RADIO
The second round of the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs is set to begin on Sunday night, as we head to Vegas for the South Point 400.
Joey Logano won the last time we were at this track, in a race dominated by Fords when it came to leading laps and that also featured some hugely unexpected results, as Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Bubba Wallace, and Ty Dillon all had top 10s. What'll happen this time?
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.
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NASCAR DFS Research for South Point 400
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 Vegas
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 $1,000 dollar salary. Basically, which drivers are projected to score the most fantasy points relative to their price. This can help you figure out how to maximize your projected fantasy points.
Looking at projected value on DraftKings and potential value plays, we see:
There's some really solid value plays this week based on projections. Stenhouse is the best of this bunch at 6.09 FP/$. He led 30 laps and finished third here earlier in the year, and has top 10s in two of his last Vegas races. And he starts 33rd, which offers a lot of place differential upside.
In fact, if things at this track go like they did at the beginning of the year and we see a surprising top 10 at the end, there's value galore because of the way the starting lineup puts the playoff drivers in the top 12. Ryan Newman and Christopher Bell both start deeper than 25th in the field. Ty Dillon starts 24th after a top 10 here last time.
The only play of these to definitely stay away from is Michael McDowell. He starts 17th and while he's had some good runs this year, the place differential risk here is just too great when there are better plays priced around him.
Vegas 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 Vegas ratings for the top FanDuel drivers this week:
Surprise! Kevin Harvick -- who is having the most dominant season since, what, late 90s Jeff Gordon? -- outruns everyone at Vegas. He's the obvious choice to be your lineup anchor.
But...too obvious? Mabe you want to save a little and grab the winner in the spring here, Joey Logano, whose 118.0 recent and 113.4 long term rating here are both really strong.
Or maybe you go with Ryan Blaney, who has a 103.4 rating at 1.5 mile tracks in 2020 and is looking to end 2020 on a strong note after being knocked out of the playoffs in the first round?
Deeper in the pricing, Alex Bowman has a 97.4 rating this year at this track type. Tyler Reddick is at 83.3.
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Other Interesting Notes!
Here are some other things I found via the Research Station that I think y'all should know:
- Kevin Harvick has three finishes of 38th or worse in his last 10 Vegas races.
- Our projects for how much a player will be rostered on DraftKings have Martin Truex Jr. leading the way at 42 percent. Brad Keselowski and Denny Hamlin are both set to be under-used while offering decent place differential upside.
- Keselowski is the only driver to complete 100 percent of the laps at 1.5 mile tracks this year. I'm telling you -- Keselowski can easily pull off the victory in this one.
- He does only have a top five in 27 percent of the 1.5 mile races, though, behind Harvick, Hamlin, Kyle Busch, and Ryan Blaney.
- Tyler Reddick has a top 15 in 73 percent of the 1.5 mile races this year.
- Back to Keselowski, whose average finish here recently is 3.7 spots under his average finish, and his intermediate track driver rating is six percent worse than his overall driver rating.
- Drivers whose intermediate ratings are at least five percent better than their average: Kurt Busch, Alex Bowman, and Austin Dillon (10 percent better!!).
NASCAR DFS News and Driver Outlooks
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