We’re at Chicagoland Speedway this weekend for the Camping World 400. Chicagoland is another “cookie cutter” 1.5-mile race track, but one thing that’s different about this place is that we only stop here once per year. Still, because of how close all of these 1.5-mile tracks are to each other, these races become relatively predictable over the course of the season, as there are cars that are just consistently fast. If you’d like to analyze the other 1.5-mile races to prepare for Chicagoland, look back to Las Vegas, Texas, Kansas, and, most recently, Charlotte.
Here are some helpful links to the qualifying results and practice speeds from this weekend:
DraftKings Strategy Tactics for Chicagoland
It’s an interesting race this weekend just because of how qualifying ended up. Really, there are no major dominating threats starting up front except for Kevin Harvick ($11,200). And the good news for Harvick fans? He’s been the best in DraftKings on the 1.5-mile tracks this year, grabbing a series-best 13.9% of the dominator points while posting 35 fastest laps per race and leading an average of 51.5 laps per race. The big question this weekend, though, is whether or not his team will keep him up there. The #4 Ford is very fast and looks to be great on the long runs, but we all know how Harvick’s pit crew has screwed him time and time again this year.
So essentially what this comes down to is whether you want to keep Harvick as your anchor in the lineup and risk his pit crew throwing it all away, or going the place differential route and hoping to get the dominator points later on in the race. We have Kyle Busch ($11,500) starting back in 17th and his teammate, Martin Truex, Jr. ($10,900) starting alongside in 18th. That means just looking at place differential vs. laps led points alone, if Rowdy would win the race, Harvick would need to lead 64 laps just to match Kyle’s place differential points. Harvick would need 68 laps led if Truex won. Now obviously this isn’t taking into account fastest laps, but all three of these guys should get their fair share of those throughout the 267 laps today.
Personally, I’ll have plenty of Harvick exposure, but I don’t mind limiting that percentage in favor of possible alternative dominators. Still, there’s a reason Harvick has finished 3rd in the last two Chicagoland races and has also led a combined 98 laps along the way.
GPP Drivers I Love for the Camping World 400
Chase Elliott ($9,700) – Okay, being heavy on Chase Elliott didn’t work out well at Sonoma last weekend, but you can’t argue the fact that he was a legitimate contender for the win up until his mechanical issues. So let’s try this again. I love being overweight with Chase Elliott this weekend. All of the Hendrick Motorsports cars had a ton of speed during the two practice sessions here on Saturday, and the fact that the #9 Chevrolet was 5th-best on the ten-lap average chart in Happy Hour is very noteworthy–mainly because Chase is one of those drivers that always races better than he practices. Further, looking at the races at 1.5-mile tracks this season, Elliott has easily been the most consistent. His average finish (7.5) ranks best in the series and he’s one of just three drivers to score over 60 DraftKings points per race through those four events. Chase has finishes of 2nd and 3rd in his three career starts here at Chicagoland Speedway, and I think he has a car that contend for the win again this weekend. He also comes at a very nice price of $9,700 in DraftKings.
Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. ($7,100) – From a strategy perspective, I like Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. as a strategy play/pivot off of Daniel Suarez ($7,400). Suarez is the chalk play for place differential points this weekend, and there’s no doubt that I’ll have plenty of exposure with the #41 Ford today. However, you can’t overlook Stenhouse’s results at the 1.5-mile tracks this year: 6th at Las Vegas, 16th at Texas, 11th at Kansas, and 5th at Charlotte. Meanwhile, Suarez came home 17th, 3rd, 14th, and 18th–so an average finish of 9.5 with Stenhouse compared to 13.0 with Suarez. The former also comes at a $300 discount and only starts three spots further ahead. That $300 could be the difference between fitting Martin Truex, Jr. ($10,900) in your lineup over Brad Keselowski ($10,600), or even Kyle Busch ($11,500) over Kevin Harvick ($11,200).
GPP Fade Options for Chicagoland
Austin Dillon ($6,900) – This should be a no-brainer, but there are still people out there that automatically put the pole sitter in their lineup, so I’ll just say this: you couldn’t pay me to have Austin Dillon on any of my DraftKings lineups today. This will be the third time NASCAR’s Golden Boy is starting on the pole this year and the sixth time he’s started inside the top 5. He led zero laps at Fontana after starting first, and then led zero laps at Talladega as well when he sat on the pole. His other races? Austin led two laps at Las Vegas after starting 4th, but ended up finishing 20th, and then led five laps after starting 5th at Texas but ended up 14th when the checkered flag flew. Quite simply, this #3 team doesn’t know how to set up a race car for the actual race, and they don’t have the driver to lead either. That’s why Austin Dillon is averaging 11.4 DraftKings points on 1.5-mile tracks this year. Other drivers to stay away from that qualified up front? Daniel Hemric ($6,300) and Michael McDowell ($6,100).
