Kyle Busch drives during the NASCAR Sprint Cup auto race, Sunday, Nov. 20, 2016, in Homestead, Fla. (AP Photo/Terry Renna)
Chris Durell will be bringing you his weekly race breakdown, top trends, and pre-qualifying targets to help you cash on DraftKings and FanDuel. You can also grab a copy of his free DFS NASCAR Cheatsheet that includes a ton of stats and a customizable model.
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Indianapolis Motor Speedway - Speedway, IN
Track - 2.5 Mile Oval
9° of Banking in Turns
The final race of the 2019 regular season takes the Cup Series to the famous Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Looking at the standings, Kyle Busch has wrapped up the regular season championship which earns him an additional 15 playoff points but the playoff picture is most definitely not set. Aric Almirola is 57 points up on the bubble and would need a catastrophic failure to not get in but Clint Bowyer(+8) has much less room for error while Ryan Newman and Daniel Suarez sit tied for 16th with 617 points. Like the poker term "chip and a chair", seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson(-18) still has hope but needs a lot of things to go his way on Sunday.
Indianapolis is another very unique track in that 2.5 miles in length, shaped more like a rectangle than an oval, and has just nine degrees of banking. From a fantasy standpoint, track position is key with just 160 laps in the race and is shown by a very high correlation from starting to finish position outside the 2017 wreck-fest where just five drivers who started Top 10 finished Top 25. With so few laps, there are not nearly as many fantasy points to go around, especially from a dominator standpoint and only once in the last six races has a driver led 100 laps(Kyle Busch-2016).
The big wrinkle in all of this is Sunday qualifying. You heard me right, teams will have two practices on Saturday followed by inspection and then qualifying on Sunday morning at 10:35 am ET. The good news, if you are playing DFS NFL as well, is that if you reserve your entries early you will have an hour after NFL lock to set your lineups for NASCAR. Buckle up for one hell of a fun/exhausting/fun Sunday.
Without the best car, Brad Keselowski and the #2 Penske team made a late pit call to get the Brickyard win a year ago and after a long stretch of mediocrity here, he returns with back to back Top 2 finishes. Outside of Keselowski, there are only two other drivers with Top 10's in each of the last two races. Let's start with Kevin Harvick who actually returns to the Brickyard with five straight Top 10 finishes and he also leads all active drivers with a 9.4 career average finish. Ryan Newman also returns with back to back Top 10 finishes and also won here back in 2013.
While Kyle Busch returns with an 8th and 34th place finish(crash on closing laps), he has led the most laps(117) in those two races. Before that, he had won back to back races here and finished Top 10 in seven straight. His teammate, Denny Hamlin, has also been very consistent here with Top 5 finishes in four of his last five races here and for his career, he has seven Top 10's in 13 races with a 12.9 career average finish. Like Hamlin, Joey Logano is looking for his first career win here at Indy but has been consistent with five Top 10's in his last six trips.
Down in the value range, two drivers that have been consistent and deserve our consideration are Paul Menard and Daniel Suarez. Suarez returns with an 18th and 7th place finish in two career races while Menard has finished 16th or better in eight of his last nine trips including a win back in 2011.
Joe Gibbs Racing continues to lead the form rankings going into Indy. Erik Jones is coming off a huge crown jewel win at Darlington last week and has four Top 5's in his last six races. Denny Hamlin leads all drivers with two wins and a 6.3 average finish over the last six races with Kyle Busch right behind with a 6.8 average finish with five Top 10's in his last six races. From a dominator perspective, Martin Truex Jr. has lacked a bit with just 96 laps led but he has been consistent with three Top 5's and four Top 10's(7.2 average finish) over his last six races. Brad Keselowski rounds out the Top 5 as he comes into this week with back to back Top 5's and has five Top 10's in his last six races.
Brad Keselowski
I absolutely love the price on Keselowski and provided he qualifies inside the Top 10 he is my top PTS/$ of the week and on the shortlist for potential winners. He won here last year, finished 2nd the year before and it appears he has the speed to contend once again this week. He was 3rd fastest in opening practice with the 3rd fastest 10-lap average and while 13th in final practice, he was 2nd fastest in 10-lap averages.
Kyle Busch
I was underweight on Busch last week and it blew up in my face and I won't make the same mistake at Indy. First of all, he hasn't qualified inside the Top 20 in three straight weeks and hasn't shown pole-winning speed in practice so that could happen again leading to place differential points. He also returns to the Brickyard with Top 10's in eight of his last nine races with two wins and four Top 5's. I also looked at the results from Pocono, Michigan, and Fontana which are all two miles or longer with the 2019 rules package and Busch has two wins and a series-best 4.4 average finish. Lock and load!
William Byron
Byron finished 19th here in his first trip last year and has shown the speed to not only best that finish but possibly contend for a Top 5 and win. He likely won't be qualifying up front finishing 10th and 12th in the two Saturday practices but appears to have long-run speed ranking 5th in 5-lap averages in opening practice and 3rd in 10-lap averages in final practice. In the five races on two-mile or longer track with 2019 package, he has a Top 5 and three Top 10's with the 7th best average finish. At this price, he will be a core play for me in all format no matter where he starts on Sunday.
Daniel Suarez
This pick all depends on qualifying but it doesn't look like he will be anywhere up front ranking 22nd and 27th in the two practice sessions. That is good news for fantasy as he returns to Indy with an 18th and 7th place finish in his two career starts and needs something at least in the middle of that to advance to the Playoffs as he enters the race tied with Ryan Newman. Stay tuned for the sheet update and live show on YouTube Sunday am for confirmation on this core play.
Below you will find a copy of my DFS NASCAR cheathsheet which includes Track History, Current Form, DraftKings points averages, Track Type History, Practice/Qualifying Ranks and much more.
Chris Durell has been playing Daily Fantasy Sports for five years and fantasy in general for more than a decade. He is an active player in NFL, MLB, NHL, PGA, and of course NASCAR. He lives in Saskatchewan, Canada with his wife and two daughters. You can follow him on Twitter at @Jager_Bombs9 for advice, strategy, answers to any NASCAR questions or how he copes with the winters up north.
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