Daily Fantasy NASCAR Race Preview - STP 500 DFSR is proud to bring you Chris Durell. He'll be bringing weekly NASCAR picks, analysis and breakdowns to help you cash on DraftKings. Playing other DFS sports? Now’s your chance to get DFSR PRO, which will give you access to our NBA optimizer, NBA Player Lab and our basic NHL projections! Get started for free by clicking the button below. START YOUR FREE TRIAL NOW! Want to learn some about NBA? Be sure to read our free NBA Ebook on building lineups, general strategy and more. We've got you completely covered.   STP 500 Martinsville Speedway - Martinsville, VA Track - .526 Oval Short Track 12° Banking in the Corners Young gun Kyle Larson dominated the Auto Club 400 last weekend, leading 110 laps(38 fast laps) en route to his second career victory. He has cemented his elite status in the Cup series after opening the season 12th, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd and now this win. I predicted a championship in the next three years. Take the under! The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series rolls on to Martinsville, Virginia this week for the 2017 season's first short track race. Martinsville Speedway is a half-mile track with 12° of banking in the corner. It is one of three short tracks on the circuit that come in under one mile in length. It is similar to Bristol in its half mile length but the banking is dramatically different creating much different racing). It can also be compared to Richmond as they have similar flat characteristics but Richmond is a .75 mile D-Shaped Oval. The "Paperclip" is a one of kind track that has been around since the beginning. In fact, it is the only track that has hosted a Cup race every year since 1949(series inception). Qualifying will be extremely important this week so we can expect ALL drivers(yes I am talking to you Jimmie) to be out there late Friday afternoon to try and start up front. Passing can be tough and restarts will be key on Sunday and this puts much more emphasis on dominator and finishing points than it does on place differential. Before getting into my early week picks, let's take a look at some of the top trends from Martinsville Speedway.      Top 10 Track History at Martinsville (2 Year)   Kyle Busch is the defending race winner in the Spring after completely dominating with 355 laps led. He has also finished Top 5 in his other two races at Martinsville Speedway over the last two years(missed Sping '15 race due to a broken leg). The most consistent driver here at Martinsville over the past two years has been Martin Truex Jr. despite...

Daily Fantasy NASCAR Picks for DraftKings - Auto Club 400 DFSR is proud to bring you Chris Durell. He'll be bringing weekly NASCAR picks, analysis and breakdowns to help you cash on DraftKings. Playing other DFS sports? Now’s your chance to get DFSR PRO, which will give you access to our NBA optimizer, NBA Player Lab and our basic NHL projections! Get started for free by clicking the button below. START YOUR FREE TRIAL NOW! Want to learn some about NBA? Be sure to read our free NBA Ebook on building lineups, general strategy and more. We've got you completely covered.     Auto Club 400 Auto Club Speedway - Fontana, CA Track - 2 Mile D Shaped Oval Superspeedway 14° Banking in the Corners If you haven't already, be sure to go check out my  DFS NASCAR Race Preview article for all the top trends and stats. Qualifying and practice have wrapped up and data has been entered in the sheet to produce the final model. It's time to construct some lineups. The biggest story of the weekend so far was the five drivers who missed qualifying and will start at the back. It opens up a ton of place differential value and will most definitely sway ownership in a huge way. This makes it a great week to try out multiple strategies. You can easily stack two or three elite place differential plays but they will be highly owned. This opens up an opportunity to also be contrarian. This doesn't mean making dumb roster moves, it just means making smart ones. You don't have to fade the place differential guys completely just don't center your lineup around a stack of them. Let's jump into the picks.   Drivers to Build Around Jimmie Johnson DraftKings - $9,800 Practice 1 - 24th Qualified - 37th Practice 2 - 4th Final Practice - 16th Jimmie spun into the grass in the opening practice and was forced to go to a backup(1B) car. Then they elected to not even qualify after not getting any practice time and will start 37th on Sunday. Not only does he provide elite value at a sub $10K price, he also has huge place differential upside. It gets better. Because he didn't qualify, the #48 will start on fresh tires and should be able to make up ground quickly. Look for Jimmie to push close to the Top 10 early into the second stage. He will be high owned but elite in all formats with a very high floor and ceiling.   Joey Logano DraftKings - $10,300 Practice 1 - 5th Qualified - 35th Practice 2 - 12th Final Practice - 6th Logano and the #22 team will also start near...

