NASCAR DFS Pit Stop: This week in NASCAR- Bristol/Richmond

With Bristol in the rear view mirror we look to Richmond this weekend, but first I will take a look back at what went down, what worked for us in NASCAR DFS, and what didn’t.

I will be putting out this weekly NASCAR DFS recap and preview throughout the spring and summer as well as a look ahead to this weekend’s night races at Richmond!

NASCAR DFS Cup Series Top 10 (Bristol)

Kyle Busch
Kurt Busch
Joey Logano
Ryan Blaney
Denny Hamlin
Paul Menard
Clint Bowyer
Daniel Suarez
Ryan Newman
Jimmie Johnson

NASCAR DFS Xfinity Series Top 10 (Bristol)

Christopher Bell
Tyler Reddick
Cole Custer
Chase Briscoe 
John Hunter Nemechek 
Austin Cindric
Justin Haley 
Michael Annett
Noah Gragson 
Harrison Burton

Upcoming NASCAR DFS Schedule: 

Xfinity Series ToyotaCare 250: 7:00 p.m. (MRN/FS1)

Monster Energy Cup Series Series Toyota Owners 400: 7:30 p.m. (MRN/FOX)

NASCAR DFS: NASCAR Xfinity Series Bristol Review

Christopher Bell won Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series Alsco 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway to take home the first Dash 4 Cash bonus of the season, this was Bell’s second win this season ( Rinnai 250 at Atlanta Motor Speedway ).

While picking up his second win, Bell also won the first Dash 4 Cash race, collecting an additional $100K as part of the program. He would go by Brandon Jones for the lead very late in the race and held on for the final 18 laps to score the win.

NASCAR DFS: Reviewing My Plays

Leaders of the Pack: (Previous Weeks Price)

Justin Allgaier ($11,700)  41.5 DKFP

Allgaier was on his way to a win, until he Hendrick Motorsports engine blew up on him. He still picked up a decent fantasy day because of his laps led (138 laps) – Thumbs down

Cole Custer ($11,100)   69.75 DKFP

Custer had the best car all weekend but it just wasn’t meant to be, still, Custer picked a 3rd place finish and a decent points day. – Thumbs up

John Hunter Nemechek ($9,800)  48 DKFP

JH Nemechek had a decent day, but not great. He did pick up a +5 place differential but didn’t lead any laps. His 5th place finish gave him a good DKFP total, but not enough for his price tag this – eh, Thumbs up, I guess. 

I also gave you Christopher Bell (95.25 DKFP) and Tyler Reddick (79.75) as other options, but they should have been the featured drivers.

Middle of the Pack:

Justin Haley ($8,600)  43 DKFP

Haley finished 7th and picked up +4 place differential, overall a good fay for his price – Thumbs up

Ryan Sieg ($8,200)  34.5 DKFP

Sieg has his worst finish on the season, 12th place, that will tell you the kind of year this kid is having. – Thumbs up

Zane Smith ($7,800)  39 DKFP

After a very disappointing debut in Las Vegas where he only earned 2 DKFP with a 24th place finish, Smith made the most of his second chance in the #8 JR Motorsports Chevy picking up an 11th place finish a nice DKFP total for his price – Thumbs up

Back of the Pack

Gray Gaulding ($7,500)  33.5 DKFP

Gaulding had a good showing in Bristol this past weekend with a +4 place differential and a top 15 finish. – Thumbs Up

David Starr ($6,700)  26 DKFP

Would have liked a little more from Starr, but can’t complain about a +7 place differential and a top 25 finish for his price – Thumbs up

Alex Labbe ($6,100)  -1 DKFP

Obviously this was a failure. He had a fast car but has a rear gear go and cost him his day. – Thumbs down

NASCAR DFS: NXS Richmond Preview

This week we have the second Dash 4 Cash race of the season, which means there will be no Cup series drivers in this race. This weeks 4 drivers competing for the cash (a cool $100K) will be last weeks winner, Christopher Bell, Tyler Reddick, Cole Custer, and Chase Briscoe.

As it pertains to the tire situation at Richmond this week, the Xfinity teams will have 6 sets for the entire weekend.

Last April at this race Christopher Bell won while leading 120 of 250 laps for 48% of the race, Noah Gragson would take 2nd and lead 10 laps.

Other drivers in this weekends race that fared well here last year were: Austin Cindric finished 5th, Cole Custer led 43 laps and finished 6th, and John Hunter Nemechek led 36 laps to a 13th place finish. All of these drivers will be in consideration coming into the weekend, and unless any of them seem to have horrible cars I don’t see any of them not being good options.

A driver like Jeremy Clements is someone I will taking a strong look at this weekend after he had an 8th place finish is this race last year after starting 26th which is the kind of driver we love for DFS. He is low-priced and can get you a massive point total depending on where he qualifies.

As I talked about above, Christopher Bell in the #20 Toyota is the clear-cut favorite heading into the weekend, now of course once we see practice times this could change but it is unlikely. Bell won both this race last year, and the September race here as well, and ran inside the top 15 for all 250 laps in April here in 2018.

NASCAR DFS : NASCAR Cup Series Bristol Review

Stop me if you heard this before, Kyle Busch won this weekends NASCAR Cup series race, his 3rd this season, and 10th among all three series. For a change though Kyle  didn’t dominate the race, he instead fought through the field all day coming back from a lap one dust-up causing damage to his rear bumper.

Kurt followed his little brother over the finish for a Busch brother sweep. Kyle and Kurt have now won the last 3 Bristol races and seem to have made a second home in Eastern Tennessee.

