DraftKings Bristol 2 NASCAR Plays, Fades, and Driver Point Projections (Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race)

Are you ready for 500 laps under the lights at Bristol Motor Speedway!? The Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race is one of the most anticipated races of the season, and for good reason: Bristol is a half-mile bullring, and when you add in the night race factor to a bunch of great racing, you’re going to get a great show. The main concern for teams (and Fantasy NASCAR players) heading into Saturday night is the weather, though. NASCAR has already moved the start of the race up by one hour in an attempt to beat the weather (DraftKings lineups now lock at 6:30 pm ET), but there’s no guarantee we get going at the new start time, either. From a fantasy perspective, I think we’ll go the full distance once the race does start, for what that’s worth. All projections and suggestions below are based on the Cup Series running a full event on Saturday night.

It’s all about dominator points when it comes to DraftKings and Bristol Motor Speedway. The Monster Energy Cup Series teams are set to run 500 laps here under the lights on Saturday, which means we’ll get 125 FPTS for laps led (assuming they go the full distance). Typically we see about 360 to 400 green flag laps here, so we’re looking at around 180-200 additional FPTS there. In other words, you’re going to need dominators on your team! In the first race here this season, we saw two main dominators (Larson and Kyle Busch), and in this race last season we had Erik Jones join those two as the three dominators.

GPP Drivers I Love For The Bristol 2 Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race

Kurt Busch ($8,500) – Believe it or not, the fastest car of the Stewart-Haas camp this weekend might be Kurt Busch’s #41 Ford. It’s pretty close between him and Kevin Harvick’s #4 Ford. One thing I really pay attention to here at Bristol is consistent speed, and Kurt Busch was right there at or around the top 5 for much of the day on Friday. He did qualify 9th, which is a little higher than I like, but the #41 Ford was 7th in ten-lap average during Practice #1 and wound up 8th on that chart in Happy Hour. Additionally, Kurt had the 5th-best fifteen-lap average in that final practice as well as the 3rd-fastest overall average speed. Busch is a five-time winner here at Bristol and with all of the rumors circulating that he’s out of a ride next season, I’m sure he’d love nothing more than to go out there and legitimately win this race on Saturday night. He’s not the clear favorite, but I think Kurt has a very solid, top 5 car for the Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race.

Erik Jones ($8,300) – This may seem like an obvious choice here, but I think there are going to be a lot of DraftKings players that opt for Daniel Suarez ($8,100) at a discount in this price range, which could cause Jones to go a bit under-owned. As a straight-up Fantasy NASCAR prospect, though, Jones is a great pick here at Bristol Motor Speedway, and he probably should have won this race a year ago. He’ll have some work to get out front this time (the #20 team qualified 14th) but he looks to have a rocketship for a car yet again this weekend, just like he did at Michigan. Try and forget that disappointing performance, you can’t win them all. Looking at Happy Hour specifically, Jones had the 2nd-best ten-lap average behind teammate Kyle Busch and also ranked 2nd in terms of overall practice speed. 

Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. ($7,800) – Last time we were at Bristol, Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. qualified 4th and his ownership percentage was extremely low in DraftKings despite his great track record here at Bristol. He ended up posting a 4th-place finish that day along with 30 fastest laps. This weekend, Stenhouse qualified 12th, which should once again keep his ownership percentage down on Saturday night–especially considering that Daniel Suarez (starts 21st) is sitting right there at $8,100. However, Stenhouse has legitimate top 5 potential here in the 2018 Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race, which is why I love him in GPP formats. Overall, Ricky has made eleven career starts here at Bristol, and while he’s never led a lap at The Bullring, he has five finishes of 6th or better and zero DNFs. Additionally, the #17 Ford was top 5 in both ten-lap average charts on Friday, so there’s good speed in the car. As far as a value-for-dollar, I have Stenhouse as the best value pick under $8,000 this weekend.

Trevor Bayne ($5,900) – Don’t be afraid to double-up the Roush-Fenway drivers with some lineups on Saturday night. Stenhouse’s success here at Bristol Motor Speedway gets most of the spotlight in the Fantasy NASCAR world, but don’t overlook Bayne’s: he’s finished 15th or better in five of the last six races at this track, with the exception being this year’s spring race. One major factor in that race, though, was the fact that the #6 Ford rolled off the grid from 33rd that day. Bayne also spun during that race and got quite a bit of damage. Speed-wise, the #6 Ford was 15th-best on the ten-lap average chart in Happy Hour on Friday, which is a good sign for this team on Saturday night. Trevor starts 23rd for this weekend’s race, which should help keep his ownership percentage down a little bit.

