NBA Postseason Best Bets (5/17)
Alex Christenson
The weekend, the NASCAR Cup series heads to Kentucky for the Quaker State 400. Kentucky is an intermediate track and we only get one stop here per year. For projections purposes, I also use Kansas, Chicagoland, Michigan and Auto Club as similar tracks. You can check these NASCAR projections out in our NASCAR DFS Optimizer.
Of course, the research process is more than just running some numbers in an optimizer. To really help us pinpoint drivers, we need to incorporate some other stats. Two metrics I love to use to identify players for my builds are driver rating and percentage of laps in the top-15. However, simply calculating an average for these stats doesn’t necessarily give us an accurate view of what to expect. Like any athlete, drivers can trend up or down over time. To account for trends, I weight both metrics with the most recent races getting the highest weighting.
So let’s take a look at the weighted driver ratings and top-15 percentages for both the last four Kentucky races and all races on Kentucky and similar tracks over the last five NASCAR seasons.
It’s no surprise Kyle Busch ($10,100) stands out in the Kentucky-only chart, as he’s finished in the top five in each of his last three races here. He’s also run in the top-15 on a staggering 99.1% of his laps. Kevin Harvick ($11,600) has been red-hot and tops the list of similar tracks with 20 top-10 finishes in 29 races over the last five seasons. Martin Truex ($9,200) also stands out, thanks to two wins at Kentucky (2018 and 2017), two at Kansas (both in 2017), two at Chicagoland (2017 and 2016), and one at Autoclub (2018). While he hasn’t quite been as consistent as Harvick, Truex has arguably the highest ceiling in the field. He also starts six spots behind Harvick and is significantly cheaper.
Among the mid-tier drivers, Erik Jones ($8,400) continues to be a solid value. In three races at Kentucky, he’s yet to finish outside of the top-10 and placed third here last year. Arik Almirola ($7,300) has had a nice little run as of late. He hasn’t fared as well as Jones on this track but does have a top-10 finish under his belt in 2018. Kurt Busch ($7,600) is also extremely reasonably priced given his historic success at this track. Busch won here last year and has three top-10s in his last four races.
As far as the cheap divers, Michael McDowell ($5,700) continues to stand out as a value. He’s run in the top 15 on 14% of his laps at Kentucky and has finished inside the top 25 in each of his last three races here. Ryan Preece ($6,300) is also appealing at his price. He’s only raced at Kentucky once, but Preece managed a 21st-place finish and ran in the top-15 for 18% of the race.
