If today’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Dover Motor Speedway (3:00 p.m. ET, FS1) is anything like practice, then we’re in for a wild ride during today’s DuraMAX Drydene 400.
Five cars got into practice incidents in an extremely abbreviated session. As a result, four cars, including William Byron, Harrison Burton, Todd Gilliland, and Josh Bilicki, will start at the rear of the field.
Byron, Burton, and Gilliland are all in consideration as solid cash game plays and will be used heavily in tournaments as well.
As a result, I’m going to look elsewhere for my other top plays for today’s NASCAR DFS slate.
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 150 lineups, or use our Lineup Builder if you like to hand-build your lineups.
Let’s jump into today’s NASCAR DFS picks for the GEICO 500.
DuraMAX Drydene 400 DraftKings DFS Cash Game Picks
The biggest decision for today’s race in cash games comes down to Chase Elliott vs. Kyle Larson.
Personally, I prefer Chase Elliott ($11,300) if you have to choose between the two. That’s for three reasons.
- Elliott is $500 cheaper.
- Elliott starts one spot farther back than Larson, giving him a touch more safety and upside.
- Elliott likely has an easier path to early laps led by starting on the preferred outside line.
There is also an avenue where you can start the trio of Elliott, Larson, and Byron, but you’ll have to pair them with three drivers priced $5500 or less if you plan on also starting Burton and Gilliland. However, this is a viable route to take with the potential for plenty of spins and attrition.
If you plan on only using one of Elliott or Larson, I suggest pairing your choice with Kevin Harvick ($9300). Harvick is incredibly consistent at Dover. He has finished inside the top six in each of the last seven starts at the track.
The veteran driver is happy with his car in race trim, and a happy Harvick makes for a fast Harvick.
DuraMAX Drydene 400 DraftKings DFS Tournament Picks
Kyle Busch ($9100): When people look at top dominators for today’s race, they’ll gravitate toward the drivers with amazing records here. That means Larson and Elliott, as well as Harvick and Martin Truex, Jr. Also, Denny Hamlin starts on the front row, so he could draw some usage simply because he starts so close to the lead.
If we throw in William Byron, who will be in plenty of lineups thanks to his 33rd place starting spot, that leaves little room for lots of other highly-priced drivers.
Enter Kyle Busch. The two-time series champion posted the fifth-best 10-lap average in practice. He was also only 0.056 seconds per lap slower than Elliott over 20 consecutive laps in practice. I’ll take the gamble on an aggressive Rowdy Busch in a race that could have plenty of restarts.
Brad Keselowski ($7700): The 2012 series champion showed plenty of speed in the lone practice session on Saturday. Keselowski posted the fastest five-lap average but failed to make a longer run.
However, there are indications the team as a whole can be fast.
His teammate, Chris Buescher, qualified on the pole. Buescher also clocked a 10-lap average that put him in 10th in practice.
Dover isn’t known as a super strong Keselowski track, but it also isn’t a bad one. His driver rating at Dover is right about equal to his average driver rating on a year-by-year basis.
In a week where plenty of top drivers should be heavily played, the middle-tier drivers could be under-utilized. My projections say Keselowski will be only used in approximately 15% of lineups, while he’s closer to 20% played optimally.
DuraMAX Drydene 400 DraftKings DFS Paul Menard Pick of the Week
I’m double-dipping in the mid-tier driver well for my PMPOTW.
Christopher Bell ($8100) has drawn next to no attention per my metrics. He enters the race as the driver with the biggest gap between projected usage and projected performance in my model.
People may look toward a couple of negative points and shy away from him.
In practice, his 10-lap average placed 17th out of 18 cars. However, we can ignore that 10-lap average as one lap was compromised, causing a faulty data point. Instead, let’s look at Bell’s sixth-best speed over five consecutive laps out of 28 cars.
Next, Bell has had lackluster results in the Cup Series at Dover. People will see that and fail to look at the bigger picture. First, it’s only a three-race sample size. Second, he was dominant at Dover in the lower series.
Bell won twice and tacked on a fourth-place finish in his three XFINITY Series starts. In the truck series, he finished third in his lone incident-free start.
I absolutely love Bell this weekend, and I’d suggest playing him in 25% of your lineups in big tournament settings. That will get you plenty of leverage relative to the field on a driver with top-five upside.