Talkin’ Strategy

It’s going to be Kyle Larson ($11,400) and Kyle Busch ($12,300) up front for most of the night unless something crazy happens, so it’s best to start building your lineups there. I’m leaning more toward Larson as the biggest dominator but Rowdy should put up a bunch of points as well. Larson does start on the pole, while Busch starts 3rd (giving him a little room for place differential FPTS), but the former also comes at a $900 discount so that kind of evens out. Back in the spring race here at Bristol, these two combined to lead 317 of the 500 laps and also put up a combined 167 fastest laps. They might even surpass those numbers this race.

Of course, you have to have backup plans as far as dominators go. I have Kevin Harvick ($12,000) as the next probable dominator on Saturday night, but I’m still not seeing the #4 Ford putting up a ton of fastest laps. Harvick has another good car this weekend but it’s not head and shoulders above most of the field like last week. In other words, I’m not sure I can justify using too much Harvick with that $12,000 price tag. I’ll have some exposure, but nothing too crazy.

Honestly, I think the mid-range drivers are where we could see other dominators on Saturday night. Erik Jones ($8,300) should have won this race last year and had the 2nd-best ten-lap average in Happy Hour this weekend. He also starts back in 14th, so there should be place differential FPTS there. If you’re looking to pivot off of Erik Jones, though, I do like Kurt Busch ($8,500), as mentioned before. Also, don’t forget that Ryan Blaney ($8,900) had the best car here in the spring, and although he didn’t blow anyone away on the speed charts here on Friday, he starts 10th and typically races better than he practices.

Once you have your core set up, filling out the rest of your lineup with lower-priced drivers is where it gets fun because there’s so many options. As mentioned before, I do like Trevor Bayne ($5,900) sitting there in the 23rd starting spot. A little further back in 27th you have Bubba Wallace ($6,100), who legitimately led the spring race here at Bristol this season. The speed charts didn’t show it but Wallace said his #43 Chevrolet has good long run speed for Saturday night. Once driver that I think could go overlooked is Alex Bowman ($7,200), who starts 22nd and has really excelled at the shorter tracks this season. He’s a nice pivot off of the chalk play of Ryan Newman ($6,600), who is severely under-priced and starts 24th. Looking at the very cheap guys, I like Matt DiBenedetto ($5,300) the best, as he has a knack for getting good finishes at this track and said he could’ve gotten more in qualifying (he starts 29th). DiBenedetto has a career average finish of 20.4 at this track with only two finishes worse than 21st in seven career Cup starts.

Drivers to Fade at Bristol 2

Chase Elliott ($9,100) is my fade for this year’s Bristol night race. I do think he has a very good shot at a top 10 finish on Saturday night, but unfortunately that isn’t going to win you any money in DraftKings. The fact of the matter is that Chase starts on the outside pole for the 2018 Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race, sandwiched in between the two best cars in the field: Kyle Larson’s #42 Chevrolet and Kyle Busch’s #18 Toyota. Even if one of those guys has trouble early, the other should pick up the slack. And it’s unlikely both are going to have issues. As far as Chase Elliott goes, he has finishes of 4th and 7th to his credit here at Bristol thus far, but he’s led only 16 total laps in his five career starts despite starting 6th or better in three of them. Additionally, Chase has a total of 74 fastest laps over that five-race span, averaging out to just about 15 per race. Not that great.

As far as the drivers that qualified too high and won’t get many dominator points, Paul Menard ($6,800) and William Byron ($7,400) will both start from the top 5 on Saturday night but I have both projected well outside of the top 10 at the checkered flag. Additionally, David Ragan ($5,500) probably won’t maintain his 15th-place starting spot and shouldn’t be on many of your lineups despite the low price tag. I’ll probably have anywhere between 5-10% exposure.

Driver Point Projections for the Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race

The following chart takes into account the very basics: the starting position and the projected finish of each driver. The projected finishes are averaged from five different ranking systems, using both mathematical equations as well as personal rankings. This chart also includes the average projected base + laps led + fastest laps DraftKings FPTS as well as the dollar per FPT. You can click the headers below to sort the chart by that attribute. By default it is sorted by average projected FPTS.