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NASCAR returns to Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday for the O'Reilly Auto Parts 500.
Can Kevin Harvick continue his recent dominance at the track? Will Kyle Busch get his first Cup win of 2020? Can Jimmie Johnson break his long winless streak and get to Victory Lane for the eighth time at Texas?
Feel free to hit me up on Twitter if you have any NASCAR questions (or, really, any questions about any sport that isn't baseball)": @juscarts.
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NASCAR DFS Research for O'Reilly Auto Parts 500
If you are not familiar, in this article I will highlight some helpful NASCAR data from my deep dive into the Premium Research Station. You can get full access to that Premium DFS Tool, and others including our Lineup Optimizer, with our NASCAR Premium Pass.
Be sure to also check out all of our other weekly NASCAR DFS articles and analysis to help you set your optimal DFS lineups. You can also check out our YouTube video:
Top Fantasy Values At Texas
Obviously, building a strong DFS lineup requires you to find some strong value, and one thing our Research Station can provide you is the tools needed to find those values.
One way to determine value -- projected fantasy points per $1,000 dollar salary. Basically, which drivers are projected to score the most fantasy points relative to their price. This can help you figure out how to maximize your projected fantasy points.
Let's look at DraftKings numbers this week. In particular, four mid-pack value guys:
There's plenty of value guys this week, but these four in particular appeal to me.
Only three drivers have a projected FP/$ over six. One is Kevin Harvick, the highest-priced driver on the slate and also the highest projected driver. His 6.55 FP/$ is the highest on DraftKings, and Harvick's going to be a very chalky play on Sunday.
Erik Jones at 6.25 FP/$ is the next highest. Starting 23rd, Jones is likely to be another driver with a very high ownership rate on this slate.
But maybe a guy who's flying under the radar is Tyler Reddick at 6.15 FP/$. Starting one spot behind Jones, Reddick doesn't have the same overall point upside, but at his value he's got the chance to be a lineup-winning driver. Reddick continues to improve.
And then other three drivers in this pricing cluster -- Clint Bowyer, Matt Kenseth, and Cole Custer -- all have plenty of projected value as well. Bowyer in particular is appealing. He starts 17th in a Stewart-Haas Racing car -- I'm actually a little confused how he got priced as low as he did. Bowyer's an incredibly solid lineup option.
Texas Driver Ratings
NASCAR's driver rating formula puts together a lot of factors to spit out a number that rates how a driver performed in a certain race.
Here are the ratings for the top DraftKings drivers:
So, if you're looking for a top guy to anchor your lineup, past history at Texas suggests a few things:
- Maybe it should be Kevin Harvick.
- Maybe it should not be Denny Hamlin.
- Kyle Busch, who won two races at this track on Saturday, has the second-best recent and overall driver rating here of the top seven drivers in DraftKings pricing. Maybe you should put some respect on Kyle Busch this week.
Some other notable driver ratings farther down the field:
Aric Almirola's recent rating here is 107.6. Only two drivers have a higher recent rating. The fact that he starts from the pole is worth some pause, but it's also lowered his price a good bit, so there might be space to go with him.
Kurt Busch (102.4) also has a high rating here recently. Like Almirola, I'm worried about how close to the front he starts, but he does run well here.
On the other end of the spectrum, some drivers with a rating under 70 who you might want to avoid: Ty Dillon, Ryan Newman, and Bubba Wallace. Really, a lot of the lower-priced drivers haven't done well here, which kind of makes lineup building more difficult than usual.
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Track Correlations
One of my favorite parts of the Research Station is the NASCAR Track Correlation Matrix, which helps us see which tracks produce similar results.
For Texas, five tracks have a correlation of at least 90 percent, but two in particular are of interest due to also sharing the same basic track structure: Kansas (92.7 percent) and Las Vegas (91.2 percent).
The Cup Series hasn't been to Kansas yet this season, but last year's second race there was dominated by Denny Hamlin. I'm not super high on Hamlin because this track type hasn't been his best in 2020, but we probably can't just completely ignore him.
This year's Vegas race is one I'm putting more stock in. Kevin Harvick finished eighth but had the highest driver rating in that one. Bubba Wallace finished sixth, but was out of contention for most of the race with an average running position of 22nd. In fact, the finishing order featured strong results from a lot of drivers whose in-race speed wasn't necessarily there.
John Hunter Nemechek finished 24th, but had an average position of 20th throughout the race. William Byron ran well during the race too, though it doesn't show in the 22nd place result.
NASCAR DFS News and Driver Outlooks
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