DraftKings Richmond 2 NASCAR Plays, Fades, and Driver Point Projections (Federated Auto Parts 400)

The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series is at Richmond Raceway this weekend for the Federated Auto Parts 400. This is the final Saturday night race scheduled for the 2018 season, and with this being a shorter track (0.75-mile D-shaped oval), there is the opportunity for some beatin’ and bangin’ this weekend–especially with how the Las Vegas race turned out last weekend. Currently Jimmie Johnson, Chase Elliott, Erik Jones, and Denny Hamlin are on the outside looking in as far as the next round of the Playoffs, and with the potentially unpredictable Roval looming next week, none of those guys can afford another bad race this weekend.

PLEASE NOTE: The projections below have been updated with the new starting positions after inspection.

DraftKings: Talkin’ Strategy

This should be an interesting race at Richmond on Saturday night, and it’s going to be fun constructing rosters. Well, I’m saying that before inspection on Saturday. Even if we have only one driver to go the back, the chalkiness of everything is going to put a little damper on things. With that being said, we do have some “no-brainer” plays based on place differential alone from qualifying, and those are Clint Bowyer ($9,100), who qualified 25th, and Austin Dillon ($6,900) (nice) who qualified 28th. I have both of those drivers projected to gain at least 11 positions each on Saturday night. There’s also Chase Elliott ($9,900), who qualified 19th and finished 2nd the last time we were here at Richmond.

Looking at dominators, Kevin Harvick ($12,200) is on the pole and said nothing but good things about his car on the longer runs after qualifying. In fact, Harvick mentioned that the #4 team didn’t even really practice qualifying much on Friday, so the pole run was a bit of a surprise. Any time that happens, the competition needs to watch out. However, don’t forget that the Cup Series teams practiced in the heat of the day on Friday and we’re going to be racing at night on Saturday. Long run speeds are obviously important to analyze at a track like Richmond, but take those practice results with a grain of salt this weekend.

Personally, I’ll have plenty of Harvick on Saturday night but I’ll also be targeting Martin Truex, Jr. ($11,000). Yes, Kyle Busch ($11,800) looks better from a place differential perspective–he starts 12th while Truex starts 3rd–but as far as dominator potential, the #78 team has been incredible at Richmond over the last couple of years. In fact, over the last four races at this track, Truex leads the series in laps led at this track (512) and fastest laps (210). The next best in those categories are Matt Kenseth with 256 laps led and Brad Keselowski with 162 fastest laps. Oh, and I forgot to mention one thing: Truex is running that blue Auto Owners paint scheme, and I swear, 90% of the time he’s in that car, he dominates. The only problem he has here at Richmond is finishing races, but a win is going to happen soon.

There are 400 scheduled laps for the Federated Auto Parts 400 on Saturday night, which means we’ll get an even 100 DraftKings FPTS possible for laps led. Lately we’ve seen about 350 green flag laps here, so that gives us around 175 DraftKings FPTS for fastest laps. Obviously that number is going to change based on the number of cautions. Either way, there are a ton of dominator points this weekend, so it’s imperative to focus on those when constructing your lineups. Keep in mind that we’ve seen some weird fastest laps in recent Richmond races, though (probably tire strategy), as Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. had 39 fastest laps in April while Kasey Kahne had 23 and Michael McDowell had 20. In last year’s September race, BJ McLeod had 17 fastest laps while Corey LaJoie had 16. Those are just some examples.

