DraftKings NASCAR DFS Picks for Martinsville: Fantasy NASCAR Strategy and Picks for the Xfinity 500

Martinsville plays host to the penultimate race of the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season.

Joey Logano and Tyler Reddick are locked into the championship race, leaving Christopher Bell, William Byron, Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin, Ryan Blaney, and Chase Elliott vying for the final two spots. And in the ultimate twist of fate, it just so happens that the six drivers trying to claim the final two championship places are all Martinsville winners since the 2020 season.

That’s perfectly reflected in my win-probability model, with those six drivers as the six with the highest odds of winning the race. Here are my model’s win percentages for the top seven drivers after we add in polesitter Martin Truex Jr.

• Bell 10.97%
• Elliott 10.14%
• Blaney 9.64%
• Byron 8.97%
• Larson 8.72%
• Hamlin 8.44%
• Truex 6.99%

In other words, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

I know that’s not helpful, but we have to be honest with ourselves when playing DFS and understand when we just don’t know what’s going to happen.

In practice Denny Hamlin had a crazy fast car. But he hit the wall and starts dead last. Do we weigh his practice data more? Do we worry about him going a lap down early? The model is hedging and putting him at the tail end of the six playoff drivers not locked into Phoenix, otherwise he’d likely be the favorite.

Are we really sure Chase Elliott should be the betting favorite? After all, he doesn’t start on the pole (Truex does), Bell had better practice results, and Blaney looked best on the long run in practice. But we can’t fully ignore the betting market, which pegs Elliott as the favorite.

Meanwhile, Byron has won two recent Martinsville races, and Larson is the class of the series.

It’s all a mess.

I’d consider just trying to project ownership and fade that, but even then it’s a fool’s errand. Martinsville can be a track-position game, meaning if you catch a caution at the right time or switch up strategies, you can find yourself in the lead and potentially hold it for a while.

That may be especially true with the new tire combination, which did produce falloff. But will it be enough to change pit strategies at different caution timings or not?

I honestly don’t know.

So with that said, I guess it’s time to remind you all 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 the Xfinity 500 at Martinsville Speedway.

Martinsville DraftKings DFS Cash Game Picks

Christopher Bell ($10,300): Bell is in that nice safe spot of starting 16th, so he’s not in danger of going a lap down early like Denny Hamlin, but he’s also starting far enough back relative to his practice speed (fastest long run speed) that he’s in a great spot to move forward.

Bell is also likely to play the points game, given that he just needs to maintain his points lead to advance, so he’s not likely to take a risky strategy that could end up in a disastrous finish.

Chris Buescher ($7500): We’re getting a nice discount on Buescher this week compared to most, and his 26th-place starting position makes it unlikely he goes a lap down too quickly. Buescher has finished inside the top 15 in four of five Martinsville races in the Next Gen era.

Bubba Wallace ($7800): Wallace to finish inside the top 10 was the Victory Lane pick on the Running Hot podcast that RotoGrinders’ Steven Young and I record each week.

By starting 19th, there’s plenty of place differential available for a driver that’s finished 11th or better in each of the last four races at this track.

Martinsville DraftKings DFS Tournament Picks

Ryan Blaney ($11,000): Blaney looked stellar in practice, displaying the least amount of tire falloff between the contenders from his 10 to 30-lap averages. The difference between he and Larson? Blaney was faster throughout, so if the falloff is same, take the faster driver.

A Second/Third High Dollar Driver: Truex, Elliott, Byron, and Larson are all in play based off practice times and starting spots, after Bell and Blaney who are my two favorites in all formats. That said, I think Bell may be a bit conservative given the playoff scenario he finds himself in, so you may want to consider your second dominator from the aforementioned group of four.

That doesn’t rule out Denny Hamlin from your lineups, it just makes it hard for him to be a dominator after he starts dead last because he wrecked in practice. It does give him plenty of place-differential potential, but with 500 laps to run, there’s 300-plus dominator points available. If Hamlin is unlikely to grab that working his way through the field, I’d rather just roll with the other four drivers of my top seven most likely to win in combination with Bell or Blaney.

Ryan Preece ($6900): A pure contrarian tournament play only, Preece actually posted the 17th-best overall lap average in practice despite being just one of three drivers to clock triple-digit laps.

Preece has a history of Martinsville success, leading the most laps in the spring of last year and finishing ninth earlier this year. Stewart-Haas Racing as a whole has found a great setup at this track, with Chase Briscoe, Josh Berry, and Aric Almirola as mid-tier drivers all showing race-winning upside despite not actually picking up a win here.