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After four straight finishes of second or third, Kyle Busch finally broke through last week with his first win of the season in Texas. In doing so, he also increased his lead in the overall points standings and locked himself into the playoffs and on top of that he also took over the lead when looking at fantasy points per race(71.9).
This week the Monster Energy Cup Series travels to The Last Great Coliseum, Bristol Motor Speedway, for the Food City 500 this Sunday. With rain in the forecast, the race has been moved up to 1:00 p.m. ET so hopefully they can get the entire race in without delay. It is the second short track race of the season but don't look too much into the first race as Martinsville and Bristol are much different. Bristol is a high banked track while Martinsville is a flat paperclip track. One thing that is similar is the variance involved when playing fantasy as there will be a ton of bumping and banging. From a fantasy perspective, dominator points will be key once again this week with 500 laps available to lead and there have been two drivers to lead 100 or more in five straight races and one driver to lead 200 or more laps in four straight races. With that, let's jump into the top picks for the week.
Daily Fantasy NASCAR: DraftKings DFS Lineup Picks - Fodo City 500
Kyle Busch($11,300)
After three straight crashes here at Bristol, Kyle Busch picked up his sixth career win(leads all active drivers) in the August race last year leading 156 laps and leading all drivers with 145 DraftKings points. He beat his brother Kurt Busch out for the pole award on Friday and then ranked fourth and seventh in the final two practices and also had the fastest 10-lap average in final practice. He will likely start on the bottom groove and will have a terrific shot at leading a ton of laps and winning once again making him the top dominator target of the week.
Kevin Harvick($11,500)
After a terrible showing at Fontana where he finished 35th, Harvick has bounced back with back to back Top 5 finishes at Martinsville and Texas. He now comes back to Bristol where he has been very consistent lately with five straight Top 10's including a win in August of 2016. He will be in a backup car this week and qualified 39th which gives him elite place differential value. Coming through the field isn't as easy as Christopher Bell made it look in the Xfinity race yesterday but it will be hard to avoid the upside this week, especially in cash games. There is definitely a case to be made to fade him in GPP as the ownership will likely be around 40%-50%.
Erik Jones($8,300)
Jones finished 17th in this race last year then almost grabbed his first career win in August as he started from the pole, led 260 laps but came up one spot short and finished behind teammate Kyle Busch. On top of that, he had an excellent career here in the Xfinity series winning two of the last three races. This time around he provides some place differential value starting 13th and while he was 11th and 13th in the final two practices, he showed some upside finishing at the top of the 10-lap averages in the first Saturday practice. He is my top mid-range play this week.
David Ragan($5,400)
Dipping down into the punt range this week, one name that stands out above the rest is David Ragan. He qualified 23rd which is a bit risky but he has finished 23rd or better in three straight races here. What really stands out is his practice speeds as he was sixth in the first practice Saturday and followed that up by finishing at the top of the charts in final practice. He also showed some nice long run speed ranking third and 13th in 10-lap averages in those final two practices. He shoudl be considered in all formats this week.
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!
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