Pocono Sunday DraftKings NASCAR Picks, Projections, & Strategy Breakdown

After a wild ending to Saturday’s race at Pocono Raceway, the NASCAR Cup Series is going to line them up and do it again on Sunday with the Explore the Pocono Mountains 350. With one race already under our belt this weekend, and most drivers racing the exact same car in the second one, we definitely have a very good idea of who should be strong in the second leg of this doubleheader. There are a ton of chalk place differential plays in the field on Sunday and that opens up the door for being contrarian (my favorite). Chris Buescher is on the pole for Sunday’s race thanks to the top 20 invert from Saturday and you can check out the full starting lineup by clicking here. Now let’s goooo!!!!

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DraftKings Notes, Strategy, & Dominators for Pocono Sunday

Some quick notes when it comes to DraftKings strategy for Sunday’s race:

• Saturday’s race was 130 laps in length at this 2.5-mile race track, and now Sunday’s will be 140 laps in length. That means we’re looking at only 35 DraftKings FPTS for laps led and probably around 55 DraftKings FPTS for fastest laps (I’m expecting around 20-25 laps of caution).
• We saw EIGHT drivers lead 10+ laps in Saturday’s race here, with Kyle Busch leading the way with 30. When it came to fastest laps, Kyle Larson led the way with 23 and Kyle Busch added on 17. William Byron (11) and Joey Logano (10) both hit double digits as well. Expect a similar dominator breakdown in Sunday’s race, although that many drivers with 10+ laps led again isn’t super likely.
• NASCAR is using the 550hp package this weekend, which was also used at these intermediates this season: Homestead, Las Vegas, Atlanta, Kansas, and Charlotte. Again, none of those really compare well to Pocono, as they are all 1.5-mile tracks with decent banking and Pocono is a 2.5-mile flat track. Take a look at the loop data from Saturday’s race. We know who the fast cars should be on Sunday.,
• Goodyear is using this tire combination for both Pocono races: D-4928 on the left sides (raced at Darlington and Homestead this season) and then D-4960 on the right side (raced at Auto Club last season). Obviously these same tires were just used in Saturday’s race as well.
• Drivers going to backup cars for this second race include: Kyle Larson, Ryan Preece, Anthony Alfredo, Ross Chastain, Corey LaJoie, Ryan Newman, and Cole Custer. They will have to start from the rear but will be scored from their “original” starting spot. We have pre-race technical inspection a couple of hours before the race and there will likely be a few more drivers joining those guys at the rear of the field. It’s not a huge deal to start in the rear at Pocono, unless we get a similar start to Saturday when there was a mini pile-up.

Dominators

These are the potential dominators for Sunday’s race at Pocono, and are listed in the order of likelihood according to my projections:

• Kyle Larson
• Kyle. Busch
• William Byron
• Denny Hamlin
• Chase Elliott

Some “surprise” dominators that could happen on Sunday include: Martin Truex, Jr., Joey Logano, Alex Bowman, Kurt Busch, Brad Keselowski, and Alex Bowman.

Breakdown Video

Now for the video breakdown! Be sure to go here and subscribe to my YouTube channel if you haven’t already.

Optimal Lineup According to Jordan’s Projections

The optimal DraftKings lineup for Pocono Saturday according to my Projections is:

• Kyle Busch
• Denny Hamlin
• William Byron
• Ross Chastain
• Ryan Newman
• Erik Jones

Confidence Rating = 7.4/10. I actually like this lineup for a tournament play because I think most people are going to stay away from Erik Jones on Sunday. Now obviously the #43 Chevrolet wasn’t great in Saturday’s race, but EJ still ended up finishing 22nd, had the 19th-best Green Flag Speed, and the 2nd-most Green Flag Passes. A close second in the optimal lineup calculation is: Kyle Busch, William Byron, Alex Bowman, Matt DiBenedetto, Ross Chastain, and Ryan Newman.

GPP / Tournament Picks

Kyle Larson ($12,800) – At this price, and even though he’s starting 12th and has decent place differential upside, Kyle Larson is still a tournament play, as weird as that sounds. There’s just so much place differential chalk this week. But with that being said, obviously Larson is capable of winning this race on Sunday, but whether or not that $12,800 price tag on DraftKings is going to be worth it or not will come down to how many dominator points he puts up. Chances are, this #5 team will base their strategy around trying to be in the best position to win the race, and not dominate it, so I think Larson has limited laps led upside. However, this is still Kyle Larson we’re talking about, and he’s still capable of putting up a good chunk of fastest laps.

Martin Truex, Jr. ($10,800) – I went over this on the video breakdown (above). It’s just hard for me to believe that this #19 team is this bad right now. We saw in Saturday’s race with Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch that the Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas can contend here at Pocono, and even Bubba Wallace put together a great race. Truex is starting 3rd on Sunday and with all of the place differential chalk on the slate, there’s no doubt that he’s going to go extremely low-owned. However, he has a decent chance at dominating the early portion of this race since all he has to do is beat Chris Buescher and Michael McDowell, and who knows, maybe Truex was sandbagging at the end of Saturday’s race to get a good starting spot on Sunday? It kind of seemed like it…

Chase Briscoe ($7,900) – Like I mentioned in the video breakdown (above), I’m very interested to see how Stewart-Haas Racing does on Sunday now that they have some on-track experience under their belt. As far as Chase Briscoe goes, he’s an ultimate pivot play for the Explore the Pocono Mountains 350, as he’s sandwiched between chalk place differential plays Matt DiBenedetto ($8,100) and Ross Chastain ($7,700) driver price list. Looking at Saturday’s loop data, Briscoe may have finished 24th when the race was all said and done, but he had an average running position of 19.7 and 22 quality passes in the race. There’s definite upside here for this pivot play.

Cash Core Drivers

Kyle Busch ($11,000) – I really like the position that Kyle Busch is in heading into Sunday. Putting up 17 fastest laps and 30 laps led in Saturday’s race here at Pocono is one of the best DraftKings dominator performances we’ve seen out of Rowdy lately, and with Sunday’s race, you have to think he has a decent shot at doing the exact same thing–especially with Kyle Larson starting from the rear in a backup car. Busch is a little pricy at $11,000 for Sunday’s race but he has legitimate race win upside and obviously place differential upside as well since he will start from 19th. Oh, and my algorithm predicts he’s going to win.

William Byron ($9,000) – Willy B grabbed another top 4 finish on Saturday at Pocono, giving him five in the last seven points-paying Cup Series races. Now he’s going to start from 18th in Sunday’s Explore the Pocono Mountains 350 and he’s priced at $9,000. Does that chalk taste good? Byron is 4th-highest in my projected points for Sunday’s race and is tied with Ryan Newman for the best value on the slate when it comes to dollar per fantasy point.

Ryan Newman ($5,500) – As if it wasn’t already bad enough that DraftKings massively under-priced Ryan Newman on Sunday, he went out and wrecked in Saturday’s race and will start from next to last in the Explore the Pocono Mountains 350. As mentioned in the video breakdown (above), going underweight on Newman is definitely a tournament strategy that I will embrace, but as far as cash lineups go, all he has to do is not wreck the race car again and he’s going to crush at this ridiculously low price.

Pocono Sunday DraftKings Driver Projections

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 six different ranking systems. Also factored in are projected laps led and fastest laps for each driver. You can click the headers below to sort the chart by that attribute. By default it is sorted by average projected FPTS.