These are my final thoughts and strategies to consider for Sunday afternoon’s AAA Texas 500, as well as projected DraftKings FPTS for each driver. The chart below is explained but if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact me.
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- This weekend’s race is 500 miles in length, which equals 334 total laps. That means there will be 83.5 FPTS for laps led up for grabs and probably around 150 FPTS for fastest laps (depending on how many cautions there are).
- Texas Motor Speedway is a 1.5-mile race track, and throughout the 2017 season, we’ve seen many similar faces up front at tracks of this length. Be sure to study those races.
- When looking at track history, don’t forget that Texas was repaved and reconfigured during the offseason last year. The Cup Series has really ran only one race on this “new” Texas.
- With the repave and reconfiguration, many people now believe that Kentucky Speedway is the most similar race track to Texas.
Projected FPTS at Texas 2
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 five different ranking systems, using both mathematical equations as well as personal rankings. This chart also includes the average projected base + laps led DraftKings FPTS as well as the dollar per FPT. I don’t try to project fastest laps–that’s up to you. You can click the headers below to sort the chart by that attribute. By default it is sorted by average projected FPTS.
| Driver | DraftKings Salary | Starting Position | Avg. Projected Finish | Proj Laps Led | Avg Proj Base + Laps Led FPTS | Dollar Per FPT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Martin Truex Jr | $11,000 | 7 | 01.8 | 92 | 71.8 | $153 |
| Chase Elliott | $9,100 | 34 | 04.8 | 14 | 71.1 | $128 |
| Kevin Harvick | $9,800 | 3 | 03.3 | 60 | 56.0 | $175 |
| Matt Kenseth | $8,900 | 35 | 11.2 | 0 | 55.4 | $161 |
| Joey Logano | $9,400 | 36 | 12.7 | 0 | 54.8 | $172 |
| Kyle Busch | $10,600 | 5 | 03.8 | 34 | 52.5 | $202 |
| Kyle Larson | $9,700 | 11 | 05.3 | 18 | 49.1 | $198 |
| Denny Hamlin | $8,800 | 2 | 07.0 | 62 | 47.5 | $185 |
| Dale Earnhardt Jr | $7,900 | 17 | 11.3 | 0 | 38.6 | $205 |
| Trevor Bayne | $7,200 | 37 | 20.7 | 0 | 38.2 | $188 |
| Jimmie Johnson | $9,600 | 9 | 09.0 | 0 | 37.0 | $259 |
| Jamie McMurray | $8,100 | 13 | 09.7 | 0 | 35.8 | $226 |
| Clint Bowyer | $8,700 | 20 | 13.8 | 0 | 35.2 | $247 |
| Ryan Blaney | $8,500 | 8 | 09.8 | 12 | 33.0 | $258 |
| Kurt Busch | $8,400 | 1 | 11.3 | 32 | 31.8 | $264 |
| Brad Keselowski | $10,000 | 10 | 11.0 | 0 | 31.6 | $316 |
| Ryan Newman | $7,500 | 25 | 21.0 | 0 | 30.6 | $245 |
| Kasey Kahne | $8,200 | 19 | 17.3 | 0 | 30.2 | $272 |
| Erik Jones | $8,000 | 4 | 11.5 | 5 | 29.3 | $274 |
| Daniel Suarez | $7,300 | 6 | 12.3 | 5 | 28.1 | $260 |
| Chris Buescher | $6,600 | 26 | 21.2 | 0 | 27.6 | $239 |
| Ricky Stenhouse Jr | $7,800 | 12 | 16.0 | 0 | 24.8 | $315 |
| Ty Dillon | $6,900 | 27 | 24.2 | 0 | 22.6 | $305 |
| Austin Dillon | $7,700 | 15 | 19.0 | 0 | 21.4 | $360 |
| Corey Lajoie | $5,400 | 39 | 31.3 | 0 | 19.8 | $273 |
| Aric Almirola | $6,200 | 18 | 21.7 | 0 | 19.2 | $323 |
| AJ Allmendinger | $6,500 | 16 | 21.5 | 0 | 18.8 | $346 |
| Paul Menard | $6,300 | 21 | 24.2 | 0 | 17.8 | $354 |
| Danica Patrick | $6,800 | 14 | 22.0 | 0 | 17.6 | $386 |
| Michael McDowell | $5,700 | 23 | 25.7 | 0 | 15.4 | $370 |
| Gray Gaulding | $4,900 | 40 | 35.3 | 0 | 13.6 | $360 |
| Reed Sorenson | $5,000 | 38 | 34.7 | 0 | 12.4 | $403 |
| David Ragan | $5,900 | 24 | 29.0 | 0 | 10.0 | $590 |
| Landon Cassill | $5,500 | 22 | 28.0 | 0 | 10.0 | $550 |
| Matt DiBenedetto | $5,300 | 28 | 31.7 | 0 | 08.8 | $602 |
| Cole Whitt | $5,200 | 29 | 32.7 | 0 | 07.8 | $667 |
| Jeffrey Earnhardt | $4,800 | 32 | 36.2 | 0 | 03.2 | $1,500 |
| Joey Gase | $4,700 | 30 | 36.0 | 0 | 02.4 | $1,958 |
| Ray Black Jr | $4,600 | 31 | 38.3 | 0 | -01.8 | $999,999 |
