DraftKings fantasy NASCAR daily picks: Lineup advice for the STP 500

Can Martin Truex Jr. be as fast at Martinsville Speedway as he is everywhere else? That’s one of the top questions you’ll have to tackle while setting your DraftKings fantasy NASCAR lineup this Sunday.

UPDATE: Snow has forced the STP 500 to be postponed until Monday, March 26. Our DraftKings advice remains intact and our original post follows.

We’re finally going to lead off a DraftKings fantasy NASCAR column without first mentioning Kevin Harvick, and that feels good. Instead, we’ll be trying to decipher what might go down at the STP 500 with very little information from which to draw conclusions, which is suboptimal, to say the least.

The XFINITY Series is off, so no one tore it up on Saturday. And then qualifying was rained out, so it’s tough to even say who’s fast, and the field will be set by owner points.

That puts Martin Truex Jr. on the pole, but short tracks aren’t necessarily his bag. The drivers we’re eyeing up to play this week start with the driver right beside him in Row 1.

Important note: Taking the lead from other FanSided.com DFS writers, we’re not going to give you a copy/paste lineup, though we will give you a sample lineup with picks that we feel good about that fits under the price cap. Let’s see what we’ve got this week.

Premium drivers (salary above $9,000)

Kyle Busch ($11,000) – If you want a Harvick-esque stud with which to anchor your lineup and can spare the cash, the M&M’s drive is your guy at Martinsville. His last five races at this track have produced an average finish of 2.8, with two victories among them. If he can get out in front of Truex right from the start, he can pile up some early points for you leading laps.

Brad Keselowski ($10,100) – Brad K. is also really, really good at Martinsville, with five top-5 finishes in his last six races, and he’s the defending race winner. Starting fourth, it wouldn’t take him that much to get to the front, so he’s a good contrarian play to Kyle Busch and comes almost $1,000 cheaper.

Chase Elliott ($9,900) – Considering what happened to him here last fall, think he’ll be a man on a mission on Sunday? Yes, his start to the 2018 season has not been great, but with the field set by points, he’s got the most positional upside starting 21st.

Jimmie Johnson ($9,100) – Yes, we know he hasn’t looked like the JJ of old. But he’s coming off his strongest race of the season so far, he’s won at Martinsville a ton and he has positional upside starting 18th. His salary is also just barely in this category, so you can play him like a mid-tier driver if you can save a few bucks elsewhere.