April 27, 2025
Chase Elliott of Hendrick Motorsports will start 30th after qualifying for Sunday's Jack Link's 500. This marks the lowest-ever Cup Series starting position for the No. 9 Chevrolet driver at the Alabama track. In 18 Cup starts in his career at Talladega, Elliott has 13 top-20 finishes, with eight inside the top 10, and two wins. Through nine races so far this year, Elliott has five top-10 finishes, an average finish of 11.6, and remains the only driver to place in the top 20 in all Cup events. Elliott has incredible upside from his starting position, and with Talladega being one of his more favorable tracks historically, he should be one of the first drivers to consider rostering in all formats this week.
--Sean Engel - RotoBallerSource: DriverAverages.com
April 27, 2025
Team Penske's Joey Logano will start third for the Jack Link's 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. This marks the fifth consecutive race where Logano has a top-10 starting position at the site. In 32 starts at Talladega, Logano has three wins, 11 top-10 finishes, and 509 laps led, which is the most of all active drivers in the field. With nine races completed so far this season, Logano has one top-10 finish, despite leading multiple laps in five different events. Logano will likely find his way to the front at some point and lead laps based on his overall speed in the past at drafting tracks. However, Joey has yet to finish inside the top 10 with the Next-Gen car at Talladega. DFS players should only consider rostering Logano for tournament games, but even then, he is a massive Place Differential risk and should not be rostered due to his finishing history at Talladega.
--Sean Engel - RotoBallerSource: DriverAverages.com
April 27, 2025
Bubba Wallace of 23XI Racing obtained a starting position of 20th for Sunday's race at Talladega Superspeedway. This will be the third time since 2022 that Wallace will start a race 20th or lower at the Alabama track. In 14 starts at Talladega in his Cup career, Wallace has eight top-20 finishes, including a win in 2021, and a top-10 in his last appearance at the site in October 2024. Through nine races so far this season, Wallace has five top-20 finishes and an average finish of 17.9. Bubba has solid upside based on his starting position, and he is typically very fast at drafting-based tracks. DFS players should utilize the No. 23 Toyota driver in all DFS formats, as he is a quality driver capable of placing in the top 10.
--Sean Engel - RotoBallerSource: DriverAverages.com
April 27, 2025
Christopher Bell of Joe Gibbs Racing will start 11th for Sunday's Jack Link's 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. It will be the eighth time in his Cup career that he will start inside the top 15 at Talladega. In 10 previous starts at the Alabama track, Bell has three top-10 finishes, including his last appearance during the October 2024 Cup event, where he went on to place sixth. So far, after nine races this season, Bell has three wins, including Atlanta, another drafting-based track like Talladega, six top-10 finishes, and an average finish of 9.8. Bell's upside is lower compared to most drivers this week due to his starting position, but he is a solid performer at drafting tracks overall in his Cup career. As a result, Bell is worth consideration for tournament lineups only, especially due to his equipment, which is capable of placing in the top 10.
--Sean Engel - RotoBallerSource: DriverAverages.com
April 27, 2025
Team Penske's Austin Cindric will start seventh after qualifying for the Jack Link's 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. It will be the fourth consecutive Talladega race where Cindric will have a top-10 starting position. In six previous races at the site, Cindric has two top-10 finishes, but he also led 15 or more laps in each of the last three. Through nine races so far this season, Cindric has six top-20 finishes with only two inside the top 10. This includes an eighth-place run at Daytona, where he led the most laps (59). Cindric will have speed as he is a part of arguably the fastest team at drafting tracks over the past few seasons. However, his starting position leaves little upside, making him a DFS risk only worth rostering in tournament lineups.
--Sean Engel - RotoBallerSource: DriverAverages.com
April 27, 2025
Trackhouse Racing's Shane Van Gisbergen will start 36th for Sunday's Jack Link's 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. It is a new career-worst starting position for Van Gisbergen at the site, as well as his first race there where he will start outside of the top 30. In two previous starts at Talladega in the Cup Series, Van Gisbergen has two top-30 finishes, including a top-15 in his last race there. After nine races this season, SVG has two top-20 finishes and scored positive Place Differential four times. Fantasy players should feel great about SVG as a DFS value option this week. The No. 88 Chevrolet driver has plenty of upside and has never finished worse than 28th at Talladega. SVG is a solid choice that is playable in all formats for this week's race.
--Sean Engel - RotoBallerSource: DriverAverages.com
April 27, 2025
Austin Dillon of Richard Childress Racing starts in the fifth position for the Jack Link's 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. It will mark the fifth time in his Cup Series career that Dillon will start inside the top five at the site, with his last top-5 start coming from last year's April race. In 23 starts at Talladega, Dillon has six top-10 finishes, including his last appearance at the Alabama track in October 2024, where he went on to place eighth. In the first nine races this year, Dillon has five top-20 finishes with only one top-10 finish. Despite his team's reputation for bringing faster cars than most at drafting-based tracks, Dillon is not viable for DFS outside of tournament games. This is particularly due to his high starting position, which makes him one of the riskiest DFS options of the week and not a general recommendation.
