NASCAR DFS: Top NASCAR Enjoy Illinois 300 Gateway Value Picks | DraftKings & FanDuel NASCAR Fantasy

The field is set for Sunday’s race at World Wide Technology Raceway with X and Y on the front row. Let’s delve into this week’s top Fantasy NASCAR picks and value plays for DraftKings and FanDuel NASCAR DFS lineups for the Enjoy Illinois 300.

Fantasy NASCAR Picks: Enjoy Illinois 300 Values

Chase Briscoe, 1st ($7,800 DraftKings, $8,500 FanDuel)

The theme of Friday and Saturday was the speed that Ford was consistently showing. The Fords were the fastest cars in practice and took six of the top 10 starting positions. Starting on the pole is this season’s winner at Phoenix, Chase Briscoe who managed to get loose in turns three and four and still posted the fastest qualifying effort. Perhaps it was muscle memory from years ago as Briscoe won the pole in his only Truck start at WWTR (2018). Interestingly enough in that race, Briscoe led 88 of that day’s 160 laps before finishing second.

Optimism for Briscoe isn’t just linked to his victory at Phoenix, or what he did four years ago at this track, but it’s race expectations as outlined by Ryan Blaney:

The story of the Generation Seven car, at flatter, shorter venues, has been just how tough it is to pass the polesitter or really anyone upfront. In this season’s three races at Phoenix, Richmond, and Martinsville, the polesitter has either led the most or second-most laps in each of those events, and judging by driver comments, DFS players should expect a repeat of those three races from earlier this year.

Alex Bowman, 25th ($8,700 DraftKings, $9,000 FanDuel)

A poor qualifying effort means Bowman rolls off the grid towards the middle of the pack. Unfortunately for Bowman, the lack of speed he showed in practice reared its head in qualifying. However, for DFS players, this means a driver with top-15 potential starts in the latter half of the race, and with as cheap as potential lap leaders like Chase Briscoe, and Austin Cindric are, Bowman can be comfortably deployed in cash.

The temptation may be to go with William Byron instead as he finished third at Richmond and won at Martinsville leading the most laps on the night. However, judging by practice speeds, it seems neither driver has the speed to really compete for tomorrow’s victory. In that scenario, take the driver that is more than $1,000 cheaper on DraftKings and $2,000 cheaper on FanDuel who possesses similar upside to finish around 12th through 16th tomorrow.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr., 27th ($7,700 DraftKings, $ 5,300 FanDuel)

The train keeps rolling and until the wheels fall off, there’s no reason to jump off the Stenhouse train. Charlotte marked his fourth-straight top 10 finish, a marked difference compared to how the season began for the driver of the 47. Speaking of that dreadful spell that saw him go seven-straight races with finishes of 27th or worse, that spell included the three corollary races of Phoenix, Richmond, and Martinsville from this season. Thus, for those just looking at this season’s stats, Stenhouse is going to look like a fade candidate. However, it can’t be understated how different this team is operating now than it did earlier in the season. As Stenhouse has shown plenty of times during this stretch, don’t let a bad qualifying effort dissuade you from a potentially strong play.

If looking for something from this week to grab on to, Stenhouse was the only driver to run a 20 consecutive lap run among everyone in Friday’s practice session. This suggests a level of comfort in his car and during that long run, his speed relative to the field started to improve. In the single-lap time, he was 22nd fastest. In the five-lap consecutive run, he was 16th fastest among 34 drivers. In the ten-lap consecutive run, he was 14th among 25 drivers. Finally, in the 15-lap consecutive run, he was sixth fastest among 11 drivers.


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Zane Smith, 32nd ($5,400 DraftKings, $4,000 FanDuel)

Chances are, cash teams aren’t going to have to dip down this far to find value. However, for those playing tournaments, and needing a driver to round out a lineup, Zane Smith is this week’s blaring value play. Smith is filling in for Chris Buescher as he recovers from Covid-19, and potentially still nursing wounds from the barrel roll he took in the infield at Charlotte. Regardless, Smith will enter Sunday with laps from Saturday’s Trucks race giving him the most real recent experience at this track of anyone in Sunday’s field. Due to this, expect Smith to carry two to three times the ownership of everyone else in this range, especially as the logical pivots (Todd Gilliland – 22nd, Harrison Burton – ninth) all qualified too high for most DFS players tastes.

AJ Allmendinger, 35th ($6,200 DraftKings, $3,500 FanDuel)

Via no fault of his own, Allmendinger will start next to last on Sunday. While Allmendinger was in Portland racing in the Xfinity Series, Ben Rhodes took over the practice and qualifying duty for Kaulig, in Allmendinger’s absence. However, during the early portions of Friday’s practice, Rhodes wrecked the 16 car and even with the gap in time between practice and qualifying, the cosmetic adjustments weren’t done in time for Rhodes to qualify Allmendinger’s car. Thus, with no qualifying effort, Allmendinger will roll off the grid in 35th with a starting position and salary that makes him perfect for cash games.

In this season’s three starts at Phoenix, Richmond, and Martinsville; Allmendinger has finishes of 20th, 27th, and 24th. While Allmendinger possesses a nice floor due to his place differential potential, he does come with plenty of risk including no laps at this track. There are plenty of scenarios where Allmendinger is this week’s version of Brad Keselowski from Charlotte; a seemingly safe play that eats up plenty of ownership but in the end was not a driver suited for tournament lineups.

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Phill Bennetzen is the creator of the RaceSheets; all-inclusive stats and data NASCAR DFS spreadsheets for the Trucks, Xfinity, and Cup Series. Phill and the RaceSheets can be found at racesheetsdfs.substack.com

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