DraftKings NASCAR DFS Picks for Talladega: Fantasy NASCAR Strategy and Picks for the Yellawood 500

The last drafting race of the NASCAR Cup Series season takes place Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway.

For cash games, the ideal strategy at these tracks is always to take non-backmarkers starting in the back. That means we’ll be looking to stash guys like Zane Smith, Carson Hocevar, Chase Briscoe, and Justin Haley in our cash-game lineups.

We really just want to find leverage spots for tournaments, given that the draft is the great equalizer and randomizer, so my picks will solely be based around that. Before we jump into my picks, don’t forget all my NASCAR projections can be found in the NASCAR Models on FantasyLabs, complete with floor, ceiling, median, and ownership projections.

Let’s not skip the best part — my Perfect% metric — a metric that tells you how often certain racers appear in the optimal lineup when running 10,000 race simulations.

And don’t forget about the tools that FantasyLabs has to offer, like our Lineup Optimizer to effortlessly create up to 300 lineups, or our Lineup Builder if you like to hand build your lineups.

Here are my NASCAR DFS picks for Sunday’s Yellawood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway.

Talladega DraftKings DFS Tournament Picks

Anthony Alfredo ($5400): Alfredo is in the Beard Motorsports car that Parker Retzlaff nearly won with back in August at Daytona — the other superspeedway. Both Alfredo and Beard Motorsports have put up strong superspeedway results overall, with Alfredo grabbing a sixth-place finish in this car in the first Talladega race, in addition to two other top-12 finishes in three total starts.

Beard Motorsports has seen Alfredo, Retzlaff, Noah Gragson and Brendan Gaughan pilot their cars to top-eight finishes at superspeedway tracks since they started racing at these tracks year-in and year-out in 2017.

I’m projecting Alfredo to be on around 15% of rosters, but I have his Perfect% north of 25%.

Chris Buescher ($8600): Buescher is really popping in my model this week, and I have him optimally at 26% as he rolls off from the 20th-place starting spot. Especially at a calmer superspeedway race like the Talladega playoff race, I’m willing to dip into that top 20 if I really think a driver is not going to be as highly rostered as he should be. And given Buescher has the eighth-most laps led over the last 12 drafting track races, a finish near the front is in order if he avoids trouble.

Carson Hocevar and Zane Smith ($6100 and 5500): The Spire Motorsports teammates will likely be less rostered than their more-heralded (and new) teammate Justin Haley. But that’s a mistake, according to my projections.

Hocevar and Smith are in the same equipment as Haley, and with the draft as the great equalizer, they’re nearly as likely to perform as well as Haley. Give them the added two and four place-differential spots for Hocevar and Smith, respectively over Haley, and that gives them the projection nod over their veteran teammate. Hocevar and Smith are two of the four drivers my projections have above 30% optimal.

Talladega DraftKings DFS Paul Menard Pick of the Week

Ty Gibbs is in top-tier equipment and has finally picked up his first top-five finish at a superspeedway, finishing fifth at the most recent superspeedway race at Daytona.

Gibbs projects to be in just shy of 10% of lineups, but I have his optimal closer to 13%. As the driver with the best projected leverage starting inside the top 17 positions and starting nearly as far back as possible in that top 17 in 15th, Gibbs makes for a fine DFS play at closer to 15-20% to get some leverage on the field.