DFS NASCAR Picks for Cup Series – Fantasy Racing Tips

The NASCAR Cup Series will travel to back to Talladega this weekend for their sixth Superspeedway race (that simply seems like too many). The race Sunday will also be the second race in the Round of 12. There are some playoff drivers who did not come out of the race at Kansas with as many points as they expected. It is going to be hammer down and fingers crossed as these 12 maniacs try to be the first to the checkered flag at Talladega. The first half of the race may not be too exciting, but the final laps may be “Must See TV on NBC.”

PRACTICE AND QUALIFYING

“Practice? We talking about practice???? Not the race….. No, no… not the race…. We talking about practice???” (I write this in my bet Allen Iverson voice).

NASCAR no longer has practice for the Superspeedway tracks. The cars simply lined up for single-lap qualifying in order to set the lineup for the YellaWood 500. We do not know how the cars will handle in the race, but we have more than enough data to work with this week.

CUP SERIES STATS AT TALLADEGA

I will be looking at the driver’s results from the two races at Daytona, the two races at Atlanta and the last two races at Talladega for the picks this week. The drivers who start in the back and have the best history of finishing up front at the Superspeedways are the drivers we will want in our DFS lineups Sunday.

Here are the stats from the last two races at Talladega and Superspeedway track races in 2024, sorted by DraftKings Points…

* Look at the drivers who score all of the points on the Superspeedways. It is not the drivers we typically see at the top of this chart. It is a good idea to take a chance with some of the drivers who typically start in the back. There is a good chance that they will finish in the front Sunday.

DRAFTKINGS STRATEGY

The best way to predict the future is to look at the past. I looked at the winning lineup from the race at Talladega in April and the winning lineups from the two races at Talladega last year to see if we can find any trends.

Here are the last three winning lineups at Talladega…

– William Byron was in the winning lineup for all three races and he did not even start outside the top-20 in any of the races. His ability to finish up front makes Willy-B a good pick.

– Brad Keselowski has finished in the winning lineup in two of the three races. He is a boom or bust driver, but he is definitely worth a chance Sunday.

– Daniel Suarez won on the Superspeedway track at Atlanta this year and he has been in the winning lineup in two of the last three races at Talladega.

– The three lineups were “stars and scrubs” lineups. They had three higher priced drivers who could score some place differential points and three cheaper drivers who started in the back.

– The salary of the three lineups was between $48,400 – $49,900. Do not be afraid to leave some salary on the table this week.

The drivers with the best chance to score place differential points are William Byron, Ross Chastain, Alex Bowman, Christopher Bell, Bubba Wallace, Chase Briscoe,Martin Truex Jr., Chris Buescher, Daniel Suarez, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Justin Haley, Carson Hocevar, Erik Jones and Corey LaJoie

DRAFTKINGS MODEL (Prediction Based on Stats)