I guess I am glad you are not my coach. 
DJ said he said he has had a great offseason, set NP record for 4.5 hours, and you’re like “he must be doing something wrong.”
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haha, I am not a coach at all - just a mediocure cyclist with a curious mind. I respect his dedication to his craft, espcially with how “different” it is than the norm. In my head, it seems that his prioritzation is in the wrong place for a race like seaotter. His training and gear philosophy seems to be catered more toward an unbound style race with a less aggressive selection thats more of a TT style hang on until you cant.
He might be a very slow twitch athlete and no amount of 30/30s or 1-3 minute intervals is going to give him the same anaerobic capacity as a Keegan.
Seaotter is one race. He’s got to race his strength.
Back to the podcast - one thing I found interesting was his volume overload weeks.
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Given what he’s said about other gravel-sized tires he would choose, I don’t think he’s giving up 10% or even 5% in rolling resistance on pavement using Thunder Burts. There’s no free lunch, whatever best possible gains he would make on the paved section he would be giving up on the unpaved sections and the cost increases at a greater rate than the potential benefit.
If he’s on the fastest 45s (or 40s) and survives the pavement selection, he’s then paying a marginally higher price in suspension losses as he is now drafting longer at higher speeds. It’s possible the course is smooth enough this won’t matter but from what I’ve seen Sea Otter has enough rough sections to have a moderate cost to this strategy.
Sometimes you do everything right and other racers are just better than you for a given course/situation. Could he have hung on longer if he focused 100% of his training on staying connected on the selective sea otter climbs? Maybe, maybe not. At some point, we all have physiological limits. And it’s a long season and you can’t just train for a single event. If you take all the guys who smoked DJ up the selective climbs at Sea Otter and see how they compare at LIttle sugar later this year, the outcome will likely be very different. That’s bike racing, horses for courses and all that. For a guy who many said was only in the grand prix because of his youtube presence, he’s done pretty well for himself (in my opinion).
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I think those guys actually shell harder than the rest that is why nobody follows them the peloton would have a better chance at repeat efforts they just get dropped from the wheels from the raw power of the 950w surge