Ty Gibbs finally broke through and earned his first career NASCAR Cup Series win at Bristol Motor Speedway. It was a long time coming but Joe Gibbs’ grandson took the checkered flag and went to victory lane for the first time in stock car racing’s most prestigious series. The writing had been on the wall as Gibbs has been finishing very well this year and perhaps the win opens the flood gates for more.

We now turn our attention to Kansas Speedway. This is arguably the best track on the NASCAR schedule as it always delivers good racing. We’ve seen some exciting finishes here over the last few years and it should be a competitive race. And again, the Toyota’s have dominated this season and this is a track they’ve historically run very well at. Can they go to victory lane for the SEVENTH time this season?

We have all your coverage this weekend with the NASCAR DFS Playbook for DraftKings and FanDuel in addition to the NASCAR DFS Projections and the NASCAR DFS Ownership outlook. Let’s dive in and take a look at the top plays and lineup building strategies for the AdventHealth 400!

 

 

Kansas Speedway

Kansas Speedway is in the heartland of America, but it features an outstanding racetrack. The NASCAR Cup Series makes two trips each year to this track. If this was more of a destination city, it would absolutely host the final race of the season. Either way, we’re in line for some great action on Sunday.

Kansas is your basic 1.5-mile intermediate tri-oval and the closest track to compare it to is Las Vegas Motor Speedway where they’ve already raced this season. But Kansas does make for more competitive racing. While tire wear is gradually coming into play more and more at Vegas, Kansas incorporates fuel and tire strategy. The track itself features multiple grooves for passing and side drafting. And yes, you can run along the wall to gain an edge similar to Darlington and Homestead.

The trends table above doesn’t necessarily shed any significant light. We’re obviously going to see dominator potential come from P1 and P2. And four of the last five winners at Kansas have started P5 or better. We do see about eight drivers per race gain double-digit place differential. So for your basic 267-lap race we’re largely looking at two-to-three dominators and some PD options that can finish well. And in each of the last three races at Kansas we’ve seen one driver lead 100+ laps here.

 

 

 

NASCAR DraftKings and FanDuel Scoring Trends

It’s no surprise that some of the best scorers come from within the top five. Exposure to the front row is wildly beneficial and the biggest scores will likely come from whoever can get up front, lead laps, and finish well.

We can’t really take away too much on the rest of the field. It’ll be best to identify the best plays based on practice and qualifying. The P38 starting spot obviously looks great based on the chart. But to add context, only three of the last five races have featured 38 drivers in the field. And two of those times, the driver starting P38 (Chase Elliott and Josh Berry) finished in the top 10. So we’re looking to take the charts above with a grain of salt and let practice speeds do the talking as we build our driver pool for this race. The only thing that seems clear is targeting the front row, which isn’t too groundbreaking at the end of the day.

 

 

 

NASCAR DFS Picks & Strategy: AdventHealth 400

 

NASCAR AdventHealth 400 Top Tier DFS Picks

Denny Hamlin (Starting P2) – DraftKings: $11,000 | FanDuel: $13,500

Denny Hamlin was a lock for this article just based on what he was able to do at Vegas a few weeks ago. He easily had the best car for Sin City where he started P2, led 134 laps with 47 fastest laps and he won the race without issue.

Hamlin has finished in the top five in six-of-eight NextGen races at Kansas. He led 159 laps in the playoff race at Kansas last year and in four of his last six races here he’s led 30+ laps. If Kyle Larson isn’t spanking the field at Kansas, there’s a strong chance a Toyota driver is winning this race as they’re always in contention when they roll through Kansas Speedway. With Hamlin on the front row and the Toyota camp looking dominant once again, he’s a contender right out of the gates.

Hamlin’s practice-to-qualifying numbers look really bad only because of the 15-and-20-lap results. He was looking great in the shorter runs but I’m guessing he may have had to come out of the throttle on the longer runs and its skewing his numbers quite a bit. I’m not genuinely buying that he’s outside the top 20 in longer runs, especially with how good he was at Vegas last month.