GPP Drivers I Love For The Richmond Federated Auto Parts 400

Brad Keselowski ($10,200) – Might as well continue rolling with the hot hand… This is the third week in a row that Brad Keselowski has made my list of GPP Drivers I Love, but there’s always a reason: he’s probably going to go under-owned. This weekend, Kez is sandwiched between Kyle Larson ($10,500) and Chase Elliott ($9,900) on the DraftKings price list. Larson starts a couple spots worse than Keselowski and has higher implied upside with dominator points, and Elliott starts way back in 19th and could contend for a top 5. So, like I said, there’s a very good chance that Brad gets skipped over for “better options.” With that being said, I have Keselowski projected as the 5th-highest scoring driver in DraftKings on Saturday night, and it’s very possible that he goes out and wins his fourth race in a row. Brad won here back in 2014 and has finished 8th or better in four of the last six races at Richmond. The other two? 11th-place results. What really sells me on Keselowski this week, though, is his recent performance at this track: Brad averaged 68 fastest laps per race in the two Richmond races last year, and this team is running a lot faster now than they were the first time we raced here this season, when Kez finished 8th and had 7 fastest laps. For what it’s worth, Keselowski had a +10 place differential at Phoenix earlier this year–which is essentially a reverse Richmond–and had 19 fastest laps (5th-most in the race). 

Kurt Busch ($8,500) – I really like all three Stewart-Haas Racing Fords this weekend. With Kevin Harvick ($12,200) starting on the pole, he’s in prime position to get a ton of dominator points on Saturday night. And Clint Bowyer ($9,100) starting back in 25th provides the place differential potential. That leaves Aric Almirola ($8,300) and the odd man out next year, Kurt Busch. Chances are you’re not going to roll with both of them, though, so which is the better option? Kurt starts 6th and Aric starts 7th, so that’s basically a wash. Both should be top 10 threats, with a chance at a top 5 depending on how the race plays out. Back in April, though, Kurt led 98 of the 402 laps, and with how this #41 team has been running over the last couple of months overall, I think we could see Busch out front again Saturday night. Kurt is a two-time winner at Richmond and has had a very impressive record here since joining Stewart-Haas, with one victory and five single-digit finishes in nine total races. Only two of those nine ended with Kurt outside of the top 11, too. Both are good plays this weekend but I like Kurt just a tick more than Almirola.

William Byron ($6,800) – The Chalk play in this price range is going to be Austin Dillon ($6,900) thanks to his poor qualifying effort, but I actually have William Byron projected to finish higher than Dillon (see below), so I like the #24 as a pivot off of the #3 on Saturday night. This season, Byron and Denny Hamlin have been quite similar in the fact that they’ve been huge letdowns in the DFS Fantasy NASCAR world. The difference is that with Hamlin you have expectations, while Byron is a rookie and there are barely any. With that being said, William has actually found a bit of success on the shorter flat tracks this season, including a 12th-place finish at Phoenix (with 11 laps led) along with a 14th-place finish at Loudon. Additionally, the #24 Chevrolet came home 12th here at Richmond back in April. As far as this weekend goes, the Hendrick Motorsports cars didn’t show a bunch of speed during practice on Friday, and none of them made it to the final round of qualifying either. This track is going to be completely different on Saturday night than it was on Friday afternoon during those practices, though, and for what it’s worth, Byron had the 8th-best overall average speed in Practice #1 and ranked 10th in ten-lap average during Happy Hour. He’s untrustworthy as hell but I like being a little overweight on him in GPPs this weekend.

Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. ($6,400) – If you’ve been reading my stuff for very long, you know that for the past five years I’ve favored Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. more than most others at two types of tracks: superspeedways and flat tracks. The Stenhouse gamble paid off majorly for Fantasy NASCAR players at the plate tracks last year, and although he doesn’t have as good of a success rate at these flat tracks, these are really where Ricky is almost at his best. As far as this weekend goes, the #17 Ford is going to roll off the grid from 16th when the Federated Auto Parts 400 goes green, and I think he has the potential to maintain that position. Let’s not forget that Richmond is only 3/4 of a mile in length, so the leader is going to be lapping cars very quickly once this race gets going. Staying on the lead lap can be huge when it comes to finishing well. Plus, when you get down into this lower $6,000 price range, it’s easier to take gambles like this because they can still out-score the other drivers with a few negative place differential points. Stenhouse does have a 4th-place finish to his credit here at Richmond (in 2017), and he was running around 13th late in the first race here this season before contact with Ryan Blaney. The #17 Ford also had the most fastest laps (39) in that race, but I’m pretty sure that’s because Stenhouse was on an alternate strategy quite often. Stenhouse is like Byron this week: I like being overweight on him in GPPs, but not excessively. 

Driver Point Projections for Richmond 2

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.