DFS NASCAR Xfinity: how to build a lineup for the United Rentals 200 at Phoenix
With track position historically deciding the race at Phoenix Raceway's short oval, daily fantasy strategy centered on past winners and drivers who start up front.
The NASCAR Xfinity Series' United Rentals 200 ran 200 laps around Phoenix Raceway's 1.0-mile oval on March 11, 2022, and daily fantasy previews built their lineups around a track that RotoWire described as racing "more like a short track, or even a road course," rewarding balanced mechanical grip and careful tire management over straight-line speed.
RotoWire's preview singled out Justin Allgaier as the top play at $11,500 on DraftKings, noting he was a two-time winner at Phoenix with four top-10 finishes in his previous five starts there. Behind him, the lower-risk build paired John Hunter Nemechek ($9,200), Myatt Snider ($8,200), Anthony Alfredo ($7,600), Jeremy Clements ($6,800) and Kaz Grala ($6,400).
A separate higher-risk lineup centered on Noah Gragson at $11,200, cited for three consecutive top-three starts and a runner-up finish at Phoenix in fall 2020, alongside Landon Cassill ($8,900), Sam Mayer ($8,700), Riley Herbst ($8,000), Ryan Sieg ($7,000) and Bayley Currey ($5,900), according to the same preview.
Why track position mattered so much
RotoWire's analysis noted that winners at Phoenix have historically come from the top-10 starting spots in 36 of the previous 40 races at the track, framing starting position as one of the strongest predictors available heading into the United Rentals 200. The preview also stressed that "mechanical grip will be what everyone needs" to succeed on the flat, technical oval, rather than raw horsepower.
The picks, and the reasoning behind them
Both the lower-risk and higher-risk builds leaned on recent Phoenix form rather than season-long points standings, according to the RotoWire preview — Allgaier's two wins at the track and Gragson's string of top-three finishes were treated as more predictive at this specific 1.0-mile layout than performance at other track types on the Xfinity schedule.
Building a lineup within the salary cap
Both builds worked within DraftKings' $50,000 salary cap, according to RotoWire, spreading spend across drivers rather than concentrating it in a single star. The lower-risk build spent most heavily on Allgaier at the top, while filling out the roster with mid-tier and value drivers like Clements and Grala at the bottom of the price scale. The higher-risk build took a similar shape around Gragson, pairing him with Cassill, Mayer and Herbst in the middle tiers and Sieg and Currey as lower-cost fill-ins.
What the preview didn't cover
The retrieved preview did not include final qualifying results, weather conditions on race day, or the eventual race outcome, so this account is limited to the pre-race daily fantasy analysis rather than how the United Rentals 200 itself played out.
US In News compiled this archived account from contemporaneous coverage by RotoWire. It restores a story originally published on this site in March 2022; figures are as reported at the time.