If you look at the recent Sprint Cup races held at Dover International Speedway, you’ll notice that starting position hasn’t really mattered much–especially when you take into account that his is a 1-mile race track. So, there’s two sides to this: one is the good DraftKings picks who will make their way from a poor starting spot up toward the front. And the second is the drivers we are going to focus on in this post–those that qualified a lot better than they will finish in the AAA 400 Drive for Autism on Sunday. If you’re going to have a driver on your DraftKings roster that starts up front, you better hope he or she not only finishes there, but leads some laps and has some fastest laps as well.
DraftKings Drivers to Avoid for the AAA 400 at Dover
Denny Hamlin ($8,300) – Don’t fall for the trap that Denny “Fools Gold” Hamlin has set up once again this weekend. The #11 Toyota looked like one of the best cars in the field during Saturday’s practice sessions, but sometimes you have to look further into the speed chart rankings. Yeah, Hamlin posted a blazing fast lap during Happy Hour and also had one of the best ten-lap averages during that practice session, but his speed over the course of a longer run fell off a lot more than many other cars in the garage area. Fuel runs at Dover last 80-90 laps, so simply going off of a ten-lap average isn’t always the best. At this track, Hamlin posted a 5th-place finish in this event back in 2014 but that is one of only two top 10 finishes he has here over the last ten races. In the last three “Monster Mile” races, Hamlin has started 2nd, 1st, and 3rd and finished 18th, 21st, and 12th, respectively. Through the first eleven races of 2016, Denny has finished worse than he started in eight of the events, and we’re willing to bet he makes than nine of twelve here on Sunday. Again, that moderate price point of $8,300 is tempting with Hamlin, but we wouldn’t recommend putting him on your DraftKings teams. Let some other guy be the sucker.
Dale Earnhardt, Jr. ($9,400) – Sorry Junior Nation. Although NASCAR’s most popular driver is typically one of the best Fantasy NASCAR picks for DraftKings, that simply isn’t the case this weekend. Thanks to qualifying getting rained out on Friday, Junior is going to start from the outside pole on Sunday. Now the question becomes not will he fall but by how much? The #88 Chevrolet really wasn’t overly impressive during either practice session on Saturday, and Earnhardt actually didn’t make it on to either ten-lap average chart. That should be a major red flag for all fantasy owners. When you’re at a track that is only one-mile in length, you’d expect all cars to make a run of at least ten laps at some point during the weekend. Now, that makes it sound like we think Junior is going to be terrible on Sunday, and that’s simply not the case; we still have Dale as a top 10 pick for the AAA 400, but when you look at the scoring for DraftKings, a 10th-place finish out of Junior will only net you 26 points. We don’t expect the #88 Chevrolet to lead many laps either.
Carl Edwards ($9,900) – Typically we like Carl Edwards on our DraftKings teams no matter where he starts, but that’s not the case this weekend. The thing is, Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch are so fast this weekend that we don’t see anyone else leading many laps. So while you can never count out this #19 team on race day, we think this is an excellent week to give Carl Edwards a break–not only with DraftKings but as a Fantasy NASCAR pick as a whole. You see, while he does have the nickname “Concrete Carl,” Edwards hasn’t really performed that great here at Dover as of late. In the last eight Sprint Cup races at the “Monster Mile,” he has just one finish better than 11th, and in the two events here last season Carl finished 15th and 19th after starting 3rd and 8th, respectively. On Sunday, Edwards will roll off the grid from 4th. We likely would have the #19 Toyota on this list if the car showed some speed on Saturday, but that simply wasn’t the case; Carl was 3rd-fastest in Practice #2 in the morning but didn’t show up on the ten-lap average chart, and in Happy Hour he was 11th-fastest overall but only ran 28 laps total. That’s a huge red flag to us. While we do think Carl Edwards can run top 10 here on Sunday, his starting spot and high salary makes him a driver to avoid in DraftKings.
Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. ($7,000) – We have hitched a ride on the Stenhouse bandwagon for many races this season–including the AAA 400 Drive for Autism this Sunday–but we simply can’t recommend picking him in DraftKings. The 5th-place starting spot put the nail in the coffin for Ricky this time. While he did end up 8th in the fall race here at Dover last season, we simply don’t see that happening again this time around. If nothing crazy happens on Sunday, Stenhouse is probably a 15th-place car for the AAA 400. Now, in many Fantasy NASCAR leagues that would be a nice pick, but not in DraftKings. If the #17 Ford does end up finishing 15th, you’re looking at a measly 19 points. And at that $7,000 price point, it’s simply not worth it. There are plenty of other decent-to-good picks in that price range (Blaney, Allmendinger, Biffle, Almirola, Menard) that would be better options than Stenhouse on Sunday.
