DFS: Charlotte (Spring)

Draft Kings

This week, 28 drivers in the Draft Kings game fall below the midline, but the 13 above that mark pretty much define everyone a player wants to take. Based on past Charlotte Motor Speedway performances, there are only a few drivers that are statistically good values and that means this week fantasy players are going to have to take some risks.

One might want to start close to the bottom and ignore even mid-range drivers for the first couple of picks.

Chris Buescher has been one of the top choices on similarly-configured, 1.5-mile tracks this season and he has gotten progressively better with each passing week. At Kansas Speedway, he rewarded players with an 18th-place finish. He picked up two place-differential points in that race; in fact, he has finished better than he started in his last seven attempts on this track type and that makes him even more attractive. He should finish in the high-teens again in the Coca-Cola 600.

For a real bargain basement pick, players want to consider Michael McDowell. At $4,900 he adds close to $575 per option to the remaining picks and that is going to allow one to upgrade at the midlevel and top. Better still, he has been worth starting on similarly-configured, 1.5-mile tracks regardless of his price. This team started to rapidly improve last year at Charlotte in the fall when they scored a 14th-place finish. This spring, they were 18th at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, 23rd at Texas Motor Speedway, and 13th last week at Kansas. That gives them one of the best dollar-to-points ratios in the Draft Kings game.

That moves the average salary cap for the remaining drivers to $9,700 and the options open up. Don’t go crazy just yet, but Jamie McMurray sits comfortably below this line and he has been stellar all season on similarly-configured, 1.5-mile tracks with a sweep of the top 10. Sign him for $8,400 and one can start to think about the drivers north of the $9k mark.

Ryan Blaney has been coming on strong in recent weeks and he was finally able to put a complete race together at Kansas. When he qualified on the pole, we predicted he would lose place-differential points—and he did. We also predicted he would not lead enough laps to offset that and on that account we were wrong. Blaney scored a solid top-five and made himself extremely fantasy relevant. With these four drivers in the lineup, players can take absolutely anyone they want.

Martin Truex Jr. is the most expensive driver in the field at $10,700, but if he even comes close to replicating what he did in last year’s Coke 600, no one will be able to win a contest without him. He dominated 2016 to a degree that Modern Day NASCAR simply has not seen. He already has two wins on similarly-configured, 1.5-mile tracks this year. These came at Vegas and last week at Kansas. He doesn’t need to win in order to earn maximum points and he is a must-have for the Coca-Cola 600.

The final pick should go to one of the following: Kevin Harvick, Jimmie Johnson, or Brad Keselowski. Keep that slot in reserve for whoever qualifies the worst compared to their practice times so that you can pick up positive place-differential points. If there are a few dollars leftover, one can think about upgrading Blaney or McMurray, or use that core roster and make some adjustments for other lineups in multi-entry games.