DFS NASCAR: Folds of Honor Contest Analysis

It was a bit of a different race weekend this weekend at Atlanta as some of the drivers we figured would play a key role played a smaller role in the race and some other snuck up to factor big in the outcome. Several of the drivers we had targeted for position differential upside didn’t wind up panning out and speeding penalties on pit road wind up dinging a few drivers in big ways. Oh yeah and our own Dan Malin experienced his first ever NASCAR race and came away loving it, though more explicit language was used in his description. There’s also a chance that this race gets known as one driver’s “flu game” so to speak. Without further ado lets look at who was popular and who wasn’t.

DraftKings

Large Field GPP

This contest had 47,000+ entries and a max of 150 per player meaning there was quite a bit of spreading out of ownership across the field as all 37 drivers were played on at least 770 rosters. Not surprisingly, Kevin Harvick was the highest-owned driver at 42.7% given his history at the track and the further back starting spot than expected. Ryan Blaney, starting 26^th, was the second-highest owned driver at 34.4% and Chris Buescher was just behind him at 33.2% as a driver who was cheap, $6,200, and starting P30 while running faster than that at practice. Nine drivers were owned in the 20% range with Martin Truex Jr. leading the way at 28.6% and the two Kyles, Kyle Larson (24.1%) and Kyle Busch (20.3%) falling in that range as well as both put up solid scores of 89.5 and 52 points respectively. Nearly a third of the 37-car field was played on between 18.3% and 10.1% of rosters in this contest. Jimmie Johnson was the highest owned of that group, but his 7.5 points was a serious disappointment given his history here. The eventual winner of the race, Brad Keselowski, was also in this ownership tier at just 10.8% as word of his illness over the weekend caused a lot of people to fade him. At that ownership rate, he also represents the best value play of the slate despite his high salary for the race since the 86.25 points was the second-highest total of any one. The two hometown drivers, Chase Elliott and David Ragan had vastly different ownership rates with Elliott being on 27.4% and Ragan on 14.28% of rosters with Ragan ultimately outscoring Elliott 35 to 28.5. My fade of the week in Denny Hamlin was rostered on 6.8% of lineups and just like we expected, his day didn’t go great with just 28 points put up for his owners.

Second GPP

In this second GPP contest of the week, all 37 drivers were played once again, but the ownership levels were completely different than the GPP listed above. Once more Kevin Harvick was the most played driver at 37.5% but he was the only driver to crack the 30% barrier this time. Chris Buescher and Ryan Blaney were the next highest played but this time Buescher outpaced Blaney 29.45% to 29.23%. Some similarities carried over though with 10 drivers fitting in the 20% range compared to nine and Martin Truex Jr. (28.9%), Kyle Busch (25.1%), and Kyle Larson (22.0%) were all in that area once more. The pole sitter and the driver with the fastest car in practice were similarly owned as Aric Almirola was played on 23.5% and Clint Bowyer was rostered 24.15% of the time. About half the field, 18 of the 37-cars, were played between 19.2% and 10.3% of the time in this contest. A rookie standout Daniel Hemric was played 19.19% of the time, just behind Erik Jones at 19.2% leading the group. Brad Keselowski jumped up a tick at 11.3% in this one but still represents the best value play for most points on fewest rosters. Once more there was a big gap between the two home state drivers in Chase Elliott and David Ragan as Elliott was owned on 26% of rosters and Ragan on 14.6%. Denny Hamlin was played 10.3% of the time and was the lowest-owned big-name driver in this contest.

Optimal DraftKings Lineup

This week’s optimal lineup on DraftKings completely tapped out the budget at $50,000 but produced a score of 382.25 for a total value of 7.6 across the lineup. It was played in the large-field GPP as the solo winning lineup. Not only did it have the eventual winner in Brad Keselowski but it had four of the six drivers finishing in the top-10 at race’s end. Four of the top-five scorers in the race are in the lineup with the only one missing being Kevin Harvick since his salary was prohibitive to adding other high scorers. Lastly, five of the six drivers were written up in the playbook with the only exception being Chris Buescher.

FanDuel

Large-Field GPP

Each week the Intimidator is generally the biggest contest on FanDuel and in that contest this week, there was a familiar face atop the ownership board in Kevin Harvick at 48%. The second-highest owned guy was a bit of a surprise in Joey Logano at 44% though given his consistency and his starting spot it wasn’t that big of a surprise. On FanDuel playing for position differential is generally the best play since that’s the highest “bonus” point category available. Ryan Blaney and Chase Elliott were both highly-owned at 30.2% and 27.5% respectively and again they both started back in the pack with a history of good showings here. Once more, Jimmie Johnson disappointed for the 22.9% of lineups that had him in the fold but the nearly same amount of people who played Martin Truex Jr (20.8%), Clint Bowyer (20.8%), Kyle Larson (20.4%), and Brad Keselowski (19.6%) all benefitted from those drivers putting up between 67.5 and 87.5 points. The value play in this contest turned out to be Chris Buescher who at $6,000 and scoring 75 points was rostered on just 8.7% of lineups in this contest.

Small-Field GPP

The 297-entry Small Bump n Run with a five-entry max is a great way to get some GPP feel without having so many entries to compete against. Just like we’ve seen in all of the other contests, Kevin Harvick was the most-owned driver at 47.1% and his 81 points still paid dividends even at $14K of salary. Joey Logano was a popular choice again at 38.4% as an $800 discount from Harvick and starting nine spots further back. Both Kyle Busch and Kyle Larson were owned in the same range again at 28.3% and 20.2% respectively while Ryan Blaney and Chase Elliott split those drivers in the middle and came in at 25.9% and 24.2% respectively. Clint Bowyer was similarly owned as a driver who showed great speed at practice at 25.3%. The two drivers that finished first and second at race’s end in Brad Keselowski and Martin Truex Jr. were played on 15.8% and 20.9% of lineups and combined for a very good 164.2 points equaling a value of 6.4x return between the two. Kurt Busch who had been a consistent driver here of late was played on 19.2% of lineups and racked up 73.1 points for those who put faith in him starting eighth. The value play in this one was again, Chris Buescher who was played on 8.1% of lineups and wound up being the fourth-highest scoring driver on the site.

Optimal FanDuel Lineup

Coming in at $100 shy of maxing out the budget produced a score of 382.8 giving you a value of 7.67 across the roster. If you’ll notice it is very similar to the DraftKings optimal with the main difference being that Kurt Busch was swapped in for Kyle Larson and obviously David Ragan was removed since there are only five spots on FanDuel. The Busch for Larson swap made sense since they scored within a tenth of a point of each other, but Larson was $1,400 more expensive. Five of the seven drivers that scored 70+ points are in the lineup with Larson and Kevin Harvick being the only exceptions simply due to salary. Four of the five drivers were written up in the playbook with Chris Buescher being the lone exception and like the DraftKings lineup it was played in the Large-Field GPP by the three winning lineups.