NASCAR: Quaker State 400 GPP & Value Picks
For as long as I can remember, I’ve spent my Sundays watching racing with my dad. He’s always been a huge NASCAR fan, and a racing fan in general. Being from the Daytona area, I’ve gotten to experience NASCAR in many different ways. I’ve been lucky enough to watch the last four races from the pit boxes, and the rush of being in the pits is absolutely amazing. My dad’s love for NASCAR has certainly rubbed off on me, and I truly enjoy watching this sport.
Like last week, I’ll be focusing on tournament plays, and some value for this week at Kentucky. You can always check out my video for some cash game plays, and I still stand behind all the picks after getting the starting order. Kentucky has been around since 2011, and they’ve only had four races coming into Saturday night. The new packages to the cars have me a little worried, but from what I’m hearing, the fast cars should still be able to get out front.
Tournament Drivers
Matt Kenseth – Kenseth has been one of the best drivers at this track in the past, and has finished in the top seven in all four races. He won the 2013 race and will be starting 16th on Saturday night. He has a ton of upside with place differential, but I’m worried about him being fast enough to lead laps. Over the last 29 races at intermediate tracks, no active driver has a better average finish than Matty K. He has 21 top 10 finishes out of those 29 races. He has a great price tag this weekend, and I think he’s an excellent play.
Kasey Kahne – Kahne is another guy I like to have a nice place differential on Saturday night. With qualifying being rained out again this week, Kahne will start 19th on Saturday night. He’s had a lot of success at this track and hasn’t finished lower than 13th in four races. He has the fifth-best average finish among active drivers at Kentucky. Kahne has excelled at these intermediate tracks, and he has an average finish of 12.86 in the last 29 races. That is eighth-best among active drivers, and his upside comes with place and pass differential this week.
Ryan Newman – Outside of a bad finish in 2012, Newman has performed very well at Kentucky. He has two top four finishes in four races here, but has yet to led a lap at this track. With three drivers leading 77.1% of the laps over the first four races here, it’s not shocking that a lot of people don’t have laps led here. Newman is starting 26th on Saturday night, and I like his chances for a top 12 finish in this race. That’s solid place differential for his price, and he has top five upside as he’s shown in the past.
Value Drivers
Michael Annett – Like I mentioned in the opening, Kentucky is one of the newer NASCAR tracks. The XFINITY series has been racing at Kentucky since 2001. Annett has seven races here in the XFINITY series, and has five top 10s. He started 32nd and finished 18th in this race last season. Annett is pretty risky, but at $7,000 on DraftKings, I’m willing to risk him in some of my GPP lineups.
Landon Cassill – Cassill was on a lot of winning teams last weekend, and he presents a ton of value again this week. He’s starting 36th on Saturday night, and is one of the few drivers at this price range who has raced all four races here. Cassill finished 23rd in 2011 and followed that up with a 25th finish in 2012. He has positive fantasy points in four of his last five races.
Daily Fantasy Pitstop
We have a new weekly video in which I will analyze some more of my favorite NASCAR DFS targets, and these picks will mostly be suited for head-to-head contests. Here’s this week’s video for the Quaker State 400:
Weekend Notes
With having my cash game plays in the video now, I’m going to start doing a weekend notes section. I’m going to add a couple of things I pick up on each week in this section.
-Clint Bowyer admitted in his press conference at Daytona that these intermediate tracks have been crushing his team. I was in the media center for this interview, and he really sounded concerned about these tracks. He’s starting towards the back of the pack though, and this makes him a fantasy option for me this week. I do think there’s some risk with a driver admitting he’s struggling at a track.
-Jeff Gordon has had an amazing career in NASCAR, and as we know he will be hanging up his helmet at the end of the season. Kentucky is the only track where he hasn’t picked up a win. He has finished in the top 10 in all four races here, but has yet to led a lap. I think the starting position hurts his value, but I also think he might be very hungry to win this race.
-Austin Dillon is coming off a monster wreck at Daytona and is being talked about a lot going into this weekend. In his young career, he has 22 races at intermediate tracks. In those 22 races, Dillon has an average finish of 20.09 with only one top 10 finish. His starting spot of 11th really hurts his value for me this weekend.
Thanks for reading again this week, and good luck in your NASCAR contests on Saturday night.