Sunday's race in Homestead is going to be interesting for several reasons.
First, it's the first time the Cup Series has ever raced here outside of November. The high on Sunday is 85 degrees, much warmer than usual. A warm track is a slick track, meaning this puppy is going to drive different than it ever has.
Second, we haven't had many races at tracks like Homestead yet this year. Homestead is categorized as being a lower-banked, 1.5-mile track. The only other track to fit that classification this year was the second race of the season in Las Vegas, before the COVID-19 layoff.
We've still got data we can lean on for the race. There have been others at 1.5-mile tracks since the layoff, and we can still learn something from past Homestead races, even if it does drive differently. But we will be entering the weekend with some serious blindspots.
That's going to force us to take a more zoomed-out approach to data for this weekend. We can look at past Homestead races, and we can see who was fast in Las Vegas, but no single race is going to be an ideal signal for us of who will light things up on Sunday.
With that in mind, here's the data sheet for the Dixie Vodka 400. The drivers are sorted by where they will start based on Thursday night's draw. As mentioned in the track preview, our studs can start pretty much anywhere, but we should give a slight bump to value plays starting further back.
Also listed are the FanDuel salary of each driver and their win odds on FanDuel Sportsbook as of Friday afternoon. All betting odds are presented in fractional form, so Kevin Harvick ($14,500) being listed at 4.7 means he is +470 to win the race.
The current form section looks at the past five races plus the early-season race in Las Vegas. This gives us a good glimpse at who has had speed recently and who ran well at the track most similar to Homestead thus far.
For track history, we'll look at just the past three races. If we were to pull in a fourth race, that would be from the 2016 season, and most of the drivers in the field are not in the same situation they had for that one. And again, we should de-emphasize even the recent races with how different the track will race on Sunday.
Finally, as always, the marks for each race are the driver's average running position rather than where they finished. Finishes can be fluky, but it's much harder to post an elite average running position without a great car. That makes it noteworthy that Chase Elliott ($12,000) has had a top-seven average running position in each of the races in the current-form section of the table.
| Current Form | Track History | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Driver | FD Salary | Start | Win Odds | M'ville | Atlanta | Bristol | Char 2 | Char 1 | Las Vegas | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 |
| Denny Hamlin | $12,200 | 1 | 10 | 24 | 6 | 5 | 13 | 36 | 21 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
| Joey Logano | $13,000 | 2 | 8.5 | 2 | 12 | 7 | 4 | 8 | 4 | 8 | 3 | 7 |
| Brad Keselowski | $12,600 | 3 | 10 | 13 | 10 | 7 | 18 | 11 | 11 | 17 | 10 | 5 |
| Kyle Busch | $13,700 | 4 | 5 | 22 | 4 | 8 | 28 | 9 | 14 | 2 | 4 | 4 |
