DraftKings NASCAR DFS Picks for Darlington: Fantasy NASCAR DFS Strategy and Picks for the Goodyear 400

It’s throwback weekend at Darlington Raceway, but we probably shouldn’t throw it back to Saturday’s practice session too much.

DFS players that overrely on practice will find themselves a little too overweight on several Ford drivers that posted top-tier, long-run times. I don’t think anybody truly believes Todd Gilliland or Austin Cindric will have the best cars, yet that duo led the 20, 25, and 30-lap averages in practice.

With 293 laps scheduled, we’ll mostly want two-dominator builds, with some three-dominator builds sprinkled in a multi-entry portfolio.

From there, it’s the usual combination of finding the right combination of place differential, finishing position, and salary to round out a lineup.

Before we jump into my picks, don’t forget all my NASCAR projections can be found in the NASCAR Models on FantasyLabs, complete with floor, ceiling, median, and ownership projections.

Let’s not skip the best part — my Perfect% metric — a metric that tells you how often certain racers appear in the optimal lineup when running 10,000 race simulations.

And don’t forget about the tools that FantasyLabs has to offer, like our Lineup Optimizer to effortlessly create up to 300 lineups, or our Lineup Builder if you like to hand-build your lineups.

Here are my NASCAR DFS picks for the Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway.

Darlington DraftKings DFS Cash Game Strategy

This is a bit of a difficult week, as there are several dominator candidates who didn’t show particularly well in practice times, so it’s hard to gauge who might be the best over the long run.

What I do know is that my model gives Kyle Larson ($11,300) the highest chance of dominating at some point in this race, and the fact that he had the third-lowest tire falloff among dominator candidates from the five to 15-lap average behind only Brad Keselowski and Christopher Bell means I’d probably roll with Larson in cash games.

Chase Elliott ($9800) qualified a lowly 31st, but he is still a premier cash game option thanks to his high floor. He should finish in the top third of the field if he avoids issue, which is good enough to put him in cash-game lineups.

Noah Gragson ($7200) is an obvious cash-game play. The second-year Cup Series driver either led the most laps, or finished inside the top two in five of his last six Darlington races in the Xfinity Series and rolls off 36th despite some solid practice times.

I also think this is a week to try to raise our floor and pick three higher-priced drivers for cash games, and that fits well by using Harrison Burton ($5400), who has one of the highest salary-adjusted floors this week.

Darlington DraftKings DFS Tournament Strategy

Tournaments are tough this week. I think we’ll need to mix and match dominator candidates, and my model has a big five of Larson, Denny Hamlin, Martin Truex Jr., William Byron, and Tyler Reddick.

That makes this week super tough, and I think we need to mix and match between these drivers, with extra weight given to Larson thanks to his status as the highest likelihood dominator, per my model.

Brad Keselowski also looked great on the long run in practice, and if he were to get the early jump on polesitter Tyler Reddick, he’d rack up plenty of dominator points as well. However, if he doesn’t, it’s going to be a tough task for him to end up optimal. He’ll need to dominate at some point in the race after the first stint, which could be tough with the big five (as well as other second-tier dominator candidates), and come home with a top-five finish. Keselowski becomes a big gamble.

I particularly like being overweight on Christopher Bell ($10,000) if people are going to avoid using him in tournaments thanks to his slow practice times when we’re somewhat fading the overreaction to practice. Bell did have the third-lowest falloff in the field between five and 15-lap averages, and he looks to have a great long-run car. Bell also benefits from his pit crew, which is a great intangible at a track that could feature seven-plus pit stops on the day.

For the third week in a row, this should be a good track for Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Carson Hocevar. It seems like every week at intermediate tracks, these two qualify in the 18-24 range and have the upside for a finish in the high teens or better if things go right. However, I think they’ll both be used a bit too much, so pivoting off that duo onto drivers like John Hunter Nemechek, Corey LaJoie, and to a lesser extent Austin Cindric (since I’m projecting his usage close to his optimal) makes sense in big tournaments to get a bit of leverage.

Darlington DraftKings DFS Paul Menard Pick of the Week

One last driver we could pivot off Stenhouse and Hocevar onto is Michael McDowell ($6500). McDowell starts 16th and comes at a $1000 price tag increase compared to teammate Todd Gilliland, who starts one spot ahead of him.

However, that price discrepancy nearly fully drives the usage projections between two guys that should have relatively similar ranges of outcomes. The rest of that discrepancy is in the practice times. People will gravitate toward Gilliland thanks to the top-two times he posted over 20-30 consecutive laps in practice.

I’m projecting sub-10% usage for McDowell in a race where he should have around a 15-20% chance to end up inside the top 10 — a finish that would almost certainly get him in the optimal lineup.