NASCAR By The Numbers: FireKeepers Casino 400
Pocono was a different race last weekend, and we head to another two-mile track this weekend in Michigan. The race is Sunday at 1PM EST on FS1. Michigan is a 200-lap race, and we want to target 1-2 dominators with a lot of place differential plays.
Qualifying on Friday was interesting, and the checkered flag pick in the Daily Fantasy Pitstop had some bad luck with cautions. He’s a must play in cash games for me, and I plan on having a lot of exposure to him in GPPs. While past history is still good to use, NASCAR is running a different aero package this weekend, and it could make things very interesting on Sunday.
Joey Logano – $9,800 – Starting 1st – There’s no reason not to build your cash lineup around Logano and Harvick this weekend. Since joining team Penske, Logano has six straight top ten finishes, and he won this race from the pole in August of 2013. Logano is still without his win this season, and he’s been knocking on the door all season. He has the sixth highest driver rating here, but the second highest behind Kevin Harvick over the last four races here. He’s my top dominator target for cash games this weekend. I’m expecting him to get out front early, and we’ve seen how great clean air is for these cars. On top of expecting that, he gets a solid bump having the best pit stall this weekend.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. – $9,400 – Starting 27th – I’m not a big fan of playing Dale Jr usually, but he’s a great place differential play this weekend. His name usually adds 5-10% to his ownership, and usually he’s a very average option. He comes in with four straight top ten finishes here. He runs a lot of laps in the top 15 here, and he has the second best driver rating over the last three June races here. It’s been an up and down season for Dale, but this is a track he’s exceled at before and I expect him to do the same this weekend.
Matt Kenseth – $9,900 – Starting 19th – Kenseth sets up as a great GPP play this weekend. He’s starting in the middle of the pack, and he’s a guy that really exceled here last August. He has the highest driver rating among active drivers, and the second highest average running position. It’s not a stat that you hear very often for fantasy purposes, but I’m a big fan of quality pass percentages, which he leads. He just fills the stat sheet above, and this reminds me a lot of Kurt Busch from last weekend.
Carl Edwards – $9,500 – Starting 11th – Edwards is my favorite GPP play this weekend. Edwards is a big fan of the low downforce changes this weekend. “I’m very excited about Michigan and Kentucky. It’s like Christmas for me.” – Carl Edwards. Drivers are unanimous in their opinion of the new package lower-lower downforce package, and it’s nice to see someone like it as much as Edwards. He qualified just outside of the top ten, and I don’t expect a lot of people to play him at this price. I actually like his chances to lead some laps this weekend, and I wouldn’t be shocked if he’s celebrating in victory lane Sunday afternoon. He’s been very up or down here recently, but he looked really good in the June race here last season. That was his first race at Michigan with JGR, and I expect him to build from that.
Value Plays
Paul Menard – $6,300 – Starting 32nd – Menard did the DFS NASCAR world a huge favor on Friday, and really struggled with his qualifying run. He has the sixth highest driver rating over the last four races here, and he’s finished 14th or better in seven straight races here. Since joining RCR in 2011, he’s never finished worse than 26th here, which would give him a floor of +6 place differential points. Coming off a disappointing race at Pocono, I expect the #27 team to have a nice bounce back weekend at Michigan.
Clint Bowyer – $6,700 – Starting 34th – I’ve picked on Bowyer a lot this season, and this seems like an ultimate let down spot. With that being said, I can’t overlook what he’s been doing. He’s averaging 36.3 DraftKings points over the last ten events, and an average finish of 18.67 over the last six races. After complaining a lot about the team and car, Bowyer has really excelled in the five races. He’s still very risky this weekend, but it looks like he’s finally getting over the curve with this new team.