Christopher Bell (Starting P11) – DraftKings: $10,700 | FanDuel: $13,000

Over the last four races at Kansas, Bell has the best average finish (4.5) among active drivers. He doesn’t have the win equity that Hamlin or Larson may have. But we can’t count him out because he’s finishing very well at this track. He’s managed to lead laps in all four races, but the standout performance was during the 2024 playoffs when he 122 laps.

Bell is on a bit of a cold stretch at the moment. However, he did win the pole and led 31 at Vegas a few weeks back. He managed to grab a top five finish in that race and he should be in contention for this race on Sunday. Bell doesn’t have the greatest starting spot for Sunday’s race but he still works as a secondary dominator that can lead laps later on.

Kyle Larson (Starting P4) – DraftKings: $10,500 | FanDuel: $14,000

It seems odd to say but Larson feels a bit underpriced on DraftKings for this race. Mind you, this is the last track he won at and that was nearly 11 months ago. He’s in a bit of a drought by Kyle Larson’s standards. But he’s also coming off a week where he had a very competitive car at Bristol with 284 laps led and 75 fastest laps on his way to a top three finish.

When we talk about track history, specifically the spring Kansas race, few are better than Larson. He won the spring races here in 2024 and 2025 with 284 total laps led between both races. He was also the runner-up in the spring Kansas races in 2022 and 2023 with an additional 114 laps led. He’s clearly very strong at this track especially for the annual spring race.

A few weeks ago at Vegas, he led 62 laps and finished seventh so there is momentum with Larson and the 5-car after a slow-ish start to the season with the new Chevy body. And now he comes to a track he’s dominated in recent years so maybe he can break this winless streak on Sunday.

Tyler Reddick (Starting P1) – DraftKings: $9,500 | FanDuel: $12,500

After a pair of short tracks back-to-back, NASCAR returns to an intermediate and it’s one that is right up Reddick’s alley. While he’s never been overly dominant at this track, he still does have a win here from the 2023 playoffs, but he only led two laps in that race.

Reddick did win the pole for this race as the Toyota camp all qualified pretty well. He’ll have an early path to dominator points if he can hold off the likes of Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson. Even Ty Gibbs had a really strong showing in practice and qualifying. So the first few rows are loaded. But Reddick is already a four-time winner this season. Knowing he can run the high line along the wall straight out of the gates has us feeling pretty good about Reddick as a dominator in GPP contests.

 

 

 

NASCAR DFS Picks: Mid-Tier Drivers

Bubba Wallace (Starting P10) – DraftKings: $8,500 | FanDuel: $9,000

Bubba did have a four-race stretch where he didn’t finish in the top 15 at Kansas. He broke that last fall in the playoffs when he finished fifth. But it was still surprising to see his struggles at this track given that he ran so well here in 2022 and he’s a previous winner at Kansas.

Bubba was arguably the second-fastest car in practice behind only his teammate, Tyler Reddick, who we just previewed. Bubba obviously doesn’t have the early path to dominator points like his teammate does, but that doesn’t mean he can’t get to the front in stages two or three. We have a lot of chalk for this race. Plenty of drivers carrying name recognition qualified poorly. A good way to get different is to take some chances on drivers that could potentially dominate in the mid-range. Bubba and the next driver in our AdventHealth 400 DFS picks certainly fit that bill.

Chris Buescher (Starting P7) – DraftKings: $8,700 | FanDuel: $8,300

Buescher isn’t a previous winner at Kansas but he came incredibly close two years ago when Kyle Larson edged him out by just thousandths of a second. It was the closest finish in NASCAR history and one that obviously stings a little.

But we know Buescher is a good driver and RFK Racing has shown up with competitive cars every week. Everyone’s giving credit to the Toyota camp for how good their cars were in practice. And I get it. A lot of them looked great. But Buescher was hanging with that group for a lot of the longer run metrics as evidenced by the practice-to-qualifying table.

Buescher has the fourth-best average finish among active drivers in the last four Kansas races (9.0) behind only Christopher Bell, Chase Elliott, and Kyle Larson. He’s a great contrarian GPP pivot off the more pricy dominator options and there are PD options in this price range that could carry more ownership.

