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The NASCAR Cup Series season officially kicks off on Thursday night with the two Bluegreen Vacations Duels. These races set the lineup for Sunday's Daytona 500 and also pay out points to the top 10 finishers.
The second Duel race is set to determine the outside row for the 500. It also determines one of the open spots for the 500, with B.J. McLeod and KazGrala battling for the final spot in the field from this Duel race.
Below are my NASCAR DFS lineup picks for the Bluegreen Vacations Duel No. 2 on DraftKings this week. This slate locks on 2/15/24 at 8:30 p.m. ET. If you have any questions or want to talk about NASCAR, you can find me on Twitter at @juscarts.
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DFS Lineup Picks - DraftKings
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Christopher Bell
Starts 16th - DK: $9,300
Place differential won't be quite as important on Thursday as it will be for the Truck, Xfinity, and Cup races this weekend, but at a track like this, it still factors in. I'd definitely prefer to play guys who start outside the top 10 if I can.
As mentioned, it's not unusual for Toyota to be off-pace in #Daytona500 qualifying, but:
P22 - Erik Jones
P26 - Martin Truex, Jr.
P28 - Bubba Wallace
P29 - Ty Gibbs
P32 - Christopher Bell
P34 - Denny Hamlin
P35 - Jimmie Johnson
P36 - Tyler Reddick
P39- JH Nemechek#NASCAR https://t.co/KQqzFjCRUP— Joseph Srigley (@joe_srigley) February 15, 2024
Let's start with Christopher Bell. A poor qualifying lap has him starting 16th in his 21-car field. Daytona's been hit-or-miss for Bell, but he led 20 laps in the Daytona 500 last year and finished third. He also has two runner-up finishes in the Duels, and he's never finished worse than ninth in a Duel.
Bubba Wallace
Starts 14th - DK: $9,100
Will this be the breakthrough season for Bubba Wallace? He failed to win a race in 2023 but made the playoffs and had a career-best points finish of 10th.
Wallace always seems to have speed at Daytona, even if he doesn't always put together the best finish. He's finished second at this track three different times in the Cup Series, but only has one other top 10 in his 10 other Daytona starts.
As far as his performance in the Duels goes, Wallace has been stellar. He hasn't won one, but he's run six of these races and has never finished lower than seventh.
Brad Keselowski
Starts 12th - DK: $8,800
Between Daytona and Talladega, Brad Keselowski has seven Cup Series wins on these giant, drafting-focused tracks, though he has yet to capture the biggest of them all: the Daytona 500.
Brad @keselowski's got jokes 😂
Are we talking about the new @FordPerformance body or...something else? 🙈
More live coverage at @DAYTONA → https://t.co/JaeiRPUXiS pic.twitter.com/8gMTMW4YLV
— SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Ch. 90) (@SiriusXMNASCAR) February 14, 2024
On Thursday, Keselowski will look to put himself in a good starting position for Sunday's race. It's something he's been pretty good at in his career, as he won his Duel race in 2022 and has finished in the top five in the Duels in three of the past four seasons.
A win on Thursday wouldn't count as an actual win to end Brad K's long winless streak, but it would be an encouraging sign that the former Cup Series champion might be able to break that streak at some point this season.
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John Hunter Nemechek
Starts 19th - DK: $8,000
After struggling in his lone Cup season in 2020, John Hunter Nemechek stepped down to the Truck Series. Now, he's back, piloting the No. 42 car for Legacy Motor Club as the team transitions to Toyota. LMC didn't look great in qualifying, but that just means there's nowhere to go but forward on Thursday night, right?
Nemechek has a lot of experience here at various levels. He's led double-digit laps in his last three Truck Series starts at the track and was second in last February's Xfinity Series race here. There's a lot of place differential upside for this No. 42 car, making him a solid value on Thursday night.
Zane Smith
Starts 18th - DK: $7,700
Zane Smith signed with Trackhouse in the offseason, but will technically be racing in a Spire-owned car this season. The 2022 Truck Series champion will look to make waves in his rookie season in the Cup Series for a team that's in the middle of rapidly expanding.
Smith ran the Daytona 500 last year for Front Row Motorsports, posting solid results as he finished eighth in his Duel race and 13th in the 500 itself. He's also a two-time winner here in the Truck Series, including last season's Truck Series race in which he led 17 laps on his way to victory lane. Smith's a really solid place differential play on Thursday night based on his past track record here, though I do worry some because the Spire cars didn't have a ton of speed in qualifying. Hopefully, they didn't overexpand too quickly.
Kaz Grala
Starts 21st - DK: $6,600
Unfortunately, Kaz Grala had a mechanical issue on his warm-up lap in qualifying, which kept him from getting to turn a lap at full speed. It's a shame because it could have easily been a lap that was fast enough to lock him into the field considering another Front Row Motorsports car won the pole.
Instead, Grala's got to race his way in. If he wants to make the Daytona 500, he's got to beat B.J. McLeod and David Ragan on Thursday night. Grala should be able to do that though, barring another mechanical issue. As I said, FRM cars have shown speed here, so Grala just needs to run a clean race and finish as the top open car.
Kaz Grala runs into trouble on his warm up lap and will not set a qualifying time.
Anthony Alfredo, as a result, is locked into the Daytona 500.
(Via @MrMatthew_CFB)pic.twitter.com/nJt74F8wDX
— NASCAR on Prime Video (@NASCARPrime) February 15, 2024
Grala has never finished better than 26th in a Cup Series race at Daytona, but he's recorded a top five in half of his Xfinity starts at this track and he won here in his lone Truck Series start.
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