him.
Sounds like a blast, and I was happy to have gotten the chance to meet you and most of the finalists at the race. Now with this checked off the bucket list, what are your future DFS plans and goals?
Yeah, great meeting you too, Stevie. And much respect to you for being one of the small handful of prominent figures in the industry doing what you can to promote NASCAR DFS. The end of the season lull and decrease in prize pools scares me a bit, but hopefully there will be a big promotional effort heading into the Daytona 500 in a few months, and more people will give it a try in the other sports’ offseasons.
As for my DFS goals: Assuming NASCAR DFS sticks around, I want to qualify and defend my title next year. Also, I spent most of this season experimenting and fine-tuning. I probably left a lot of money on the table by laying off of cash games for most of the season, so I’m going to change that next season. Aside from that, I’m not going to change my play much. My NBA and NFL volume will probably increase a little, and I’d say eventually making a live final in either of those is a long-term DFS goal. Those things are fun.
Any tips for readers?
For those who quit playing early on, or have been hesitant to start: the sport is more handicap-able than you think. The stigma that NASCAR DFS is excessive luck, especially compared to other sports, is founded on the masses’ first exposure to the game being an extremely high variance, wreck-filled race (July’s Daytona race). At Daytona, Talladega, and, to a slightly lesser extent, Bristol, large wrecks taking out 10+ cars is always a lurking factor. There are 36 races, and the ones I listed comprise 6 of them. So, maybe sit those out, or play lighter volume those weeks. Give some of the other races a try before eschewing the game and chalking it up to a luck-fest.
For those already playing but struggling: you gotta figure out your own secret sauce. I think the foundation of most players’ research (track history, starting position, practice times, current form, etc.) is the same, but determining how to best weight and apply all the factors is what separates winning and losing. Be flexible and don’t get hung up on consistently putting too much weight on any single element when building your lineups over the season. Things change in an instant in this sport. Drivers who are fast one year/month/week can easily struggle the following year/month/week, and vice versa. It happens, without fail, every single season of NASCAR. Figuring out possible reasons why that may be the case, and projecting the likelihood of sudden changes in performance, is the crux of the game.
I’m not typically an active tweeter, but probably will be more so going forward, so feel free to hit me up with questions @soupsandwich, as long as you possess the understanding that I don’t see the future, and can accept that any advice you may receive from me has a decent chance of being wrong.
Excellent advice. Thanks and congrats again, Slah!
My pleasure Stevie, thanks a lot for having me. Hopefully we can do another one of these a year from now. :)