Daily Fantasy NASCAR Race Preview - Auto Club 400 DFSR is proud to bring you Chris Durell. He'll be bringing weekly NASCAR picks, analysis and breakdowns to help you cash on DraftKings. Playing other DFS sports? Now’s your chance to get DFSR PRO, which will give you access to our NBA optimizer, NBA Player Lab and our basic NHL projections! Get started for free by clicking the button below. START YOUR FREE TRIAL NOW! Want to learn some about NBA? Be sure to read our free NBA Ebook on building lineups, general strategy and more. We've got you completely covered.   Auto Club 400 Auto Club Speedway - Fontana, CA Track - 2 Mile D Shaped Oval Superspeedway 14° Banking in the Corners Another exciting race at Phoenix this past weekend saw Ryan Newman grab a late race lead and his first win in awhile. If you haven't already, be sure to check out my Recap Article over at JagerBombs Fantasy Sports Blog. The blog site is going through some updates so some of the videos and links are not showing up. Just so you don't ask why I have gone crazy and forgot to include them. LOL. On to Fontana! This week the NASCAR haulers have taken the 320 drive West to Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California for the 2017 Auto Club 400 on Sunday afternoon. Auto Club Speedway has a long history in NASCAR and one that dates back to World War II. The site of the speedway was an old steel mill that was used during the second World War to build ships that sent troops overseas. In 1995, Roger Penske started construction of the speedway and in 1997 the racing started at what was then California Speedway. The first ever winner was none other than future Hall of Famer Jeff Gordon who ended winning two of the first three races. For seven years from 2004 to 2010 the track was home to two races in the NASCAR Cup series as it became hard to fill the seats for two separate events. It turned out to be a great move as the fans have continued to show up in bunches every since. As the track surface has gotten older over the years, the racing has continued to get better. A track that was prone to long green flag runs and spread out race cars has now seen a last-lap pass for the win in three of the last four years. Add to it a new lower downforce package and we should be in for another exciting finish this year. Coming into this week there are a handful of drivers who will be looking to get back on track or at least onto the track....

Daily Fantasy NASCAR Picks for DraftKings - Camping World 500 DFSR is proud to bring you Chris Durell. He'll be bringing weekly NASCAR picks, analysis and breakdowns to help you cash on DraftKings. Playing other DFS sports? Now’s your chance to get DFSR PRO, which will give you access to our NBA optimizer, NBA Player Lab and our basic NHL projections! Get started for free by clicking the button below. START YOUR FREE TRIAL NOW! Want to learn some about NBA? Be sure to read our free NBA Ebook on building lineups, general strategy and more. We've got you completely covered.     Camping World 500 Phoenix International Raceway - Avondale, AZ Track - 1 Mile Tri-Oval Short Track 9°-11° Banking in the Corners NASCAR Goes West continues on into Phoenix and they couldn't have received better weather. It's hot and I am jealous sitting here in about 45-degree weather. Qualifying and practice are now over and I have crunched the numbers on the cheatsheet and now ready to construct some lineups. If you missed my Race Preview Article be sure to go check that out for some general Phoenix International Raceway trends and pre-practice/qualifying picks. I will be using a similar strategy to last week but really concentrating on getting the dominator points. It's a shorter one-mile track where track position is key and even more important with the stage racing setup with so much emphasis on points. Like last week, there is a ton of place differential upside both at the top and bottom of the salary. Let's take a look.   Drivers to Build Around Joey Logano DraftKings - $10,500 Practice 1 - 3rd Qualified - 1st Practice 2 - 2nd Final Practice - 1st I am a GPP player and not at all worried about last week's post-race incident with Kyle Busch. I lead off with this as both drivers are in my "Drivers to Build Around" section and could end up battling for a Top 5 position once again this week. He won the Coors Lite Pole on Friday evening and carried that speed over into race trim on Saturday finishing 2nd and 1st in the final two practices. He has upside to lead a ton of laps leading to a lot of dominator points. He is safe in all formats.     Kevin Harvick DraftKings - $11,100 Practice 1 - 13th Qualified - 23rd Practice 2 - 6th Final Practice - 16th Once again he will be starting back in the field at a track he has had a ton of success at in the past. He has won six of the last nine races here at Phoenix International Raceway and eight total in his career....

