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Here are some of the drivers I’m looking at for Sunday’s race at Phoenix Raceway in each price range.
Chase Elliott (DK $11,500 FD $13,500)
Elliott was great in both races here at Phoenix last season finishing 1st and 7th. Over those 2 races, he led 246 laps and racked up 113 fast laps as well. We haven’t seen that huge race from Chase yet this season, which might lower his ownership, but it’s going to happen soon, and you’ll want to be on him when it happens. I think a lot of people will play Harvick in this price range because he offers more place differential, but I’m very concerned about his last 2 races. We just saw Larson dominate in a Hendrick car at Las Vegas, so I think he has the potential to dominate and looks like a great top tier option we can target this weekend.
Brad Keselowski (DK $10,400 FD $12,500)
Keselowski was great at the flat tracks last season (11th, 1st, 1st, 2nd). We’re going to need him to lead because he doesn’t offer any place differential starting from 1st, but he led over 400+ laps across those 4 races last season and had 100+ fast laps as well, so I think he can score enough dominator points to payoff his salary. If you read my article last weekend, you saw that I went underweight on Harvick in tournaments because it wasn’t a guarantee that he would lead laps, but I feel a lot more confident in what Keselowski can do in this race for DFS.
Matt DiBenedetto (DK $8,500 FD $7,700)
DiBenedetto has had a lot of bad luck to start the season, but he had some good results on the flat tracks last season in the #21 for Wood Brothers Racing (8th, 17th, 6th, 13th). I think a lot of people will probably play Almirola or Bowman in this price range, so you might get him at lower ownership which is great for tournaments. He offers some place differential starting from 20th and has top 10 upside which makes him a nice mid tier option. You probably won’t be able to fit him into a 3 dominator lineup unless you go really cheap with those guys, so he makes more sense for lineups that have 2 dominators.
Tyler Reddick (DK $7,900 FD $7,500)
If you watched the spring race at Phoenix last season, you probably remember that Tyler Reddick had a great run going running inside the top 5 until he had a tire go down and ended up with a poor finish. I know the drivers had practice in that race, but I don’t think it was a fluke because he finished 11th at Richmond and 10th at New Hampshire later that season which are both comparable tracks to Phoenix without practice. We don’t know whether or not he’ll unload fast enough to contend for a top 10, but the place differential he offers starting from 23rd makes him a safe option with plenty of upside as well.
Cole Custer (DK $6,700 FD $7,300)
The Stewart-Haas Racing cars have struggled over the last 2 races, but their team is going to figure it out eventually, so we can’t just fade all these guys because of their results from the last 2 weeks. Custer is another driver that had a lot of success at the flat tracks last season with his finishes of 9th, 8th, 14th, and 28th in those races. I usually don’t recommend doing this outside of the superspeedway races, but I think an interesting strategy you can use in gpps is either fading all the Stewart-Haas Racing cars (#4, #10, #14, #41) or stacking them up because if one of them is fast, the others will probably be fast as well. Custer offers place differential starting from 24th which makes him a nice option we can target for value, but will the team hit the setup?
Daniel Suarez (DK $5,900 FD $4,500)
Suarez didn’t have a good finish last weekend at Las Vegas, but the thing that I noticed was that his team is willing to gamble which is great because that gives them a lot of upside when this works in their favor. They tried to keep him on the track as long as they could hoping for a yellow until he had to pit, but the caution never came out which led to his 26th place finish. A lot of the value drivers aren’t going to project out well because most of them are starting closer to the front, but Suarez starts from 27th and has top 20 upside. He looks like a strong value option this weekend.
