Daily Fantasy NASCAR: Coke Zero 400 Recap

July 6, 2015

The race was delayed for nearly two and a half hours but that didn't stop Dale Earnhardt Jr. from dominating at Daytona International Speedway. He had the pole position, leading the pack to the green flag and dominated the race leading 96 laps. Running up front for the entire race proved to be a good strategy as there were multiple wrecks during the race.

The worst of the wrecks happened as the #88 crossed the finish line during the Green-White-Checkered finish. Denny Hamlin, fighting for the win, got turned at the finish line catching Austin Dillon's car and sending him flying through the air and into the catch fence. Thankfully for everyone involved, including the fans, no one was hurt seriously.

The Hendrick Motorsports team as a whole had a terrific day at Daytona. Jimmie Johnson was the the second fastest car on the track all race, leading 35 laps and finishing in second place. Jeff Gordon, in his final Daytona race, finished in the sixth position and consistently ran inside the top 10 the entire race. Kasey Kahne spent most of the race inside the top 15 but had some issues late leaving him with a 32nd place finish. All in all a great day for the team.

When reviewing DraftKings this week it turned out to be the perfect week for stars and scrubs. With qualifying being rained out and the wreck in practice which cut track time down, this put some elite drivers near the back to start the race. This made it easy to choose guys like Hamlin, Harvick, and Gordon who gathered plenty of place differential and pass differential points.

A strategy, which most GPP players are employing for NASCAR, is rostering three star drivers and two scrub drivers. This strategy proved again to be successful as the winning lineup for the DraftKings Pedal to the Metal was made of Harvick, Hamlin, Dale Jr, Cassill, and Bowman. The lower end guys were both less than 10% owned and recorded 30+ points. Look for this strategy to pay off again next week at Kentucky.

Coke Zero 400 Top 10 Finishers

1. #88 Dale Earnhardt Jr.
2. #48 Jimmie Johnson
3. #11 Denny Hamlin
4. #4 Kevin Harvick
5. #41 Kurt Busch
6. #24 Jeff Gordon
7. #3 Austin Dillon
8. #31 Ryan Newman
9. #6 Trevor Bayne
10. #15 Clint Bowyer

The next race on the schedule is the Quaker State 400 presented by Advance Auto Parts and held at Kentucky Speedway. Kentucky has been on the Sprint Cup Series schedule since the summer of 2011 where Kyle Busch won the inaugural race.

It is a split decision from the drivers as to those who like the track and those who hate it. It is one of the roughest on the circuit making it very challenging in the corners. When looking at track statistics over the previous four races here, you can easily pick out the driver who love or hate this track.

Check back Thursday for the full race preview and picks for the Quaker State 400...