Daily Fantasy NASCAR Race Preview - Camping World 500 DFSR is proud to bring you Chris Durell. He'll be bringing weekly NASCAR picks, analysis and breakdowns to help you cash on DraftKings. Playing other DFS sports? Now’s your chance to get DFSR PRO, which will give you access to our NBA optimizer, NBA Player Lab and our basic NHL projections! Get started for free by clicking the button below. START YOUR FREE TRIAL NOW! Want to learn some about NBA? Be sure to read our free NBA Ebook on building lineups, general strategy and more. We've got you completely covered.   If you missed the race and post-race excitement from Las Vegas, check out my Recap Article over at JagerBombs Fantasy Sports Blog.   Camping World 500 Phoenix International Raceway - Avondale, AZ Track - 1 Mile Tri-Oval Short Track 9°-11° Banking in the Corners NASCAR Goes West continues on to Phoenix after a dominating performance from Martin Truex Jr. and the #78 Furniture Row Racing team in Las Vegas. Truex led  150 laps, swept all stages and picked up max points vaulting him into fourth in the standings, just five points back of leader Brad Keselowski. Truex also leads all drivers with seven playoff bonus points. While the big story going into the 2017 season was the new stage racing and points structure, the biggest story, in my opinion, is the ascension of the young guns in the sport. Chase Elliott has opened the season with a 14th at Daytona and back to back Top 5's at Atlanta and Las Vegas earning himself the 3rd position in the standings.  Doing one better is Kyle Larson who finished 12th at Daytona and has now tallied back to back runner-up finishes. He sits second in the points ahead of Elliott. Ryan Blaney has also been impressive with Top 10 finishes at Daytona and last week at Las Vegas while Erik Jones started out with a crash in Daytona but has rebounded with back to back Top 15 finishes. NASCAR is in great hands! This week the drivers will battle it out at Phoenix International Raceway, a one mile tri-oval that can be classified as both a short track and intermediate track. It is closely compared to Richmond(.75 mile) and New Hampshire(1.058 mile) for their distance and low banking. It has also been compared to Dover, although only in distance as Dover has much more banking(24º). Phoenix was last re-paved between the spring and fall races in 2011. Let's jump into some trends at Phoenix International Raceway.    Top 10 Track History at LVMS (2 Year)   There has been no one more dominant than Kevin Harvick here at PIR no matter what timeframe you look at. He has...

Daily Fantasy NASCAR Picks for DraftKings - Kobalt 400 DFSR is proud to bring you Chris Durell. He'll be bringing weekly NASCAR picks, analysis and breakdowns to help you cash on DraftKings. Playing other DFS sports? Now’s your chance to get DFSR PRO, which will give you access to our NBA optimizer, NBA Player Lab and our basic NHL projections! Get started for free by clicking the button below. START YOUR FREE TRIAL NOW! Want to learn some about NBA? Be sure to read our free NBA Ebook on building lineups, general strategy and more. We've got you completely covered.     Kobalt 400 Las Vegas Motor Speedway - Las Vegas, Nevada Track - 1.5 Mile D Shaped Oval Intermediate Track 20° Banking in the Corners Qualifying order is set and final practice is now over. It's time to get into the picks for this weekend's race. If you are looking for a more in-depth look at the race, track and trends be sure to go back and check out my Kobalt 400 Race Preview Article from earlier this week. I got a chance to watch all three practices and qualifying this week and have a few takeaways. As I usually do in normal circumstances, I will be weighing the results of practice one low as most teams worked mock qualifying runs rather than race setup. Stage racing has put even more importance on track position during the race so qualifying will be important to find those two or three dominator drivers. Not that a driver can't come through the field and also dominate(see Harvick 2015), but it's an even tougher task now. Teams had the technology available to them in practice this week to see their segment speeds on pit road. This had a ton of teams practices pit road runs in second practice and even the final practice. This technology sounds like it won't be available all season and it's tough to say how teams will use this info. Another thing to watch for on Sunday after 11 drivers were nailed for 13 speeding penalties last week in Atlanta. Final practice will be weighed the highest of all practices as the track temp was in the mid to high 90 degree range(via FS1 on tv) which is the closest to actual race temperature. Drivers to Build Around Dale Earnhardt Jr.  DraftKings - $9,200 Practice 1 - 21st Qualified -18th Practice 2 - 17th Final Practice - 3rd Final Practice 10 Lap Avg. - 15th Earnhardt Jr. continually got better all weekend and makes an excellent driver to build around. Why didn't I list him in the place differential section below you ask? It comes to the value he provides at $9,200(8th in salary)...