Coming off another huge week in NASCAR where the Ryan Blaney entered Victory Lane for the first time in his career and gave the Wood Brothers their 99th win in NASCAR. We have now seen 10 winners in 14 races and still one from Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick, Matt Kenseth and other notables. It is going to be a very intriguing final 12 races of the regular season. Let's jump into this week's race analysis and picks.
The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup series travels to Michigan International Speedway this weekend for the FireKeepers Cassino 400. The track is a two-mile intermediate track that is D-Shaped Oval and very comparable to Auto Club Speedway. The difference in Michigan is there are four degrees more banking and more grip in the track which produces speeds over 200 mph.
From a fantasy perspective, there are only 200 total laps which limit the weight put on dominator drivers. Looking at the last six races, only two drivers have led over 100 laps and last fall we saw four drivers who had between 30 and 50 laps led. Place Differential isn't an easy calculation this week either as we see a high correlation to starting position. Let's factor both and take a look at some of this week's top plays.
Daily Fantasy NASCAR: DraftKings DFS Lineup Picks - AAA 400 Drive for Autism
Kyle Larson ($10,200)
He won the pole for the race tomorrow and then went out and posted the fastest 10-lap average in final practice. If anyone has a shot at leading the most laps and winning the race it's Kyle Larson who won his first career race here back in August.
Brad Keselowski ($9,700)
He ranks #1 on my overall model this week and it has a lot to do with his track history. He has yet to win a race here but has finished each of the last six races at MIS inside the Top 10 and has a 5.5 average finish over the last two years. He also provides some place differential value starting 12th and posted the fastest lap in final practice and fourth fastest 10-lap average.
Clint Bowyer ($6,800)
Looking at the trends sheet, we see Bowyer's price dropped an astounding $1,800 from last week and is just under $1,500 less than his season average. While the elite buy low situation should create high ownership, he did qualify third which should keep him out of the Top 5 making him a nice GPP play this week.
TY Dillon ($6,100)
The chalk play of the week! Dillon originally qualified 12th which was later not allowed as he got a penalty from NASCAR for an unapproved body mod and will start from the rear. This gives him nice place differential value as he posted the 26th fastest speeds in both final practices. I wouldn't hesitate to use him in cash games but wouldn't go overwieght in GPP's and might even fade in most of my lineups.
NASCAR DFS Cheat Sheet
Don't have the time to search multiple sites looking for NASCAR stats and data?
Check out my DFS NASCAR cheatsheet which includes Track History(2-Year Trend & Career), Track Type History(2-Year Trend), Current Form, Practice/Qualifying Data, and a weighted system to get an overall rank for each driver each race. Check out it now while it's still in BETA mode and FREE to everyone. Also, be sure to check out the Race by Race Trends Sheet.
DFS & Fantasy NASCAR Chat Room
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