NASCAR DFS: Reviewing My Plays 

Leaders of the Pack (Previous weeks price)

Kevin Harvick ($11,600)  72 DKFP

After failing post-qualifying inspection 3 times Harvick went to the rear and had to complete a pass through penalty. After an unscheduled green flag pit stop, Harvick was 4 laps down. Harvick and the #4 team fought all the back on their own to get back on the lead lap and finished 13th, which is quite the accomplishment considering the day he had.  – Thumbs Up

Joey Logano ($11,100)  117 DKFP

Logano had the highest total points this week after leading 146 laps and picked up a +4 place differential points. Great day for Logano, just too bad for him he didn’t get the win.  –Thumbs Up 

Kyle Larson ($9,500)  28.5 DKFP

Not everything went well Sunday, and the first bad pick was Larson. Even though he had a top 20 finish, he led no laps, and took a -3 in place differential. – Thumbs Down

We also had Ryan Blaney list in this section who ended up in 4th leading 158 laps and picking up a good 96 DKFP day  – Thumbs up

Middle of the Pack

Clint Bowyer ($8,600)  60 DKFP

Bowyer had a good day for his price with his 60 points after finishing 7th. Even though he only picked up a +1 for place differential he did lead 24 laps which all added up to a good DFS day for Bowyer.  – Thumbs up

My other three Middle of the Pack drivers all get a Thumbs down from me. Even though Jimmie Johnson ($8,000) had a top 10 finish he didn’t lead any laps and had 0 place differential points. Chase Elliott ($8,900) did lead 36 laps, but took a -10 in place differential after starting on the pole. Lastly, Erik Jones ($7,800) had a horrible day, though he did lead 10 laps but a -20 in place differential.

Back of the Pack:

This week in this section we found some great plays that helped lead to cashing in all of my contests.

Daniel Suarez ($7,300) 51 DKFP

I told you in my lineup build section that I was locking Logano and Suarez in and it paid off big time. You already read about Logano, and now for Suarez, he had a great 8th place finish (his 3rd straight top 10) and a +12 place differential – Thumbs up

Matt DiBenedetto ($6,100) 41 DKFP

Matt DiBenedetto and the #95 team had one of their best showing of the season with their highest finish in 2019, 12th place, which also led to his highest DKFP day as well. – Thumbs Up

Ryan Newman ($7,000) 38.5 DKFP

Newman was one of my “Other Option” plays that paid off. Unfortunately I cannot write-up every driver I consider or I would never get the article out each week, but don’t discard my other options plays, just because they don’t get a paragraph doesn’t mean they aren’t worth a play.

Newman had his best finish as well coming home in 9th this week, but this was his 5th top 15 finish of the season. We need to give Newman a good hard look every week it seems – Thumbs up

A Thumbs down to the last two in this section, Ryan Preece ($6,400) and Matt Tift ($5,500). Both had mediocre days, the better play would have been Chris Buescher ($6,400) this week.

Place Differential Drivers

Obviously both Kyle Busch and Kurt Busch earned Thumbs up this week, no need to go back into the details on that.

NASCAR DFS: Cup Series Richmond Preview

If your sick and tired of Kyle Busch, well you might want to close your eyes. If you have forgotten or didn’t know, Kyle likes Richmond, so much so he won both races here last year while leading a combined 124 laps, second to Martin Truex Jr. who led 284 combined laps but couldn’t come away with a finish better than 3rd after leading the most laps in both races.

Both of the above drivers are going to be good choices coming into the weekend, as will Kevin Harvick. 

The Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond Raceway will be the second of back-to-back short track races and the third event on a track of this size in the past four weeks. Richmond is one of my favorite tracks, and my favorite short track.

Richmond is also the third flat track race of the season, so drivers have already had plenty of practice at short tracks with races at ISM in Phoenix and Martinsville.

Ryan Blaney will win a race this season, he has come close so many times already and something goes wrong every week. Until we see how his car is running I cannot make a definitive pick, but I feel like Blaney might go over looked if you just look at his loop data from here in Richmond.

Blaney has never finished inside the top 15 at Richmond and he finished 18th last April in his race without any fast laps or leading any laps as well. 2019 is a different season and Blaney has one of the best cars every week and I think this week he finally cracks the top 15 at Richmond

NASCAR DFS: Salaries first look

NASCAR DFS : Xfinity Series

Christopher Bell  and Tyler Reddick are this weeks highest priced drivers and are also the only driver priced over $12K. They both will be in play but it will be next to impossible to roster them both. I won’t tell you which one I like more until I see some practice times on Friday

Underpriced Driver of the Week: 

Ryan Sieg – $8,600 

Sieg is one of the best drivers in the Xfinity series and as I mentioned earlier Sieg has his worse finish of the year, 12th place. Even though he jumped up $400 I love him this week again. He sits 11th in price this week, but has a better PPR average then 5 of those drivers.

Elliott Sadler is back on the track this week in the #10 Kaulig Racing Chevy and could be a good play at $9,200. Depending on how his car looks in practice and where he qualifies Friday afternoon will determine if I roster him.

NASCAR DFS: Cup Series

Kyle Busch is, of course, the top priced guy this week and has reached the $13,000 price range for the first time this season. I don’t know if I will be able to roster him, but he is dominant right now and has dominated at Richmond as well.

Martin Truex Jr. is priced at $9,800 this week and is an interesting play. He has not had a great season but has been a force at Richmond, especially last season where he led the most laps in both the April and September races.

Daniel Suarez and Aric Almirola are priced at $7,500 and $7,700 respectively and both will squarely be in play and make a nice combo to help get you up to Kyle.

Thank you for reading This Week in NASCAR and make sure you keep your eyes peeled for my NASCAR DFS Pit Stop articles for both the Xfinity and Cup series this weekend! As always everything is free on Fantasy CPR so make sure you check out all of our pieces on MLB, PGA, and all things fantasy sports!