This weekend we head to the Lone Star State. Texas Motor Speedway is a mile and half oval. As we look for drivers to target we can start to use information we have gathered from the beginning of this season from tracks that are similar. Those tracks are Atlanta, Vegas and Auto Club. Take that into account with past history at this track over the past 2 years and there are drivers that stand out. Of course, like it has done before this season, wacky qualifying happened and made dfs really interesting this week. Qualifying has become a circus at these ovals and this weekend it gave us a bunch of great drivers that would normally be dominators here at Texas and turned them into great place differential plays. I believe for Draftkings the key to cash games will be playing these place differential drivers and hope that someone like Harvick can move up and lead laps to add to the positive place differential. This could make tournament lineups very interesting by subbing out a place differential guy or two for a dominator up front.
Kevin Harvick (DK $10,700 FD $14,000)
Kevin Harvick hasn’t gotten the win we would expect him to have this season yet. This is a great track to get his first win of the season and put those retirement rumors and move to the booth to rest. Harvick at the three comparable tracks this season has 3 fourth place finishes and has been a dominator at two of those tracks. Since Texas was reconfigured, Harvick has finished 1st, 2nd, 1st and 4th. He has also accumulated dominator points in all four of those races. Harvick is also priced down on draftkings as the 5th highest salary driver. He starts 23rd and gives us great place differential upside. On Fanduel I wouldn’t fault you dropping to Martin Truex Jr who is $800 cheaper. with his history at 1.5 mile tracks and his consistent top 10 finishes at Texas.
Kurt Busch (DK $9,500 FD $11,000)
Kurt Busch has started this season off on a roll with his new team. He has also been DFS gold. He has finished 3rd, 5th and 6th at the three comparable tracks. He also has 4 top 10 finishes here over the past two seasons. Kurt qualified 30th but has shown the speed in practice and has shown the ability to move through the field in this seasons aero package, qualifying in the 20’s at two of the three similar tracks. His floor makes him a lock in cash games.
Kyle Larson (DK $9,200 FD $12,000)
Kyle Larson is another driver due for a win. He has three 12th place finishes at the comparable tracks this season and dominated Atlanta before he got hit with a pit road penalty and couldn’t get back to the front. In the last four races at Texas he has a 2nd and 5th place finish. He also has two dnf’s for accidents which I am willing to throw out because that’s the nature of the sport. I think Larson is a better option over Bowyer on Draftkings even with the extra $300 and starting three spots ahead. I could see people gravitating towards Bowyer which could bring Larson’s ownership down.
Chase Elliott (DK $8,600 FD $11,300)
Chase has continuously improved this season. He comes into this race with momentum from a second place finish at Martinsville where only him and Brad lead more than 6 laps. Hendrick as a team seems to have brought cars with speed this weekend. Chase is also a low-cost potential dominator well other studs are working their way through the field. At Texas, he has never finished worse than 11th. I think Chase is a good gpp pivot from one of the place differential drivers and is a solid play on Fanduel where finishing position is more important. Two other pivots I could include would be Joey Logano at the high-end and Ryan Blaney. Both have run well in this package this season and both have great history at Texas.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (DK $7,600 FD $8,400)
I know we make fun of “Wrecky” a lot, but this season he has actually shown us something when he’s not spinning cars out. He finished 6th at Vegas and 14th at Auto Club. At Texas in the last four races, he has finished 11th, 12th, 25th and 14th. The one outlier was due to a suspension issue on the car. Watching practice this weekend, it seems like the draft with this package is working. Ricky does well in races where the draft comes into play. He starts 17th so if he goes from Ricky to Wrecky we could see negative place differential, but he’s worth the risk in tournaments this week.
Chris Buescher (DK $6,400 FD $6,500)
This value spot was reserved for Ty Dillon this week. Then Ty went and does what Ty sometimes does: Qualifies too good! I can’t play Ty starting 9th, so this spot goes to Buescher. He has been a pleasant surprise this season. He has finishes of 9th, 18th and 16th at the three tracks. He starts 19th and would be a great value play if he qualified just a little farther back as he has finishes of 23rd, 15th, 22nd and 21st at the last four Texas races. He has had top 20 speed most of the season and gives us salary relief if and when we need it.
Other Value Options
Alex Bowman
Matt DiBenedetto
Ryan Preece
Ross Chastain
If you have any questions about lineup construction, certain drivers, contest selection or anything else feel free to reach out to me on twitter @davidjr831 or jump in our Nascar discord where myself and @HOF_DFS are always before lock. Also look for our livestream tomorrow late morning as we lead up to the race at Texas Motor Speedway.
