Bank of America 500

Charlotte Motor Speedway

Last week at Dover saw the last race of the first round of the Chase Playoffs and the elimination of four title hopefuls. Kyle Busch logged another win in the round, after winning the week before in New Hampshire, but not after running down Chase Elliott over the final 30 laps. Chase had a 4+-second lead about halfway through the final stage, but his car simply ran out of steam over the final two laps and Busch was able to make the final pass. The four drivers that were eliminated were Kurt Busch, Kasey Kahne, Ryan Newman, and Austin Dillon.

Charlotte is the home track, of sorts, for NASCAR. It also hosts two races a year, the Coca-Cola 600 and now the Bank of America 500. This is the first race in the Round of 12 in the Chase, and the second 1.5 mile race in the playoffs overall. It is a quad-oval layout with high-banked turns of 24 degrees and nearly flat straightaways at just five degrees.

At 500 miles, 334 laps make up the three-stage race this week and like many 1.5 mile tracks, there tends to be one driver that leads the majority of laps. The last four races here have followed that trend, but prior to that there were two drivers leading more than 100 laps. Overall, 84% of winners have come from the top-five starting spots, however that stat holds true only about half the time over the last 12 races, though two of the winners in that span have come from the 7th spot in the starting grid.

Weather has been a big issue this weekend thus far, several on track happenings have been cancelled or moved because of rain. One practice happened Friday morning along with qualifying Friday evening, but Saturday’s practices were cancelled, and now the Xfinity race is in a delay. The race on Saturday was originally scheduled for 2pm ET but has been moved up an hour to 1pm ET in order to avoid a delay. So the playbook and lineups have been determined based on the showing in the only practice, and their past histories at the track.

DFS Playbook

DriverDraft KingsNASCAR LiveDescription
Martin Truex Jr.$10,900$28.00Truex Jr. has been the dominant driver here of late with a win and four top-fives in the last five races. He also has the most laps led, by a ways. He is a must play in either format this week
Kyle Busch$10,600$27.75Kyle has been on a hot streak recently, but hasn't won here in his career. He does have 11 top-fives in 27 races here with 971 laps led, good for third in the field career. A backup car limits him
Kyle Larson$10,400$27.50Larson has a top-five and a top-10 in the last five races here. He hasn't scored a win in the last 32 races at 1.5 mile tracks but he does have nine top-fives and 13 top-10s. He ran P1 in practice
Kevin Harvick$10,200$27.00Harvick has two top-fives and four top-10s in the last five races at Charlotte. He also has three wins in his career here with seven top-fives and 15 top-10s. Harvick ran P3 in practice & starts P3
Jimmie Johnson$10,000$23.00Johnson is the best at Charlotte for his career with eight wins and one in the last five He also leads the field in laps led in his career, plus he has the most wins at this distance in the last 32 races
Chase Elliott$9,400$26.00Fresh off a defeat at Dover, he has run well at practice this week. He has one top-10 and two top-20s in the last four races he's run here along with seven top-fives in 22 1.5 mile races.
Denny Hamlin$9,200$27.25Denny is on the pole after running fourth in practice. He has three top-fives and four top-10s in the last five races with 115 laps led. He has the second-best average finish in the field at 12.79
Ryan Blaney$9,000$17.00Blaney has only two top-20s in five races here finishing on average 26.2 after starting P15. He has shown top-10 speed at practice this week but his history limits him to a GPP-only play
Kurt Busch$8,300$20.75Busch has the second-best average finish at Charlotte over the last five races at P7. He also has a top-five and a five top-10s in that span. Busch ran P10 in practice and starts P8 Sunday. GPP
Kasey Kahne$8,000$13.00Kahne is the second-best driver at CMS in the field with four wins in his career and 1,100+ laps led. He has one top-five and one top-10 in the last five with two DNFs. Ran P14 in practice. GPP
Erik Jones$7,900$25.00Jones has just one race at MENCS at charlotte and finished P7 after starting P5. He has two top-fives in four Xfinity races at Charlotte in his young career. Ran well at pracitce but remains a GPP 
Ryan Newman$7,100$24.00Newman ran second in practice before qualifying P11. An average finish of 8.8 in the last five races makes him third in that stats with four top-10s. After last week, he has something to prove
A.J. Allmendinger$6,900$11.00A.J. has a history of going backwards in the last five races but does have three top-20s. In the spring he moved up from P26 to P18 and ran P11 in pracitce before qualifying P19 for Sunday
Michael McDowell$5,900$10.50McDowell ran P8 in pracitce and qualified P16 for Sunday's race. He has two-straight top-20 finishes here and moved up from P22 to P14 in this race last year. At this price he's hard to ignore
Aric Almirola$5,800$11.25Almirola has a top-10 and three top-20s in the last four races he's run here. In this race last year he ran from P33 to P15. He ran in the mid-20s at practice and qualifying this week. Either works

Optimal Lineups

Draft Kings Cash 
Martin Truex Jr.$10,900
Jimmie Johnson$10,000
Chase Elliott$9,400
Ryan Newman$7,100
Michael McDowell$5,900
Aric Almirola$5,800
  
Total$49,100

 

Draft Kings GPP 
Kyle Busch$10,600
Kyle Larson$10,400
Kurt Busch$8,300
Erik Jones$7,900
A.J. Allmendinger$6,900
Michael McDowell$5,900
  
Total$50,000

 

Draft Kings GPP #2 
Martin Truex Jr.$10,900
Kevin Harvick$10,200
Denny Hamlin$9,200
Kasey Kahne$8,000
Michael McDowell$5,900
Aric Almirola$5,800
  
Total$50,000

 

NASCAR Live 
Martin Truex Jr.$28.00
Erik Jones$25.00
Jimmie Johnson$23.00
Kasey Kahne$13.00
Michael McDowell$10.50
Bonus WinnerMartin Truex Jr.
Bonus ManufacturerToyota

 

Streak To The FinishMartin Truex Jr.