Alex Bowman (Starting P33) – DraftKings: $7,600 | FanDuel: $8,200

Bowman starts deep in the field for this race after looking like he may have a top 12 long run car in practice on Saturday. He made his return to the Cup Series last week at Bristol. It wasn’t a good performance but maybe returning from vertigo at a track like Bristol wasn’t the best idea.

Over his last four races at Kansas, Bowman has an average finish of 11.5 including a top five finish in this race a year ago. Even dating back to 2024, he finished sixth and seventh in each Kansas race that year, so he certainly has upside. But the only person who knows how healthy he really is would be Alex Bowman himself. He’s paying off the price tag with a top 20 finish but if he’s healthy and at his best, we know he can drive through the field for a top 10 finish.

 

 

 

NASCAR DFS Picks: Value Drivers

Austin Cindric (Starting P34) – DraftKings: $7,200 | FanDuel: $7,000

There’s obviously a lot of chalk on the board for this race. We kick off the value portion of our AdventHealth 400 DFS picks with a potential chalk bomb. Cindric rolls off P34 but obviously the equipment is good enough to keep him in play as a PD option. Cindric’s been tough to justify in the last few NASCAR DFS Playbooks because he’s qualified well. And yet, he’s still grabbed some good finishes with fastest laps to boost the score.

Now this isn’t necessarily a great track for Cindric. He’s finished 30th or worse in five of his last six races at Kansas and he kind of ho-hummed his way to a top 20 finish at Vegas last month. If there’s a value play you may want to just match the field in terms of exposure, it might be Cindric. You could even fade this guy and you wouldn’t hear much of an argument from me. But the equipment is too good to pass up at this price because he offers a very safe floor. He’s a better cash game play than GPP recommendation.

Josh Berry (Starting P30) – DraftKings: $7,000 | FanDuel: $6,200

Berry starts deep in the field but he’s no stranger to hitting the optimal lineup at Kansas starting toward the back. In this race a year ago he started P38 and finished sixth. But it’s also worth mentioning he’s wrecked in two of the last three races at Kansas as well. But overall, he has a pair of top 15 finishes in the last two spring races at Kansas.

Berry’s practice speeds indicate that he should have a top 20 car and you can make the argument he might have a top 15 ride as well. He’s a previous winner at Vegas and should move up and score well if he can run a clean race.

A.J. Allmendinger (Starting P27) – DraftKings: $6,100 | FanDuel: $4,800

I gave some thought to John Hunter Nemechek as well because both Dinger and JHN practiced better than where they qualified. But I’ve previewed JHN a couple times this year and he’s disappointed. Nemechek’s averaging 20.8 fantasy points per race on DraftKings. Allmendinger’s certainly been more reliable returning 30 fantasy points per race on a weekly basis.

Allmendinger did go out in Group 1 but ultimately ran top 15 times in practice and this is a veteran with plenty of experience. While his results at Kansas last year weren’t ideal (he didn’t finish either race) you have to approach each slate with a fresh mind set and I don’t want to miss out on a nice score from Allmendinger if he runs a clean race and moves up through the field.

Noah Gragson (Starting P28) – DraftKings: $5,400 | FanDuel: $4,000

We haven’t discussed Gragson too much this season, but I feel good finally recommending him for this race. There are some positives and some more storylines between the lines we can read into. For starters, he had decent practice speed. And since he stepped up to the Cup Series, Kansas has been arguably his best track with an average finish of 16.0 over the last four races here.

And as I mentioned earlier, Kansas and Vegas are two of the most comparable tracks on the NASCAR schedule. Vegas just so happens to be Gragson’s home track so it sort of makes sense he has done well at Kansas. He’s finished top 20 in five-of-seven NextGen races at Kansas including a 14th place result in this race a year ago. He’s the cheapest driver on the board I’m willing to play and he offers a good amount of position differential.

 

 

 

NASCAR DFS Optimizer & Lineups Picks This Week

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