NASCAR DFS: STP 500 Cash and Tournament Picks for Draftkings and FanDuel

Following Kyle Busch’s second straight and 200th overall career victory, well now it’s 201 if you count yesterday’s Truck win, the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup series packs its bag and heads back east to the familiar grounds of Martinsville, Virginia for the STP 500. Martinsville is one of the more historic tracks in the Cup circuit with sanctioned racing dating all the way back to 1949 – a win by Red Byron in a 1949 Oldsmobile wherein he beat 14 other drivers and second-placed Lee Petty was 3 laps down. Yep, the good ole days…

Martinsville is mostly known around the racing world because of its familiar paperclip-shaped appearance with flat front and back stretches and minimal (12 degrees) banking in the corners. With 500 laps on tap, this creates a scenario where in order to excel a driver has to be great with using as little brake as possible and transitioning into the gas crisply. 500 laps also mean lots of “dominator” points, in fact, 375 if the race goes smoothly and possibly more should we see over time. However, don’t bank on a green-white-checker finish as these races have tended to finish green after staying fairly green for a half mile venue with caution totals of just six and two last year (excluding stage cautions). Furthermore, with 500 laps, get comfortable with the fact that drivers will get lapped. Going back the past six races, in reverse order, we’ve seen totals of just 20, 14, 23 (a race that did go to overtime thanks to Denny Hamlin booting Chase Elliott), 20, 10, and 19 drivers finish on the lead lap.

So… how does this translate into fantasy lineup construction? If you look below you’ll see the optimized lineup from last Spring’s STP 500, an odd race when you consider that a literal snowstorm postponed the race until Monday afternoon. However, the race still played out as we would expect – 500 laps meant lots of Hog points for the taking and we saw four drivers with scores north of the 70 point mark and three of them scored above 86 points. Essentially, this race became the extreme of lineup construction – jam in as many possible dominators as you can and then grab the punts that make the most sense (although Allmendinger wasn’t truly a punt but his price tag was underpriced compared to his track history at Martinsville) with an elevated score sitting in the 500’s.

 

If we move forward to the Fall race at Martinsville we see what we categorize as an anticipated outcome with the optimal lineup consisting of a triple Hog lineup, two place differential/ finishing position drivers, and a punt play that once again finishes north of 500 fantasy points. Something interesting of note in regards to this race was the fact that our pole sitter (Kyle Busch) led 100 laps while accruing 25 fastest laps, and yet failed to make the optimal lineup because of his elevated salary ($11,900). This should be on our minds this Sunday because Draftkings has jacked up the prices on several drivers, including the two best short term statistical drivers at Martinsville – Kyle Busch ($13,000) and Brad Keselowski ($12,400), making their threshold for optimization that much tougher. There are definitely more than enough laps to help propel these drivers towards hitting 7X or larger salary value compared to fantasy points earned but just be aware that if enough cheaper drivers become partial Hogs then our more expensive options might not be optimal.

This article is hitting newsstands on Sunday morning because NASCAR crammed as much track action as they could into two days and this meant that qualifying took place yesterday afternoon into evening with technical inspection occurring once the sun rises over the paper clip. As things stand we technically know where everyone is starting based off lap times, however, if a driver fails technical inspection this morning then their time will be disallowed and they will start from the rear and lined up according to owner points. NASCAR did this last year and we had scenarios where nearly half the field failed and we had other races where just a few people got sent to the back and the lineup you built Saturday night was more than likely the lineup you entered Sunday afternoon. Thus, what happens in the next few hours is anyone’s guess which is why I’m approaching today’s article a little differently. I’ll begin by highlighting my favorite dominator options for today’s race because you will need them regardless of how tech shakes out in cash (2) or GPP (2, 3, or even 4). Meanwhile, my cash plays which are typically place differential options will have their starting position highlighted in neon green in the Race Sheets below. Furthermore, you will need to consider the punt options especially if we get a crazy scenario where Kyle, Brad, Truex fail inspection and they will be highlighted in yellow. Considering the fluidity of these starting positions I think its best to just let you know who I would play because a few failed inspections could vault a driver from toeing the line of cash viability to a tournament only driver.

Dominator Options

Kyle Busch (13th) – It doesn’t matter how you try to slice or dice Rowdy, he is the driver who should be the star of all of your tournament lineups. He comes in hot with two straight wins at Phoenix and ACS, the best driver recently at Martinsville with two wins and no finish outside of the top five with over 152 laps led per race and 65 fastest laps on average and a per race Draftkings score above 117 fantasy points, and over the past seven short track races (Martinsville, Phoenix, New Hampshire, Richmond) he’s been king with four wins and an average finish of 1.7. Busch is helluva expensive but he’s got the pedigree to make value for his inflated salaries on both Draftkings and Fanduel and start off his 2019 season much the same way Kevin Harvick did last year, however, having 13 place differential spots to gain will help Rowdy pay off this salary.

Brad Keselowski (3rd) – If Kyle Busch gets abducted by aliens or has a mechanical, structural, pit road, etc… issue then the next man up is Kyle’s BFF Brad Keselowski who would hold the mantle of Martinsville’s best driver if it wasn’t for the shows Kyle has been putting on here of late. Brad hasn’t been the short track wizard that Busch has been, however, he does have a knack for Martinsville ranking second in nearly every statistical category of note as I pointed out earlier this week.

