DraftKings NASCAR DFS Picks for Phoenix: Fantasy NASCAR Strategy and Picks for the Shriners Children’s 500

Phoenix Raceway plays host to the first non-drafting oval of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season. And with it comes a bit of a wrinkle; NASCAR and Goodyear are bringing the option tire, meaning teams will have two different tire compounds to choose from.

The option tire is more grippy, leading to faster speeds, but it does fall off more on the long run. However, it will definitely be the preferred tire, especially late in the race for its added short-run speed.

That said, teams will only have two sets of option tires, so they need to still be strong on the primary tire to put themselves in position to take advantage of the option tire late.

NASCAR held a 45-minute practice session, where all the drivers got to practice on both sets of tires. That gives us plenty of data to use, and I’ll lean on my practice FLAGS metric to help us evaluate practice.

As always, you can check out my NASCAR projections in the NASCAR Models on FantasyLabs, complete with floor, ceiling, median, and ownership projections.

My projections, along with Stephen Young’s from RotoGrinders, are available in our new NASCAR DFS package. You can read more about what the package entails here.

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.

So, without further ado, here’s my strategy guide and NASCAR and DFS picks for the Shriners Children’s 500 at Phoenix Raceway.

Shriners Children’s 500 DraftKings DFS Core Picks

Instead of calling them cash-game picks, I’ll call them core picks, as these are picks I like in all formats. However, it’s important to note that very often core picks tend to go over-rostered in tournaments, so while they should still be used plenty, it may be prudent to sometimes go underweight on these drivers if you think they’ll be significantly over-rostered.

Ryan Blaney ($10,800): Blaney has, by far, had the best stats at Phoenix Raceway in the Next Gen era. Over six races, he has an average finish of 2.8 with all six finishes inside the top five.

And Blaney was the man to beat in practice, posting the fastest FLAGS on the primary tire and the second-fastest FLAGS on the option tire.

Chase Briscoe ($9000): Briscoe had a rough practice and qualifying, as his team had to work on his left rear at the start of practice, and then he qualified just 30th.

However, Phoenix is one of Briscoe’s best tracks, and he did show speed on the option tire, ranking fourth in FLAGS on that tire. By virtue of that 30th-place starting spot, Briscoe has a huge floor and ceiling thanks to place-differential points.

A Dominator: With 312 laps scheduled, you’ll definitely need a dominator in your lineup. The question is…who?

William Byron starts on pole, but Joey Logano, who has won the NASCAR Championship at Phoenix two times, starts alongside him.

That said, Kyle Larson was tops in FLAGS on the option tire.

And we can’t leave out last year’s dominant driver, Christopher Bell, who had the best car at the first Phoenix race last year and arguably the second one as well.

I think you have to roll with either Byron or Logano, given that they’ll lead the early laps and both were strong in FLAGS on both types of tires. Given Byron starts on the pole and is $200 cheaper, I’ll take him as my core dominator play.

Shriners Children’s 500 DraftKings DFS Tournament Picks

The Other Dominators: Those same drivers I mentioned above all have dominator potential, and they should certainly be in a solid chunk of your multi-lineup portfolio in tournaments.

I particularly like Larson who, as I mentioned, was fastest in practice FLAGS on the option tire while also ranking first of the six cars on the primary tire in FLAGS among those who started on that harder compound.

The Other Place Differential Options: Aside from Chase Briscoe, Daniel Suarez, Alex Bowman, and Ty Gibbs all qualified 30th or worse and are priced between $7100 and $8200.

Gibbs practiced the weakest of the three, but he has the best track history, while Bowman was a top-seven car in FLAGS on the primary tire.

I’ll take the upside of Bowman here for tournaments, but all three will be chalky tournament options.

Zane Smith ($5500): Smith was the best in practice on the option tires among drivers priced under $7000, yet he starts 26th at a price tag of just $5500 and is fourth in this price range behind Erik Jones, Noah Gragson, and A.J. Allmendinger on the primary tire.

All four drivers were extremely close on the primary, so Zane gets the nod thanks to his 26th-place starting position.

Gragson does start 33rd, but he’ll cost you $1300 more, so Smith is my favorite cheap play in tournament formats.

Shriners Children’s 500 DraftKings DFS Paul Menard Pick of the Week

I actually don’t have a PMPOTW this week, as I think this slate is littered with multiple 15-25% options that all make sense.

That said, Chase Elliott is the driver that shows the biggest difference between his Perfect% and his projected usage, so I certainly don’t mind if you want to play him around that Perfect% number in a multi-entry portfolio.