NASCAR Research Station: DraftKings, FanDuel DFS Lineup Picks - Saturday's Drydene 311

It's a NASCAR doubleheader weekend, with Saturday's Drydene 311 at Dover and then Sunday's Drydene 311 at Dover.

That's going to get confusing, isn't it? Anyway, the three national series run five races at Dover this weekend. The Truck Series race was Friday, with the other four happening in the next two days. Lots of cars going around the Monster Mile!

Feel free to hit me up on Twitter if you have any NASCAR questions (or, really, any questions about any sport that isn't baseball)": @juscarts.

NASCAR DFS Research for Drydene 311

If you are not familiar, in this article I will highlight some helpful NASCAR data from my deep dive into the Premium Research Station. You can get full access to that Premium DFS Tool, and others including our Lineup Optimizer, with our NASCAR Premium Pass.

Top Fantasy Values At Dover

Obviously, building a strong DFS lineup requires you to find some strong value, and one thing our Research Station can provide you is the tools needed to find those values.

One way to determine value -- projected fantasy points per $1,000 dollar salary. Basically, which drivers are projected to score the most fantasy points relative to their price. This can help you figure out how to maximize your projected fantasy points.

The new starting procedure has really eliminated some of the deep-field value we've been having. After Ryan Blaney's 4.58 FP/$, the next six drivers at the top of the DraftKings pricing have a projected value of 5.47 or higher. No one else in the field has a value that high. It's going to make lineup building a lot tougher than it was before.

Here's how the top drivers stack up on DK:

Of these, Harvick and Busch are the best values, with Harvick having the highest projected fantasy points and FP/$ in the field. Obviously, Harvick's a solid choice. Meanwhile, Denny Hamlin and Brad Keselowski don't have as high projections as those guys, but still have solid numbers and are likely to fly under the radar today, making them intriguing pivots off of Harvick/Busch/Elliott.

Other drivers with a projected FP/$ of at least five:

• Austin Dillon, who returns after a one-week absence due to a positive COVID-19 test and who starts 32nd. Big place differential upside with him.
• Ryan Newman, who starts 23rd and has had some good runs in the past here, though his recent results scare me away just a tad.
• Ricky Stenhouse Jr., who has an affordable salary this week and some upside, though I think he's another guy who is getting a little overvalued. JTG-Daugherty hasn't been as strong as they've been in the past.

Dover Driver Ratings

NASCAR's driver rating formula puts together a lot of factors to spit out a number that rates how a driver performed in a certain race.

Here are the Dover ratings for the top FanDuel drivers this week:

Of course, Kevin Harvick has the highest recent and long term rating among these drivers, because Kevin Harvick's just going to always be the best driver in whatever sample we look at. The fact that he's the highest-priced driver on FanDuel makes him less enticing than he is on DraftKings, but he's still a good play, even if his roster rate will be really high.

Deeper in the field, one of the more interesting plays is Jimmie Johnson. His recent driver rating here of 79.8 is worse than the drivers priced around him, but his long term rating of 104.1 is one of the highest in the field. Johnson's had success at Dover, and with him really needing a good weekend to get into the playoffs in his final full-time Cup season, Johnson's a good pick.

Matt Kenseth also has a long term rating here of over 100, but I don't love him as an option. He's really struggled in that 42 car this year since taking over for Kyle Larson, but at his price and with his place differential starting 26th, I don't hate him as an option either.

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Track Correlation

The track correlation matrix can help us see what race tracks correlate to others to help figure out what drivers should be good here based on 2020 results at other places.

For Dover, the following tracks correlate at 90 percent or above: Phoenix, Loudon, Kansas, Chicagoland, Texas, Charlotte, Michigan, and Pocono. That's a huge variety of track, from the one-milers at Phoenix and Loudon to the huge tracks like Michigan and Pocono.

The tracks I'd most want to pull from are Loudon and Phoenix because they're the same length as Dover, though each track has a pretty different makeup.

This year at Loudon, Brad Keselowski led 184 laps and won, while Denny Hamlin led 92 laps and finished second. Both guys are among the top-priced drivers this week, but neither is getting the attention they deserve.

Keselowski only finished 11th at Phoenix, but he did lead 82 laps.

Meanwhile, a possible sleeper pick: Cole Custer had top 10s in both of those races this year. Ooh!

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