Kyle and Brad are men among boys, however, if you try to jam in both you have a salary problem. Not that it can’t be done but combining both takes up over half of your salary cap ($25,400/ $50,000) leaving you just $6,150 per driver on Draftkings and a dual expensive dominator paired with four cheapies/ punts will probably not be optimal. On Fanduel, pairing the two is a bit more doable thanks to the punt plays getting priced around 6% of your total salary cap compared to 11% on DK. Regardless, in order for this duo to be optimal, you would need a variety of factors to go down like them basically leading all of the laps and whoever the place differential drivers are to not move forward while the punts give Darrell Waltrip something to not shut up about for the next few weeks. Thus, let’s hit on a few cheaper options who could be just as likely to settle into the lead.

  • Martin Truex Junior (8th) – I keep waiting for the JGR osmosis effect to finally grab Truex, and perhaps it would have last weekend had Truex not ran into trouble during the last lap of the second segment. Martin already was a really consistent short-track driver and especially here at Martinsville with 3 top-five finishes with Furniture Row Racing dating back to 2016. Don’t forget in last Fall’s race Martin outraced eventual winner Joey Logano before Joey put bumper to fender and squirreled the win away in the last turn. During Saturday’s practice sessions, Truex looked like the fastest car on the track and he backed it up with the third fastest 10 lap average in practice one and then the fastest 10, 20, and 30 lap averages in practice two.
  • Denny Hamlin (5th) – the JGR osmosis isn’t just emanating from Kyle Busch but Denny as well who has been a good short track racer over his career and really picked it up last season with top-five Draftkings scores in both races leading 111 laps in the Spring event and notching the most fastest laps (76) in the Fall.
  • Joey Logano (1st) – The trend has been that wherever Brad excels we should expect the same at Martinsville from Joey and it’s been no different here at Martinsville where Joey has a win to match Brad’s from that previously mentioned win last fall wherein he led over 60% (309) of the laps that day. The fight for Logano is an uphill battle because history tells a somewhat unfavorable tale for whoever starts P1. Now you have to take this info with a grain of salt because not all drivers are great off the line and Logano should have no issue beating Almirola off the line and thus far in this young season the Penske stable stands heads and shoulders above the pack with JGR. Logano wasn’t exactly the fastest cat in Saturday’s practice sessions whether you look at short or long run speeds (8th and 21st in single lap speeds, 14th and 8th in 10 lap averages) but clean air is a great elixir.
Laps Led Fastest Laps Finish Avg
S13 346 87 1 1
F13 14 15 7 7
S14 22 7 14 15
F14 84 45 16 7
S15 108 41 3 7
F15 207 52 37 5
S16 21 8 11 15
F16 147 37 7 4
S17 23 7 17 21
F17 59 60 24 4
S18 4 29 4 7
F18 100 48 4 3

Cash Game Options

Don’t forget, this is fluid as these starting positions are subject to change. Once the field is set I will go back over my preferred place differential plays (neon green) and punt plays (neon yellow). As stated above, my preferred lineup for cash would be a double dominator lineup and you probably need to have either Joey Logano or Kyle Busch and possibly even both. Just staying on top of these changing positions will be an edge so make sure you check back later to see who failed tech and became a cash priority.

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

Stokastic +

Premium Data and Tools
PREMIUM TOOLS
Lineup Generator
Stokastic Sims MLB
PREMIUM DATA
Projections
Top Stack %s
MLB Data Central
FREE DATA
SoRare MLB Rankings
DraftKings Night Owl
FANTASY CRUNCHER (ADD-ON)
MLB Lineup Study
COMMUNITY
MLB Discord Server
PREMIUM DATA
Projections
Ownership Projections
PREMIUM TOOLS
Fantasy Cruncher (ADD-ON)
NHL Lineup Study
COMMUNITY
NHL Discord Server
PREMIUM TOOLS
Lineup Generator
Stokastic Sims PGA
PREMIUM DATA
Ownership Projections
Top Golfers Tool
PGA Tournament Models
FANTASY CRUNCHER (ADD-ON)
PGA Lineup Study
COMMUNITY
PGA Discord Server
Ownership Projections
Top Drivers Tool
NASCAR Discord Server
NASCAR Fantasy Cruncher
USFL Projections
USFL Discord Server
Ownership Projections
Top Fighters Tool
MMA Discord Server
MMA Fantasy Cruncher
NFL Betting Tools
Stokastic Discord Server
Best Ball
Best Ball Rankings
Best Ball Stat Projections
Stokastic Discord Server
Season Long Fantasy (Coming Soon)

DFS Winners from the Stokastic Community

Subscribe to the Stokastic newsletter

DFS advice, exciting promos, and the best bets straight to your inbox

Stokastic.com - Daily Fantasy Sports and Sports Betting Data, Tools, & Analytics

Please play responsibly. Only customers 21 and over are permitted to play. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help, call 1-800-GAMBLER.