Chicagoland Camping World 400 DraftKings Projections
You can click the headers below to sort the chart by that attribute. By default it is sorted by average projected FPTS.
Driver | Starting Position | DraftKings Salary | Avg Proj FPTS | Avg. Projected Finish | Proj Laps Led | Dollar Per FPT |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Martin Truex Jr | 18 | $10,900 | 69.5 | 03.6 | 54 | $157 |
Kyle Busch | 17 | $11,500 | 68.8 | 02.8 | 51 | $167 |
Kevin Harvick | 2 | $11,200 | 60.2 | 02.2 | 72 | $186 |
Joey Logano | 19 | $10,100 | 50.5 | 08.0 | 14 | $200 |
Chase Elliott | 13 | $9,700 | 50.1 | 06.2 | 22 | $194 |
Brad Keselowski | 12 | $10,600 | 46.4 | 05.8 | 8 | $228 |
Alex Bowman | 8 | $8,700 | 41.0 | 07.8 | 16 | $212 |
Daniel Suarez | 28 | $7,400 | 40.4 | 15.8 | 0 | $183 |
Denny Hamlin | 9 | $8,500 | 40.4 | 07.2 | 7 | $211 |
Ricky Stenhouse Jr | 25 | $7,100 | 36.6 | 16.2 | 0 | $194 |
Kurt Busch | 5 | $9,300 | 35.7 | 07.8 | 9 | $261 |
Erik Jones | 21 | $8,900 | 33.0 | 16.0 | 0 | $270 |
William Byron | 11 | $7,800 | 32.6 | 11.2 | 0 | $239 |
Clint Bowyer | 6 | $9,100 | 31.5 | 09.4 | 1 | $289 |
Aric Almirola | 15 | $8,200 | 31.4 | 13.8 | 0 | $261 |
Chris Buescher | 27 | $6,800 | 31.0 | 20.0 | 0 | $219 |
Paul Menard | 24 | $7,300 | 30.0 | 19.0 | 0 | $243 |
Kyle Larson | 14 | $9,500 | 29.1 | 15.2 | 6 | $326 |
Jimmie Johnson | 4 | $8,000 | 27.4 | 10.8 | 4 | $292 |
Ryan Blaney | 10 | $8,400 | 26.4 | 13.8 | 0 | $318 |
Matt Tifft | 38 | $5,400 | 22.8 | 29.6 | 0 | $237 |
Bubba Wallace | 26 | $5,500 | 19.6 | 25.2 | 0 | $281 |
Ryan Newman | 16 | $7,600 | 18.8 | 20.6 | 0 | $404 |
Matt DiBenedetto | 29 | $6,700 | 18.6 | 27.2 | 0 | $360 |
Ross Chastain | 31 | $5,800 | 15.8 | 29.6 | 0 | $367 |
David Ragan | 23 | $6,000 | 15.4 | 25.8 | 0 | $390 |
Corey Lajoie | 30 | $5,700 | 14.0 | 30.0 | 0 | $407 |
BJ McLeod | 34 | $5,000 | 12.4 | 32.8 | 0 | $403 |
Austin Dillon | 1 | $6,900 | 12.2 | 16.8 | 3 | $568 |
Ryan Preece | 22 | $6,400 | 11.6 | 27.2 | 0 | $552 |
Quin Houff | 35 | $4,900 | 11.4 | 33.8 | 0 | $430 |
Landon Cassill | 33 | $5,200 | 11.0 | 33.0 | 0 | $473 |
Bayley Currey | 32 | $4,800 | 10.4 | 32.8 | 0 | $462 |
Reed Sorenson | 37 | $5,300 | 10.2 | 35.4 | 0 | $520 |
Ty Dillon | 20 | $6,600 | 10.0 | 27.0 | 0 | $660 |
Josh Bilicki | 36 | $4,700 | 07.2 | 36.4 | 0 | $653 |
Daniel Hemric | 3 | $6,300 | 01.4 | 22.8 | 0 | $4,500 |
Michael McDowell | 7 | $6,100 | 01.0 | 25.0 | 0 | $6,100 |