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DraftKings daily picks: Fantasy NASCAR lineup for GEICO 500

By Nick Tylwalk

TALLADEGA, AL - APRIL 27: Austin Dillon, driver of the #3 Dow Scooper Cat Chevrolet, leads a pack of cars during practice for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series GEICO 500 at Talladega Superspeedway on April 27, 2018 in Talladega, Alabama. (Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images)
TALLADEGA, AL - APRIL 27: Austin Dillon, driver of the #3 Dow Scooper Cat Chevrolet, leads a pack of cars during practice for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series GEICO 500 at Talladega Superspeedway on April 27, 2018 in Talladega, Alabama. (Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images) /
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We give you as much advice as possible to navigate the often treacherous waters of fantasy NASCAR at the season’s second restrictor plate track.

Whether you’re looking forward to making DraftKings fantasy NASCAR picks for the GEICO 500 at Talladega tells you a lot about yourself. Looking forward to it? Congrats, you’re an adventurous risk-taker! Dreading it? You likely prefer the calming existence of more certainty than Talladega can provide.

Assuming you’re not so far in the latter camp that you’re sitting this week’s DraftKings fantasy NASCAR contests, you probably need some guidance. We’re here to provide it, with the caveat that there’s more luck involved in this race than any other.

It also shuffles the deck in terms of salaries, with new drivers near the top of the list and dominators like Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch down a few spots. Is that opportunity knocking? I do believe it is.

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 do this!

TALLADEGA, AL – APRIL 28: Kevin Harvick, driver of the #4 Busch Beer Flannel Ford, stands on the grid during qualifying for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series GEICO 500 at Talladega Superspeedway on April 28, 2018 in Talladega, Alabama. (Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images)
TALLADEGA, AL – APRIL 28: Kevin Harvick, driver of the #4 Busch Beer Flannel Ford, stands on the grid during qualifying for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series GEICO 500 at Talladega Superspeedway on April 28, 2018 in Talladega, Alabama. (Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images) /

Premium drivers (salary above $9,000)

Brad Keselowski ($10,700) – His salary is a little steep for a race where the rest of the dollar amounts are kind of flattened out, but he does know how to avoid trouble here. That’s worth quite a bit. He’s also starting right beside teammate Joey Logano and might be able to link up with him for a pus early on.

Kevin Harvick ($9,800) – Hey, Kevin Harvick at less than $10,000? Only at Talladega. There are several things to like about Happy this week: He’s won this race before, he has enough raw speed to sit on the pole, and he has three teammates in case who pushes who near the end is a factor.

Kyle Busch ($9,600) – Sometimes it’s best to not overthink things too much. This is the hottest driver in NASCAR, going for his fourth straight win, a former winner of the GEICO 500, and he’s starting 19th, meaning he has positional upside. Definitely worth a look.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. ($9,100) – Yep, at Talladega, Stenhouse is actually one of the top-tier drivers in terms of salary. But just barely, and he certainly deserves it given his performance in plate races in 2017, when he won two of them. Again, the “not overthinking” thing works here too.