NASCAR By the Numbers - Cook Out Southern 500

NASCAR Cup Series

Race into the NASCAR DFS streets with the most trusted NASCAR analyst in the industry! Stevie has been providing NASCAR content since the very first NASCAR DFS contest and has taken down 10+ large-field tournaments in NASCAR alone. Multiple subscribers of his NASCAR package have been $1,000,000 winners thanks to the premium content he provides. This article previews the type of racetrack, roster construction, past optimal lineups, core plays, tournament plays, value plays, and potential dominators.

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This weekend, we head to Darlington for the Cook Out Southern 500. This is one of the crown jewels of NASCAR, and a race every driver in the field wants to win. The race is at 6:00pm ET on USA. This is the first race of the 2025 NASCAR Playoffs. With the high tire wear and steep banks, anything can happen at Darlington. This is the same right-side tire from earlier this season and 2024 at Darlington. This is a new left-side tire, but they’ve run it at Charlotte, Indy, and Michigan. The race winner has started inside the top 10 in 8 of the last 10 races here. I’ll be using recent Darlington data, steep high tire wear track data, practice, 2025 speed, and a few other things when building lineups.

NASCAR DFS Picks: Cook Out Southern 500

The stages are 115, 115, and 137, which is a total of 367 laps. We’re looking at 36.7 laps led and 36.7 laps completed points on FanDuel. On DraftKings, we’re looking at 165.15 fastest lap points and 91.75 laps led points. There have been some 1-dominator optimal lineups, but looking back over the last 10 races, 2 to 3 dominators seem to be the most optimal build.

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About the Author

stevietpfl
Stephen Young (stevietpfl)

The Head of Motorsports at RotoGrinders and the long-time host of the popular Morning Grind podcast, Stephen Young (aka stevietpfl) has been one of the top NASCAR, NFL, NBA, and MLB analysts in the industry since its inception. He has accumulated numerous Live Final seats and is a multiple-time finalist for the Fantasy Sports Writers Association Racing Writer of the Year. Follow Stevie on X – @stevietpfl