| Chase Elliott | $12,000 | 5 | 8 | 5 | 6 | 4 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 16 | 12 | 9 |
| Martin Truex, Jr. | $13,300 | 6 | 4.7 | 8 | 3 | 12 | 18 | 3 | 8 | 3 | 4 | 3 |
| Kevin Harvick | $14,500 | 7 | 4.7 | 7 | 3 | 8 | 6 | 14 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 4 |
| Alex Bowman | $11,000 | 8 | 22 | 9 | 12 | 28 | 13 | 4 | 8 | 16 | 22 | -- |
| Jimmie Johnson | $10,400 | 9 | 25 | 6 | 9 | 7 | 17 | 7 | 10 | 9 | 13 | 25 |
| Kurt Busch | $10,600 | 10 | 28 | 9 | 14 | 20 | 6 | 12 | 17 | 18 | 9 | 9 |
| Ryan Blaney | $11,300 | 11 | 11 | 9 | 9 | 25 | 4 | 11 | 4 | 8 | 14 | 28 |
| Clint Bowyer | $9,000 | 12 | 28 | 11 | 7 | 13 | 21 | 34 | 16 | 8 | 11 | 12 |
| Chris Buescher | $7,000 | 13 | 140 | 13 | 22 | 24 | 18 | 17 | 19 | 19 | 26 | 24 |
| Ryan Newman | $7,800 | 14 | 75 | 13 | 20 | 20 | 19 | 19 | -- | 14 | 13 | 17 |
| Erik Jones | $9,400 | 15 | 50 | 20 | 17 | 11 | 19 | 11 | 22 | 10 | 15 | 20 |
| Austin Dillon | $8,200 | 16 | 75 | 33 | 18 | 14 | 8 | 9 | 13 | 10 | 17 | 13 |
| Bubba Wallace | $5,000 | 17 | 110 | 12 | 21 | 17 | 18 | 33 | 22 | 29 | 25 | -- |
| John Hunter Nemechek | $6,000 | 18 | 200 | 21 | 25 | 16 | 16 | 21 | 20 | 27 | -- | -- |
| Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. | $6,800 | 19 | 120 | 21 | 14 | 23 | 11 | 23 | 15 | 22 | 14 | 15 |
| Matt Kenseth | $7,500 | 20 | 65 | 24 | 18 | 14 | 30 | 22 | -- | -- | 13 | 9 |
| Aric Almirola | $8,500 | 21 | 65 | 24 | 17 | 8 | 22 | 17 | 15 | 20 | 7 | 20 |
| William Byron | $10,000 | 22 | 42 | 11 | 36 | 14 | 16 | 7 | 8 | 16 | 23 | -- |
| Matt DiBenedetto | $8,000 | 23 | 65 | 10 | 13 | 25 | 12 | 17 | 14 | 22 | 29 | 30 |
| Tyler Reddick | $8,300 | 24 | 75 | 13 | 15 | 31 | 13 | 10 | 18 | -- | -- | -- |
| J.J. Yeley | $3,000 | 25 | 200 | 31 | 34 | 32 | 32 | 36 | 30 | 32 | 32 | -- |
| Corey LaJoie | $3,000 | 26 | 200 | 17 | 27 | 27 | 25 | 25 | 25 | 32 | 34 | 33 |
| Brennan Poole | $3,000 | 28 | 200 | 31 | 30 | 30 | 35 | 31 | 30 | -- | -- | -- |
| Joey Gase | $3,000 | 29 | 200 | 36 | 37 | 36 | 39 | 38 | 34 | -- | -- | 38 |
| Michael McDowell | $5,000 | 30 | 200 | 14 | 25 | 20 | 18 | 24 | 36 | 25 | 27 | 23 |
| Quin Houff | $3,000 | 31 | 200 | 36 | 33 | 34 | 32 | 37 | 33 | -- | -- | -- |
| Ty Dillon | $4,500 | 32 | 200 | 26 | 24 | 32 | 28 | 27 | 20 | 28 | 26 | 23 |
| Ryan Preece | $5,000 | 33 | 200 | 21 | 25 | 22 | 21 | 23 | 23 | 27 | -- | -- |
| Cole Custer | $6,400 | 35 | 200 | 28 | 22 | 29 | 20 | 22 | 27 | -- | -- | -- |
| Christopher Bell | $6,600 | 36 | 180 | 28 | 18 | 16 | 14 | 15 | 27 | -- | -- | -- |
| Daniel Suarez | $4,000 | 37 | 200 | 29 | 31 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 32 | 16 | 22 | 17 |
| Timmy Hill | $3,000 | 38 | 200 | 37 | 38 | 27 | 34 | 36 | 36 | 39 | 37 | -- |
| Reed Sorenson | $3,000 | 39 | 200 | 35 | 37 | -- | -- | -- | 34 | 37 | -- | 35 |
With the data, you should be able to identify some value and mid-range drivers who are in position to rack up place-differential points. We should also at least have some sort of idea which studs are most likely to dominate. This is all the data we will have before the green flag Sunday, so feel free to dig in, spot your favorite options, and start to build quality lineups.