Daily Fantasy NASCAR Picks for DraftKings - Folds of Honor Quiktrip 500

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Folds of Honor Quiktrip 500

Atlanta Motor Speedway - Atlanta, Georgia
Track - 1.54 Mile Quad Oval Intermediate Track
24° Banking in the Corners

Welcome back for another week of daily fantasy NASCAR. The two weeks of Daytona Speedweeks wrapped up with Kurt Busch winning the Great American Race for the first time in his career. For a complete recap of the Daytona 500 head over to my BLOG where I also break down the ownership and DraftKings points.

This week drivers and teams head North to Atlanta Motor Speedway for the Folds of Honor Quiktrip 500. Atlanta is the second oldest racing surface(20 years) in the Monster Energy Cup series circuit and will be repaved following this race. With years of wear and tear, the track is well known as a very slippery track where cars will drive loose. There are also multiple racing grooves which produces excellent racing from a driver and a fan standpoint. This year could be even racier(Been looking for a perfect time to use that word) with the new rules package which will be implemented this week and will be a part of 32 of 36 points paying races this season. The purpose of this change is to reduce downforce on the cars from 3,000 to 1,500 pounds which makes them harder to drive, putting more emphasis on the driver. This package was also used at Kentucky and Michigan's fall August race. Some drivers with notable finishes in both races are:

• Brad Keselowski - Kentucky(Win), Michigan(3rd)
• Kevin Harvick - Kentucky(9th), Michigan(5th)
• Jamie McMurray - Kentucky(7th), Michigan(8th)
• Kurt Busch - Kentucky(4th), Michigan(12th)

When looking at intermediate tracks in your research the best comparisons to Atlanta are Texas and Charlotte which are both 1.5-mile quad ovals as well. It isn't an exact correlation but if you are torn between a couple drivers you can use it as a tie-breaker.

From a DFS strategy perspective, this week presents a completely different angle. While we almost exclusively concentrated on place differential plays at Daytona, we will turn our attention to a Dominator model this week. We will be looking for two or three drivers who have the car to possibly get out and lead a ton of laps. Looking at the last three years data here we see that one driver who has led 100+ laps with one or two other drivers breaking 50laps led. On DraftKings we get .25 bonus points for each lap led and a .5 point for each fast lap so these can add up in a hurry. These will be the drivers I build around this week. I will then dig into some place differential value to help fill in around my core. Let's take a look at my picks for this week.

Drivers to Build Around

Kevin Harvick
DraftKings - $10,200
Qualified - 1st

We cannot mention Atlanta from a fantasy perspective without talking about Harvick. He hasn't won here since his rookie season back in 2001 but looking at the dominator category, there has been no one better. He has led all drivers in laps led at Atlanta over the past five years with 543 with the next closer driver(Logano) having just 162. He has also tallied nearly 300 DraftKings points over the last two years which is miles ahead(pun intended) of anyone else. He qualified up front and gained speed with each round and looks to be the dominant car this week.

Kyle Busch
DraftKings - $10,400
Qualified - 3rd

I will be building the majority of my lineups around Harvick and will stack these two together quite a bit as well. For the lineups where I am fading Harvick, I will be going allin on Busch. He also showed a near dominant car coming just short of Harvick's lap times in all three rounds of qualifying on Friday. He started 39th last year after getting his qualifying time disallowed and ended up finishing 3rd. He has won here twice in his career and also ranks right at the top of intermediate track history(7.7 avg finish) over the past two years. With Harvick showing he has a dominant car combined with Jimmie with place differential upside, Kyle makes a great contrarian GPP play sandwiched right in the middle of both their salaries.

Top Place Differential Value Plays

Kasey Kahne
DraftKings - $8,000
Qualified - 29th

Leading off this section is Kasey Kahne for a few different reasons. He comes in with momentum having picked up a 7th place finish at Daytona and only saw a small $400 price increase. He now comes back to Atlanta, one of his best tracks. Kahne won here just three years ago and has three total career wins with seven Top 5's and nine Top 10's.  The best part is that he showed Top 10 speed in opening practice but failed to make it out of the first round of qualifying and will start 29th. If he shows speed again in final practice, there is a ton of place differential upside.

Aric Almirola
DraftKings - $6,700
Qualified - 30th

Almirola is a bit more risky with much less track history but also comes at a sub $7K price tag, perfect for stars and scrubs lineups. He has raced here six times over his career and tallied one Top 5 and four Top 10's witha 18.0 average finish. While that may not stick out, he was 15th in opening practice and wills tart back in 30th on Sunday creating some nice place differential value at a cheap price.

Bottom Tier Value Play

TY Dillon
DraftKings - $6,100
Qualified - 26th

The younger of the Dillon brothers is now the full-time driver of the #13 Germain Racing Chevrolet. He was one of many caught up in a wreck last week, finishing 30th but things are looking up this week. He started 29th back in 2014 and ended up finishing 25th and last year qualified 18th and was consistent all race finishing 17th. If he keeps trending he might even sneak a Top 15 this week. For a low $6K price tag we would be fine with a Top 20 as he will be starting 26th this week, offering some place differential value.

Also Consider: Michael McDowell

For a limited time I am offering a copy of my DFS NASCAR cheathsheet which includes Track History, Current Form, Odds, Tarck Type History, Practice/Qualifying Ranks and much more. Get it HERE.

Post Practice & Qualifying Update

Qualifying Top 10

 
If you have any questions on lineups or drivers prior to lineup lock scroll down to the comment section and join the conversation.

Good Luck everyone!
Chris Durell has been playing Daily Fantasy Sports for three years and fantasy in general for more than a decade. He is active player in college football, NFL, NBA, 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.