NASCAR Research Station: DraftKings, FanDuel DFS Lineup Picks for the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500

Welcome to this week’s look at the NASCAR Research Station. Scott’s got a draft to do tonight, so I’m here to write this week’s article.

The NASCAR Research Station is one of our most important features in the RotoBaller NASCAR Season Pass package. It is a deluxe suite of advanced NASCAR statistics that can help you identify the best top drivers and value plays for ideal lineup constructions every week. It includes historical, recent and projected stats and Loop Data. If you want to work on your fantasy NASCAR setup with all the best statistical tools, this is your numerical garage for DraftKings and FanDuel lineup building. Each week, we will feature highlighted stat categories and plays that are identified from our Research Station studies, yet we highly encourage you to get your hands dirtier with your own comprehensive examination of the available statistics and categories. There’s much more and a significantly larger selection of categories than what we highlight here. We use DraftKings prices as a basis, but most of what we recommend here should be applied to FanDuel lineup builds.

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DFS NASCAR Research Station Spotlights

Vegas Odds

The Research Station’s Vegas Odds are in decimal format from the DraftKings Sportsbook. Implied percentages are adjusted for rake. Here are some key observations for your lineups based on the odds:

• Kevin Harvick has the best odds to win this race and a 14 percent implied win percentage. Considering Harvick’s only led 17 laps all year, I really, really don’t like this bet! Stewart Haas Racing as a whole just hasn’t had the speed we’re used to seeing from them, so I’d look elsewhere if I’m looking to make a bet on this one.
• Chase Elliott’s got an 11 percent implied win percentage with 9-1 odds to win. I’d much prefer this bet, as Elliott led 26 laps here last season and while his best finish at the track is fifth, he’s had a good car this season, though the results haven’t matched the in-race speed he’s shown.
• Looking for a long shot here? Austin Cindric has some very low odds here at 150-1, with just a one percent implied win percentage. But Cindric is a really interesting bet, as he’s going to have a fast Penske car under him and has shown prowess on tracks like this in the Xfinity Series. This might not be a “good” bet in the sense that it’s a long shot to actually pay off, but it’s a rare you get those kind of odds on a car with winning speed, even if the driver himself doesn’t have enough Cup Series experience to realistically win unless things get weird. But hey, stranger things have happened!

 

Projections

Let’s take a look at some interesting DraftKings projections:

• Harvick is our driver with the highest projected score, but again, I don’t feel great about that. He’s getting a big “past production” bump here, just like he did at Phoenix, another strong track for him. In that one, the major bump wasn’t enough to lead to actual results.
• Martin Truex Jr. is a great dominator option. He starts second and while he’s never won a Cup Series race here, this is a place where Truex runs well and he’s coming off of an Xfinity race on Saturday where he looked like he was heading to victory lane until a late penalty forced him to drive back through the field again, with Truex only managing to get up to second place. Still, he led 103 of 163 laps and was able to put that 54 car anywhere he wanted. Truex is a great pick to breakthrough and finally win here, and he’d collect a ton of DFS points in the process.
• Some guys who the Research Station projects to be value plays: Ryan Newman ($7,100 but with 42.6 projected fantasy points), Erik Jones ($7,000 but with 33.9 projected fantasy points), and Chris Buescher ($6,000 but with 29.6 projected fantasy points).
• Some guys who are projected for under 25 points: Bubba Wallace (22.45, but I think that’s lower than it should be), and then most of the guys who are under $5,800, with the only exception of that group being Anthony Alfredo (26 projected points). I really like Alfredo as a potential value play.

 

Driver Rating Gained vs. Similar Drivers

We remind you that Driver Rating is the ultimate Loop Data stat to truly measure pure performances at a given track or in a season, taking out racing “deals” such as crashes, pit road mishaps, DNFs, etc. The Research Station includes DR Gained vs. Similar Drivers stat to identify outliers in this Loop Data category.

This is why Harvick looks so good in the data, as his driver rating gained vs similar drivers here is 24.1, and 17.0 long term. Just, like, look at this:

I mean, that’s just…wild. Harvick — and to a lesser but still impressive extent, Martin Truex Jr. — are just significantly better here than comparable drivers. Kyle Larson and Ryan Blaney over the past two years have been better than comparable drivers at 1.5 mile tracks, while William Byron has struggled more than comparable drivers here by a large margin.

Ryan Newman is another driver whose career history here at Atlanta looks really good, as he comes in at 7.8 points higher than similar drivers. Aric Almirola, meanwhile, is 11.3 worse than his comparable drivers. Couple that with the lack of speed from Stewart Haas and I think we can see plenty of reasons to avoid Almirola this week.

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