Welcome back for another week of daily fantasy NASCAR with Rotoballer. This week the Monster Energy Cup series travels to Talladega, Alabama for the Geico 500 this Sunday. Talladega is the second superspeedway race of the season(Daytona 500 the other) and that means a completely different strategy than we have used over the past eight weeks. We normally see multiple drivers lead laps and few who dominate in that area due to the high speeds and drafting between multiple cars. The strategy to capitalize our upside this week will be finding drivers who enter the race with place differential upside. The field at superspeedways really opens up for fantasy as some of the smaller teams and less competitive cars at other tracks have a real shot at grabbing a win or at least a high-end finish.
To make things even more interesting this week, the teams were only able to get in one practice on Friday due to rain and it was a mixed bag of results. Some teams like the #48 made single car runs while the Ford camp went into practice with a strategy to draft together. Qualifying is now over so let's jump into my top picks for the week.
Daily Fantasy NASCAR: DraftKings DFS Lineup Picks - Geico 500
Joey Logano ($10,700)
He comes in third in my overall model and it is in large part to his elite superspeedway form over the last two years. Not only has he won two of the last three races here at Dega, he has also finished 6th or better in three straight Daytona races and won the Daytona 500 in 2015. He is the most expensive driver this week and this might help keep hm out of the Top 3-5 in salary and starting 12th, he also comes with place differential value.
Jimmie Johnson ($9,700)
I m going to go ahead and assume DraftKings is using track history in their salary model as seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson remains in the sub $10K range this week. I get that he has only two Top 10's since his last win here in 2011 but he is the top driver in the series(sorry young guns your time is comig) and has one of the best crew chiefs in the sport. After a slow start to the season, he has now found his top form winning twice in the last three races. Best of all, he starts 30th and comes with elite place differential value. He will be chalky so there is definitely a case to be made in fading him for GPP's but is the #1 pick overall.
Austin Dillon ($7,700)
At a price under $8K this week, Dillon is a top pick in all formats. He entered the 2016 season with average history here at Talladega and then it seemed a light bulb came on and as he has excelled here in the draft last year. He finished both races inside the Top 10 with a career-high third in this Spring race. He starts 18th this week which justs adds to his overall value with plus place differential upside.
NASCAR DFS Cheat Sheet
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DFS & Fantasy NASCAR Chat Room
If you have any questions leading up to the race hit me up in the chat below!
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The Keys to Weekly NASCAR DFS Success
NASCAR is back, and it's time for you to win big with RotoBaller! Our DFS NASCAR Premium Package features several heavy hitters and proven winners.Sean Engel recently won his 7th career DFS tournament, and had the top lineup in seven contests and 10 top-two finishes. Be sure to use his weekly NASCAR DFS rankings and DFS lineup picks, updated regularly.
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