Daily Fantasy NASCAR Race Preview - Coca Cola 600

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Coca Cola 600

Charlotte Motor Speedway - Concord, NC
Track - 1.5 Mile Quad Oval Intermediate Track
24° of Banking in the Corner

While there was no DFS last week, there was an exciting All-Star race(biased Kyle Busch fan perspective) to watch. After all these years in the Cup series, he finally has a win under his belt at Charlotte Motor Speedway. While it wasn't a points paying race, it won him a cool Million bucks and even if you thought the race was boring, for the most part, it's hard to argue the amazing move Kyle made on the final restart.

After a week off from daily fantasy NASCAR we are back for the season's longest race, the Coca-Cola 600 from Charlotte Motor Speedway. It makes up part two of the best weekend in Motorsports as the day kicks off with 101st running of the Indianapolis 500. Before jumping into my favorite picks, let's take a look at some of the race trends from my cheatsheet.

I will also be going back to one article a week highlighting the trends like I have been doing in the early week preview and some early picks. I will then be doing a video using my cheatsheet to highlight some of the top plays once qualifying and practice have concluded. You will find the video embedded in the article on Saturday afternoon to evening on regular weeks.

Top 5 Track History at Charlotte (2 Year)

As you can see Martin Truex Jr. has dominated Charlotte over the past two years. He is the defending champ of the Coca Cola 600 after leading an absurd 392 laps last May. He has also finished Top 5 in three of the four races and has a series-best 5.5 average finish. Right behind him is Brad Keselowski and Kurt Busch who have very similar average finishes(7.0 & 7.3) and both have a Top 5 and four Top 10's over the past two years(4 races). Joey Logano and Jimmie Johnson are the only other active drivers to win at Charlotte in the past two years and retired driver Carl Edwards was the other winner.

Top 5 Track History at Charlotte (Career)

Seven-time series champion Jimmie Johnson leads all drivers with eight career wins in 31 starts and has also finished Top 5 in almost 50% of those races. Wow! In a smaller sample size, Joey Logano actually comes back to Charlotte with a better average finish(11.2) and has finished inside the Top 10 in 56% of the races. Charlotte Motor Speedway has been Kasey Kahne's best track in his career as he has won here four times and finished Top 5 on 10 occasions. Denny Hamlin has yet to win here but has been very consistent with 14 Top 10 finishes in 23 career races.

Top 5 Intermediate Track History (2 Year)

Nothing really jumps out when looking at intermediate track history over the past two years. These five are the usual suspects we target when the Monster Energy Cup series heads to a mile and a half track. Brad Keselowski, Kevin Harvick, and Martin Truex Jr. are the only drivers to lead over 1,000 laps over the past 28 intermediate track races.

Top 5 Current Form (Last 6 Races)

We have a big shake-up in the current form ranks this week with Ricky Stenhouse Jr. taking over the top spot. He not only picked up his first career win at Talladega just three weeks ago, his last six races have resulted in some career best form(11th, 1st, 4th, 9th, 14th). The only issue from a DFS perspective lately has been that he is making it hard to select him as he is qualifying inside the Top 5 week after week. The other change to the Top 5 this week is that Joey Logano and Jimmie Johnson have slipped out while Kevin Harvick has made an appearance.

Early Week Picks 

Kevin Harvick ($10,300) - He is starting to trend in the right direction after a disappointing start to the 2017 season. He has finished Top 5 in four of the last five races overall and has only finished outside the Top 10 here at Charlotte twice in the last 13 races.

Kyle Busch ($9,800), Matt Kenseth($8,700), Denny Hamlin($9,200) - It's been an up and down season for Kyle but he comes into the Coca-Cola 600 with back to back Top 5 finishes and a win at the All-Star Race last weekend. I also like his teammates in the JGR stable this weekend as well. It has taken Toyota longer than usual to get going but the All-Star win by Kyle should help build the momentum going into the longest race of the season. Kyle may be in the Top 5 in ownership this week but Denny and Matt could end up being nice pivots for your GPP lineups. Stay tuned for the video following final practices on Saturday.

Post Qualifying/Practice Picks Video

For a limited time, I am offering a copy of my DFS NASCAR cheathsheet which includes Track History, Current Form, Odds, Track Type History, Practice/Qualifying Ranks and much more. Get it HERE. I also have available my Race by Race Trends sheet you can view as well. 

If you have any questions 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.