Welcome to contrarian week! The starting lineup for this Sunday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 253 at the Daytona Road Course is all jumbled up thanks to this being the second race of the year and NASCAR’s formula system, which means there are a lot of chalk options in DFS this week. So why do I call this contrarian week? Because I think this is a great opportunity to pivot off of some of those chalk options and differentiate yourself with your lineups if you’re playing in large tournaments. And that’s what my picks are going to center around in this article: the contrarian plays. You can assume the chalk by checking out the driver projections. Now let’s get to the picks and projections!!
By the way, make sure you check out my DraftKings article for the is race as well (click here). There’s a ton of road course data included over there, and I did a full video breakdown as well.
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FanDuel DFS Picks for the Daytona Road Course
Kyle Busch ($12,500) – Obviously the top picks in this race are Chase Elliott ($14,000) and Martin Truex, Jr. ($13,000). They are the best road course racers in the series right now, and it’s not even close. But if you’re looking to have a contrarian strategy–which I think is a good option on Sunday–look at pivoting down to Ryan Blaney ($12,700) or, even better, Kyle Busch ($12,500). Blaney is a great pick but he’s going to get a good amount of ownership share because of his starting position and potential to win. This is going to make Kyle Busch under-owned (in my opinion). But don’t forget, Rowdy just won the Busch Clash here at the Daytona Road Course and had one of the best cars at this track last season before his day went to hell. Kyle Busch is a legitimate contender to win the O’Reilly Auto Parts 253 on Sunday and is a great play in DFS.
Chase Briscoe ($8,700) – Again, just looking at this price range, there’s a lot of chalk. From William Byron ($9,600) to Alex Bowman ($9,000) to Kurt Busch ($9,000) to Matt DiBenedetto ($8,300), there are quite a few great road course plays in this price range with the “odd man out” being Chase Briscoe. By “odd man out” I’m saying he should be very low owned. But there is a ton of potential for this rookie to score just as many, or even more FanDuel fantasy points than the guys listed above. Not only is he taking over the #14 Ford, which was very good on road courses with Clint Bowyer, but Briscoe was also incredibly strong on the road courses in the Xfinity Series last year–including a win at the Indianapolis Road Course. Don’t sleep on Chase this week.
Tyler Reddick ($7,000) – I also like Christopher Bell ($7,600) in this price range as a pivot option, but I’ve talked about Bell enough in my other articles, so let’s talk about Reddick. There were two surprising amounts of speed in the Busch Clash last week: one was Martin Truex, Jr. because he was on another planet coming up through the field. And the second was Tyler Reddick. He legitimately ran a great race. His average running position was 7.8 (which was 5th-best) and his Green Flag Speed ranked 4th-fastest behind the three Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas. Now the bad part: Tyler Reddick wasn’t very good at road courses last season. So, was the Busch Clash a fluke? Or did he learn how to race on these tracks over the offseason? Reddick was a solid top 5 contender in all of the road course races during his final Xfinity Series season. I’m going to guess he has figured out how to run these Cup cars competitively on them as well.
O’Reilly Auto Parts 253 FanDuel 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 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.
| Driver | FanDuel Salary | Avg Proj Pts | Starting Position | Avg. Projected Finish | Dollar Per Pt |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Martin Truex Jr. | $13,500 | 55.7 | 19 | 02.5 | $243 |
| Ryan Blaney | $12,700 | 52.3 | 27 | 06.5 | $243 |
| Chase Elliott | $14,000 | 51.7 | 1 | 01.8 | $271 |
| Alex Bowman | $9,000 | 50.3 | 36 | 10.5 | $179 |
| William Byron | $9,600 | 48.4 | 22 | 07.2 | $198 |
| Kyle Busch | $12,500 | 46.7 | 14 | 06.5 | $268 |
| Brad Keselowski | $10,000 | 43.8 | 15 | 07.8 | $229 |
| Denny Hamlin | $12,000 | 43.7 | 4 | 05.2 | $275 |
| Kurt Busch | $9,000 | 43.3 | 17 | 08.8 | $208 |
| Joey Logano | $10,700 | 43.0 | 11 | 07.0 | $249 |
| AJ Allmendinger | $12,000 | 42.3 | 34 | 15.2 | $284 |
| Kevin Harvick | $11,300 | 39.8 | 5 | 07.2 | $284 |
| Matt DiBenedetto | $8,300 | 39.3 | 32 | 16.5 | $211 |
| Erik Jones | $8,000 | 38.3 | 37 | 18.8 | $209 |
| Aric Almirola | $7,800 | 37.3 | 26 | 15.8 | $209 |
| Kyle Larson | $9,300 | 36.0 | 8 | 10.7 | $258 |
| Christopher Bell | $7,600 | 35.0 | 12 | 12.7 | $217 |
| Tyler Reddick | $7,000 | 34.0 | 24 | 17.3 | $206 |
| Chris Buescher | $6,000 | 33.8 | 30 | 19.5 | $178 |
| Chase Briscoe | $8,700 | 32.8 | 18 | 16.2 | $266 |
| Cole Custer | $7,200 | 30.3 | 13 | 16.2 | $238 |
| Ross Chastain | $6,600 | 27.0 | 9 | 17.0 | $244 |
| Ryan Newman | $6,000 | 27.0 | 33 | 25.0 | $222 |
| Ty Dillon | $2,500 | 25.8 | 38 | 27.5 | $97 |
| Daniel Suarez | $4,500 | 25.0 | 35 | 27.0 | $180 |
| Ricky Stenhouse Jr. | $4,500 | 23.5 | 16 | 21.7 | $191 |
| Anthony Alfredo | $5,500 | 22.3 | 31 | 27.5 | $247 |
| Michael McDowell | $6,500 | 21.3 | 2 | 18.5 | $306 |
| James Davison | $3,000 | 19.3 | 39 | 32.2 | $156 |
| Bubba Wallace | $6,200 | 18.5 | 10 | 23.0 | $335 |
| Justin Haley | $4,000 | 18.3 | 20 | 26.5 | $219 |
| Austin Dillon | $5,000 | 15.8 | 3 | 22.5 | $317 |
| Garrett Smithley | $2,000 | 15.5 | 25 | 30.0 | $129 |
| Timmy Hill | $2,000 | 14.8 | 40 | 35.5 | $136 |
| Quin Houff | $2,000 | 13.3 | 29 | 32.8 | $151 |
| Ryan Preece | $3,500 | 12.5 | 6 | 25.7 | $280 |
| Scott Heckert | $2,000 | 12.5 | 28 | 33.0 | $160 |
| Cody Ware | $2,000 | 11.8 | 21 | 31.2 | $170 |
| Josh Bilicki | $2,700 | 11.3 | 23 | 32.2 | $240 |
| Corey LaJoie | $2,000 | 07.3 | 7 | 29.5 | $276 |
