RADIO
Chris Durell brings you DraftKings fantasy NASCAR advice, DFS lineups picks and sleepers analysis for Chris Durell brings you DraftKings fantasy NASCAR advice, DFS lineups picks and sleepers analysis for the Coke Zero 400 from Daytona International Speedway
With Kevin Harvick picking up his first win of the season last week in Sonoma, we now have 11 winners through 16 races. Joey Logano is the only driver of those 11 who is not locked into the Playoffs due to his win being encumbered due to failing post-race inspection. He does, however, sit 10th in points with a fairly comfortable 76 point cushion on 16th place Erik Jones. With just 10 races to go in the regular season, we will most certainly see the intensity ramp up as every position at the end of every stage will be magnified from here on out.
This week the Monster Energy Cup Series travels back to Daytona for its second race of the year and the third of four restrictor plate races. From a fantasy perspective, we are back to looking for place differential upside for the most part as Daytona has one of the lowest correlations to starting position when looking at where drivers have finished. This will be the second race here and third plate race in which we have data for the new stages and place differential has definitely stood out. At the Talladega race, only three drivers who started inside the Top 10 finished there and only Daytona 500 winner Kurt Busch started inside the Top 10 and finished there in February here at Daytona.
With all that in mind, let's jump in and look at some of the top plays for Saturday night's race.
Daily Fantasy NASCAR: DraftKings DFS Lineup Picks - Coke Zero 400
Dale Earnhardt Jr. ($10,300)
He will start from the pole in his final Daytona race and while place differential points are king here, Dale Jr. is one driver starting inside the Top 10 that I will lean heavily on this week. His last pole at Daytona came in the summer race in 2015 where he went on to lead 96 laps and win the race. The #88 also posted the fastest speed in final practice.
A.J. Allmendinger ($6,500)
Allmendinger saw his price drop $3K after Sonoma and is even $400 below his season average making him a top value this week. He also qualified 27th and will provide some place differential points just like he did in February where he started 38th and finished fourth.
David Ragan ($5,200)
If you are playing some stars and scrubs lineups this week, strongly consider David Ragan who comes with some place differential upside and has a decent track history here at Daytona. He will start 30th and posted the 21st and 18th fastest speeds in practice. Ragan has raced at Daytona 21 times in his career winning once(July 2011) posting a career average of 19.9 and has finished 25th or better in five of his last six.
Kyle Busch ($9,600)
Despite not winning a race yet in the 2017 season, Kyle Busch has been a fantasy stud ranking third in average DraftKings points per race(51.9) for the season and second(59.8) over the last five races. He will have a great shot at keeping that streak up and possibly picking up the win as the #18 was fastest in the only practice they ran and qualified 6th giving them some place differential upside.
NASCAR DFS Cheat Sheet
Don't have the time to search multiple sites looking for NASCAR stats and data?
Check out my DFS NASCAR cheatsheet which includes Track History(2-Year Trend & Career), Track Type History(2-Year Trend), Current Form, Practice/Qualifying Data, and a weighted system to get an overall rank for each driver each race. Check out it now while it's still in BETA mode and FREE to everyone. Also, be sure to check out the Race by Race Trends Sheet.
DFS & Fantasy NASCAR Chat Room
If you have any questions leading up to the race hit me up in the chat below!
[iflychat_embed id="c-59" hide_user_list="yes" hide_popup_chat="no" height="400px"]