--Sean Engel - RotoBallerSource: DriverAverages.com
April 27, 2025
Josh Berry of Wood Brothers Racing will start eighth for the Jack Link's 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. This starting position is a new career-best as well as his first top-10 starting spot for Berry at Talladega. In two past starts at the Alabama track, Berry has a best finish of 16th, which he obtained in this exact race one year ago. With nine races completed this season, Berry has one win and two top-10 finishes. As Berry will start in the eighth position, he has little upside from his starting position, making him a driver to avoid in DFS overall, especially as his history at drafting tracks has not been great.
--Sean Engel - RotoBallerSource: DriverAverages.com
April 27, 2025
Spire Motorsports driver Michael McDowell will start 14th for this week's race at Talladega Superspeedway, the Jack Link's 500. This will mark the fourth consecutive week this season where McDowell will start a race inside the top 15. In 28 prior Talladega races, McDowell has eight top-20 finishes, including four of the last eight Cup events at the site. In the first nine races of the 2025 season, McDowell has six top-20 finishes, including top-15s at Daytona and Talladega earlier in the year. McDowell's starting position does make him better suited for tournament lineups compared to most in his salary range due to his lower upside. However, McDowell is worth taking a shot due to his overall positive history at tracks that involve drafting.
--Sean Engel - RotoBallerSource: DriverAverages.com
April 27, 2025
Noah Gragson of Front Row Motorsports acquired a starting position of 27th after qualifying for the Jack Link's 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. This will mark the fourth time in his Cup career that he will start better than 30th at Talladega. In five previous Cup starts at the Alabama track, Gragson has three top-20 finishes while scoring positive Place Differential twice. Through nine races this season, Gragson has three top-20 finishes, an average finish of 23.8, and five finishes with positive PD. Gragson has high upside based on his starting position for this week's race, and although he displayed mixed results in Cup at the site, his new team, Front Row Motorsports, usually brings fast cars to Talladega. Gragson is playable in all formats, but is especially recommended in tournament games as he will carry lower rostership due to his mixed Talladega history.
--Sean Engel - RotoBallerSource: DriverAverages.com
April 27, 2025
While Denny Hamlin was arguably the best drafting track driver in the Gen-6 era of NASCAR, he hasn't seemed to have the same speed with the Next Gen chassis on these tracks. Since 2020, he's had an odd streak where he has finished outside the top ten in each of the last four spring races but finished inside the top ten in the last six fall races. However, it would be foolish to base any predictions on that likely random trend. Much like Alex Bowman and his teammate Chase Briscoe, Hamlin's value is likely limited because he qualified too well to earn many Place Differential points but too poorly to likely dominate, although admittedly he is more likely to dominant than Bowman or Briscoe. Since almost all the other top stars either qualified worse or are more likely to dominate (the Penske cars), there are too many better options to justify starting Hamlin.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
April 27, 2025
Kyle Larson has become something of an agent of chaos in NASCAR as he can either dominate a race or crash anywhere and no one is surprised by either. Whenever he crashes (as he did two days ago in Indy 500 practice) there's always a lot of social media hubbub mocking people who call him the greatest driver in the world. As a result, he probably enters this race undervalued, particularly because he qualified 25th and doesn't have many great finishes at Talladega even though he's had a lot of speed in the past. Although he probably won't be one of the race's dominators, Larson is always worth starting when he qualifies this poorly since he could theoretically win anywhere even though he hasn't at Talladega yet. The fact that so many fans are underrating him because they think he's bad due to his crashing makes him even more valuable.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
April 27, 2025
Although Kyle Busch seems to have faded from regular contention recently, he earned a somewhat surprising second-place qualifying run at Talladega, his best since Dover nearly one year ago. Talladega is the site of his penultimate win two years ago, but that race had more to do with the brilliant pit strategy he called himself than his race speed. Nonetheless, he's really good at leading at Talladega. You might not have noticed since he had a 15-year winless streak between his two wins there, but he has led a lap in all but four Talladega races since 2007. However, he has only led more than 12 laps once since 2010, which suggests he isn't likely to lead enough to justify using him for DFS play since he's starting so close to the front. However, since he is more likely to lead a lot than any of the other top starters except for the Penske cars, he isn't a terrible option either.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
April
27,
2025
Tyler
Reddick
is
last
year's
defending
winner
at
Talladega,
but
he
kind
of
backed
into
it
as
the
crash
that
eliminated
most
of
his
fellow
Toyotas
after
they
had
pitted
but
before
anyone
else
had
allowed
Reddick
to
take
the
lead
read more...
April 27, 2025
In a year when Trackhouse Racing has seemed to have lost a lot of speed, Daniel Suárez probably needs to place more emphasis on drafting tracks this year than in previous years since he is unlikely to have the speed to win anywhere else. He qualified 24th, highest of any of the three Trackhouse drivers. Considering some people think he might potentially be replaced by Connor Zilisch, who came one lap from winning yesterday's NASCAR Xfinity Series race, he might therefore be more motivated to perform in an attempt to lock himself into the playoffs like he did at Atlanta. Unfortunately, his record at Talladega is nowhere near as good as his record at Atlanta. He did earn three consecutive Talladega top tens relatively recently, but there are plenty of other drivers starting around or even behind Suárez who are better DFS options, starting with Suárez's teammate Ross Chastain.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
RADIO
