Kyle Busch drives during the NASCAR Sprint Cup auto race, Sunday, Nov. 20, 2016, in Homestead, Fla. (AP Photo/Terry Renna)
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Indianapolis Motor Speedway - Speedway, IN
Track - 2.5 Mile Oval
Banking - 9°
Laps - 160
This week the Monster Energy Cup Series head to Speedway Indiana for the Brickyard 400. Yes, I know it's the Brantley Gilbert Big Machine Brickyard 400 now but you will never hear that out of my mouth. These sponsorship plugs in NASCAR are getting out of hand. Did you hear the guy doing the command the other week going on and on for like five minutes about his company? Four simple words. Drivers. Start. Your. Engines. Now that I got that out of my system we can get into the race this week.
NASCAR makes its annual trip to Indianapolis Motor Speedway for one of the most prestigious races in the series where the winner will get to kiss the Bricks that lay across the start/finish line. The track is a 2.5 mile oval that can present a challenge for drivers with its high speeds in the straightaways and very flat banking in the corners. This will be the 24th running of the Brickyard 400 and of the 23 previous races, the winner has gone on to win the NASCAR championship nine times.
From a daily fantasy perspective, track position is going to be key once again as the last five winners all started inside the Top 10 and twice from the pole position. There has also been only five drivers of a possible 40 over the last four years that started outside the Top 20 and finished inside the Top 10. We are also likely to see just one dominator this week as there have been five straight races where one driver led 70 or more laps and only twice in the last six races have two drivers led more than 40 laps each.
With that in mind, let's jump in and take a look at some of the trends from the cheatsheet and then look at some pre-qualifying/practice picks.
The first thing that jumps off the page is the domination of Kyle Busch here over the last two years. He won both races and led 149 of 160 laps in last years race. Kevin Harvick dominated the race in 2015 leading 75 laps but eventually lost the win to Busch. Denny Hamlin is the only other driver to finish Top 5 in both races and there are seven drivers(Busch, Hamlin, Harvick, Logano, Kenseth, Larson, Truex) who finished both inside the Top 10.
With a small sample size, Kyle Larson has been terrific here at Indy finishing all three races inside the Top 10 with a 7.0 average finish. No surprise, Kyle Busch is right behind him after winning in back to back years and he has finished inside the Top 10 in 10 of his 12 trips to Indy.
Looking at the two 2.5 mile intermediate tracks(Pocono & Indianapolis), there are a group of drivers who get it and a group that hasn't quite picked up what complete package for these tracks. Of the 10 drivers who have at least four Top 10's in the last seven races all but two(Jones & Larson) have at least 10 years of NASCAR Cup Series experience. Rookie Erik Jones tops the list after his impressive 3rd place finish at Pocono earlier this season. Matt Kenseth won at Pocono in 2015 and has six Top 10 finishes in seven races. Kevin Harvick also has six Top 10's and joins Brad Keselowski as the only other driver with four Top 5's in those seven races.
This week I added the last six races DraftKings point average to compare to the regular average finish ranks over the last six races. For the most part, drivers just swap positions in the Top 5 like Kyle Busch ranking 3rd in average finish(9.7) but first overall in average DK points. Martin Truex Jr. doesn't even show up on the Top 5 average finish ranks but sits 2nd behind Busch with 57.8 average DK points. What we should take from this is that the bonus points(laps, led, place differential, fast laps) are very crucial. Like we didn't know this already. On to the picks.
Kyle Busch ($10,500) - He has dominated over the last two years and it has now been a full year since his last win. I said I would play him until he wins and it has been paying off as he leads the average DK points per race ranks over the last six races. He is also trying to become the only driver to ever win three in a row here.
Kevin Harvick ($9,900) - Getting Kevin Harvick under $10K feels a lot like stealing. His salary is down $100 from last week and it's about $200 below his season average. He comes back to Indy with some awesome form with three straight Top 10 finishes.
Paul Menard ($6,300) - You are likely looking at the chalk this week barring a top qualifying run by the #27 car. Indy has been one of his best tracks over his career and the only place he has a win. WIth that said, he comes into this year's race with a salary drop of $200 from last week and is $450 below his career mark. Hard to fade that value, even without knowing practice/qualifying.
**Check back later today**
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. 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 four years and fantasy in general for more than a decade. He is 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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Here is the link to my post qualifying/practice picks article over on my blog - https://www.sportsblog.com/jagerbombs/daily-fantasy-nascar-picks-the-brickyard-400/