DraftKings NASCAR DFS Picks for Bristol: Fantasy NASCAR DFS Strategy and Picks for the Food City 500

Bristol Motor Speedway is the site for 500 laps of short-track racing for Sunday’s NASCAR DFS slate.

Because there are 500 laps, getting multiple dominators is going to be the move we make, so I’ll make sure to have a list of my top dominator plays, as we’ll want a minimum of two and often three dominators in our tournament lineups.

I should say, because of the odd practice where the resin was coming up, it’s going to be hard to use practice to feel confident about picks, so if there was ever a week to play down on volume, I’d recommend it be this week, as I’m not super confident in what to expect today.

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 the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Bristol DraftKings DFS Cash Game Strategy

For cash games, we absolutely need to raise our floor and pick multiple dominators, which is why you’ll see me leaving off Chris Buescher and possibly even Ross Chastain, who both have strong track histories but start 34th and 36th. Of the two, I easily prefer Chastain thanks to his practice times, cheaper salary, and two extra spots of place differential.

Instead, Ryan Blaney ($10,500) is the top option for all formats, as he had the fastest single lap time, as well as five, 10, 15, 20, and 25-lap averages from Group A.

We’ll also want Chase Elliott ($8300), as he is priced down this week but has always been strong at Bristol and had the best overall lap average times from Group B.

We can also turn to Carson Hocevar ($5800) as a super-cheap option, as he has top-10 upside but overdrove the car in qualifying and starts 35th, giving us a ton of place-differential potential for near rock-bottom price.

Bristol DraftKings DFS Tournament Strategy

Here are my top dominator options for tournaments:

1. Ryan Blaney
2. Denny Hamlin
3. Kyle Larson
4. Chase Elliott
5. Christopher Bell
6. Brad Keselowski

All are viable for tournament lineups, as we’ll want 2-3 of this core six in most of our lineups. In addition, we’ll need to supplement them with some solid pivot options.

Three guys I ended up on frequently in hand builds are Ty Gibbs ($8000), Erik Jones ($7200), and Noah Gragson ($6700). All three have solid track history, but they will probably be overlooked for cheaper punt options as well as someone like Ross Chastain in a more boom-bust style lineup.

Gibbs especially may go lower owned thanks to hitting the wall in practice and people being concerned about his car. And with Gragson, it’s likely people turn to Ricky Stenhouse Jr. or A.J. Allmendinger as cheaper options with strong track histories starting farther back. But Gragson himself is great at Bristol and should be considered to have top-10 upside while still starting 22nd.

Finally, Jones is my Paul Menard Pick of the Week, as I expect him to have the lowest usage of this trio thanks to poor recent track history. However, that was while he was with Chevy, but now that his team is back with Toyota, I expect Jones to be capable of putting up finishes in line with his frequent top-eight finishes in his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota days.

One other note, I don’t mind using Justin Haley ($5200) as a punt option. He had mid-pack practice times in Group A, and in two of the last five years a super punt has been needed for the optimal lineup at Bristol thanks to the top-dollar drivers gobbling up the fastest lap and laps led dominator points with 500 laps to do so.