On Sunday, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 400 is the next big stop on the NASCAR circuit, and this is an important race for many drivers that are competing for that top Sprint Cup finish. Going into the home stretch, there are already some favorites that are emerging, and the next couple weeks will be crucial. As you get ready for your own sort of championship within your daily fantasy NASCAR leagues, it’s important that you have a firm understanding of which drivers are at their peak now and able to deliver, and which cannot.
Kevin Harvick: Harvick remains the top ranked driver in the field, according to DraftKings. He has a salary of $10,800, and even though he’s easily at the top when it comes to fantasy points contributed per race with 64.5, he’s not that much more expensive than a few other drivers. This gives Harvick a lot of built in value and it makes him likely to be a top contributor on your team even if he is expensive and even if he doesn’t drive quite as well as he usually does. He’s made the top ten 22 out of 28 races, has an average finishing spot of 9.0, and he has made the top five 13 times. Those are all the best in the field, and as he’s not too expensive here, it also makes him one of the best first draft picks you can make.
Kyle Busch: Busch is the second most expensive driver in the field at $10,500, putting him right behind Harvick. However, while Harvick has averaged 64.5 points per race, Busch is only averaging 48.5. This difference makes drafting Busch a bit of a tough sell, especially when he’s so expensive. Busch might be the top ranked driver in the Sprint Cup standings right now, but that’s mainly because he has 5 wins, compared to Harvick’s 2. Busch has not been nearly as consistent with only 18 out of 28 top ten appearances and an average finishing spot of 12.7. Busch is a great driver, but he’s not a top three fantasy performer this year, and he’s way too expensive for the fantasy showings that he has had so far this season.
Martin Truex, Jr.: Truex is having a fantastic last few weeks. He is ranked third going into this weekend with a salary of $10,300, but he has much more momentum than anyone else right now. He finished 1st two weeks ago, and then 3rd last weekend. While his average fantasy score is well behind Harvick’s at just 50.4, he is scoring well above that right now. In his last race, he had 136 thanks to leading for so much of the race. It’s unlikely that he will have that many points this weekend, but we should expect a lot out of him this weekend.
Brad Keselowski: Keselowski comes in at number two in the rankings by our calculations, but is ranked fourth overall here with a salary of $10,100. He is the only other person besides Harvick with an average finishing position under 10—he stands at 9.5—and he has made the top ten in 19 out of 28 races. His big downside is that he doesn’t have a high average fantasy point total. Keselowski is currently averaging just 45.7 points per race, which is not nearly as high as we’d like to see. The big problem is that back in August, Keselowski had a race where he scored -12 points. In his last three races, he has been up over 60 points per race. To us, that says that he is a bit more volatile than many of the other drivers entered, but with decent upside potential. At his price, this could be considered a gamble, but the odds of him coming through for you are much better than him having a belly-flop of a race. That’s a risk you will need to evaluate for yourself.
