NASCAR continues its quest out west this weekend as they shift from one desert to the other at Phoenix International Raceway for the Instacart 500 on Sunday. Brad Keselowski and last week’s winner, Kyle Larson, will lead the field into turn one for the first short track race of the 2021 NASCAR season. With that being said, let’s dive into this slate and discuss how we should approach this from a DraftKings and FanDuel perspective. Let’s get into some NASCAR DFS picks for Sunday’s race.
Instacart 500 NASCAR DFS Strategy | DraftKings & FanDuel
The strategy for Phoenix isn’t anything out of the ordinary compared to most tracks, but this is the first time NASCAR will visit a “short” track this year. Short tracks allow for more laps to be ran and in turn increase the amount of potential dominator points available for drivers this weekend. This means rostering dominators will be more important than ever on Sunday and at the very least we are looking at a minimum of two dominators in our lineups in both cash games and tournaments. One thing to note is that NASCAR will be using a different aero package this weekend compared to what we have seen the past couple of weekends. Short tracks use the low downforce high horsepower aero package and intermediate or larger tracks run the high downforce low horsepower aero package.
Upper-Tier Driver Picks
Chase Elliott $11,500 DraftKings – $13,500 FanDuel (6th)
Last year at the shorter flat tracks, there was more or less a big three who were head and shoulders above the field and were absolutely dominant at this track type. We’ll get into who the rest of this group was, but we will start off with the recent NASCAR champion, Chase Elliott. Elliott made the optimal lineup in both Phoenix races last year and won the championship at this exact track last year in November. Even more impressive is the fact that he started from the rear in that race and still made his way to the front. He also accumulated the most dominator points and most DraftKings points per race last year at Phoenix and similar track types. He may be expensive, but if he gets up front he can easily pay off his hefty price tag.
Joey Logano $11,100 DraftKings – $12,000 FanDuel (9th)
Logano was also part of the big three that dominated these track types last season and had very strong runs in both Phoenix races. Like Chase Elliott, he too, appeared in both optimal lineups last year at this track and he won the Phoenix spring race as well. He finished inside the top five in all six races at short flat tracks last year and Team Penske as a whole ran these tracks very well last year. Assuming the speed shows up once again this year (first in average green flag speed at short flat tracks in 2020), he should be a contender and starting in 11th, he offers us a bit of a floor as well.
Brad Keselowski $10,400 DraftKings – Brad Keselowski $12,500 (1st)
And the final member of last year’s big three, Brad Keselowski, will start on the pole on Sunday which puts him in an excellent spot to pick up early dominator points. Pole sitters have been tricky in the covid era, but the history for drivers starting close to the front at Phoenix is really hard to ignore as they are constantly popping up in the optimal lineup and getting the vast majority of the dominator points. There’s opportunities to get different in tournaments, but I do like getting to Keselowski in cash games as he should be in a hot rod and he has an excellent pit stall, which should help him stay out front.
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Mid-Tier Driver Picks
Aric Almirola $9,000 DraftKings – $8,000 FanDuel (32nd)
Almirola is off to a really slow start to the season and Stewart Haas Racing as a whole hasn’t been all that great either. But they are going to turn it around eventually and this is a very strong track for Almirola. His price tag is more appealing on FanDuel as he’s priced near potential dominators over on DraftKings, which presents a headache for DFS players this weekend if they want to fit in that third dominator or roll out AA in hopes of a heap of place differential points scored. He has an average finish inside the top ten here the past few years and was overall solid at these track types last year. The slow start is concerning, but starting this far back, he’s one of the safer options on the board.
Tyler Reddick $7,900 DraftKings – $7,500 FanDuel (23rd)
If you’re looking at Reddick’s 33rd-place finish in last year’s Phoenix spring race and drawing any conclusions from that, it would be a mistake because his car was much better than that. The rookie (at the time) moved his way through the field and was flying by veteran drivers and even Kyle Busch who has an insanely good track history here. It was a truly impressive performance and he even picked up 39 fast laps, which was only behind Kevin Harvick and Chase Elliott, despite not even running a full race. He has top-10 upside at a price tag below $8K on both sites.
Value Driver Picks
Cole Custer $6,700 DraftKings – $7,300 FanDuel (24th)
Like the rest of the Stewart Haas Racing cars last Sunday, Custer sunk a large majority of lineups last week as he was the highest owned driver on the entire slate. But I am willing to go back to the well here as he looks to be the most appealing cheap option this week, especially on DraftKings where the price tag is more appealing and the other value options once again aren’t very strong. The short flat tracks were strong for Custer last season as he was typically a top-15 contender. He also finished inside the top-10 in this race last year in the Spring.
Anthony Alfredo $5,800 DraftKings – $3,500 FanDuel (28th)
Pasta isn’t an exciting play, but it’s necessary cheap value to fit in multiple dominators in our lineups this weekend. We don’t have much data to work with him, but he now has three straight top-25 finishes, which is around what we should expect for him throughout the season. He’s cheap on both sites and is a fine last-piece fit to your lineups.
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