DraftKings Richmond NASCAR Projections, Plays, Fades, and Strategy Tactics

NASCAR, in its infinite glory and wisdom, has given Fantasy NASCAR players another terrible weekend due to their ever-changing decision on inspection processes. This weekend’s race at Richmond is an impound race, which means there was no practice after qualifying on Friday–and only one session before, as the second got rained out–and a post-qualifying inspection was held on Saturday afternoon. Any car that failed inspection (spoiler alert: there were 8) had to start at the rear and the qualifying time of that driver was disallowed. All drivers that failed also get scored from their “new” starting spot in the rear, while everyone else moved up in the starting lineup.

In all, it’s a shit show of epic proportions and another way NASCAR alienates its strongest base of fans in terms of potential growth in the future. The constant differing rules–the qualifying time being disallowed is only on impound races, but NOT when qualifying is rained out on an impound race, then the driver just starts at the rear and isn’t scored from there–and changing schedules are just frustrating, but here we are.

Let’s get to the slate.

Here are some helpful links to the qualifying results and practice speeds from this weekend:

• Practice #1 Speeds and Notes
• Starting Lineup

DraftKings Strategy Tactics for Richmond

With Richmond, we’re most likely looking at two main dominators, although three is definitely possible. We’re set to run 400 laps here tonight, and if you look back at last year’s spring race, we ended up running 402 total laps and had three drivers lead 90+ laps each (Martin Truex, Jr. with 121, Kurt Busch with 98, and Joey Logano with 92). That’s really the only example over the last two years of three “big” dominators, as the three other races at Richmond over that span ended up with two main ones.

Looking at this slate specifically, roster construction shouldn’t be that difficult. And that’s not good news for DraftKings players because that means we’re going to get a lot of similar lineups. The entire top 5 in terms of the starting lineup are legitimate threats to dominate tonight, with Kyle Busch ($13,000) being the favorite to do so. Kevin Harvick will also get a good amount of exposure on Saturday night in the DFS world, as he looked good in practice and is sitting on the pole.

Essentially, my advice for full roster construction is to target two dominators and then fill out the rest of the lineup with place differential and finish drivers. It’s probably going to take an “outside of the box” pick to take down a GPP tonight, but unless the drivers that failed inspection have major issues during the race, they’re mostly all going to put up some major DraftKings points–so it’ll come down to having the right dominators in your lineup as well.

GPP Drivers I Love for the Toyota Owners 400

Joey Logano ($11,800) – Lineup construction for most people is going to start like this as far as dominators go: picking between Kevin Harvick ($12,300), who is on the pole and looked good in practice, or Kyle Busch ($13,000), who starts 4th but looked really good in practice–plus, it’s Kyle Busch. Don’t forget about Joey Logano sitting there underneath them, though. Joey is a two-time Richmond winner that also has three top 5s in the last four races at this track. Additionally, the #22 Ford was P1 at the end of both Stages in this race here last season, while also leading 92 laps. Both Logano and Brad Keselowski ($10,600) looked down on the speed chart in practice on Friday, but one practice shouldn’t keep you using them. I like being overweight on both Joey and Brad here tonight, especially Logano as a contrarian dominator play. He starts 3rd, and if Kevin Harvick continues to disappoint–as he’s done for most of the season–Logano could easily get around him and lead a good chunk of the race.

Ty Dillon ($6,100) – I loved Ty Dillon when he was slated to start back in 30th, but he was a chalk play then. Now he’s going to roll off the grid from 23rd, and that should temper his ownership percentage in a big way. That’s why I like the #13 Chevrolet in GPPs tonight. Dillon is running the best he’s ever had in the Cup Series right now, and over the last five races overall, he’s posted three top 15 finishes. And all three of those finishes came at tracks that were one mile or less in length. Here at Richmond, Ty’s career best finish is 20th, but I think he betters that this weekend. He was 11th in ten-lap average during Friday’s practice session and came home 15th at Phoenix earlier this year, which is the track most similar to Richmond.

GPP Fade Options for Richmond

Ryan Blaney ($11,100) – Full fade here, folks. Originally, Ryan Blaney might’ve looked like a chalk pick once qualifying was over on Friday–as he ended up 29th–but even then you wouldn’t have found him in my DraftKings lineups. Now he’s going to be starting from 22nd, and you still won’t find him in any of mine. The thing is Ryan Blaney is not good at Richmond Raceway. He’s never finished better than 18th here, and while I do think he’s going to end up with a career-best finish in tonight’s Toyota Owners 400, he’s not worth the money with DraftKings’ stupid driver pricing this week; at $11,100, you need dominator points out of that, and that’s just not going to happen with Blaney. He did look good in practice, but when doesn’t he? Plus, that was one session, and it was ran around noon. We’re racing at night.

Richmond Toyota Owners 400 DraftKings Projections

You can click the headers below to sort the chart by that attribute. By default it is sorted by average projected FPTS. Please note that I have eliminated Fastest Laps projections from this chart.