The second of this weekend’s doubleheader at Pocono is Sunday afternoon with the Explore the Pocono Mountains 350. It’s going to be Chris Buescher and Michael McDowell leading the field to the green thanks to the top 20 invert, with most of the strongest drivers from Saturday’s race starting mid-pack. With us already having one race this weekend, we pretty much know who should be the fastest in Sunday’s race, but teams can make minor adjustments between the races so we could see a surprise or two. Additionally, strategy is going to come into play on Sunday just like it did on Saturday, and track position will be everything at the end. My algorithm predicted finishing order is a great tool to check out as well when making picks, and you can click here to look at that. Now let’s get to the FanDuel projections!
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Driver-by-Driver 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 FanDuel lineup for Pocono Sunday according to my Projections is:
- Kyle Busch
- William Byron
- Joey Logano
- Alex Bowman
- Ross Chastain
Confidence Rating = 8.6/10. Right off of the bat this looks like a strong lineup, but it’s probably going to be duplicated by many FanDuel players on Sunday. You get Kyle Busch and William Byron, who each had strong, top 4 cars all day on Saturday, along with Joey Logano, who was better than expected and led quite a bit, along with Alex Bowman (the winner), and Ross Chastain, who had top 10 speed up until his wreck. The 2nd-best lineup according to my projections is: Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin, William Byron, Ross Chastain, and Cole Custer.
FanDuel “Safe” DFS Picks for Pocono Sunday (Cash Lineups)
Kyle Busch ($13,000) – Rowdy is going to have a legitimate chance of winning this race on Sunday. Here at Pocono, Busch has a knack for leading more laps than expected, and that’s exactly what he did in Saturday’s race. Now for the Explore the Pocono Mountains 350, he’s going to start back in 19th but will definitely have top 3 finishing potential once again. Hell, one could even call Kyle the favorite for Sunday since Larson has to start from the rear in a backup car. Rowdy had the 2nd-fastest Green Flag Speed on Saturday and will have the exact same car to work with on Sunday.
Ross Chastain ($6,000) – Up until his day went to shit on Saturday, Ross Chastain was looking as strong as many people thought he might…and then disaster struck. Now we get a $6,000 FanDuel driver with top 10 finishing upside starting 33rd on Sunday. It’s a no-brainer here. If Ross can keep the car clean on Sunday he has a very good chance in making it into the optimal FanDuel lineup. If you need even more reassurance, remember that Chastain’s teammate, Kurt Busch, ranked 5th in Green Flag Speed on Saturday and ended up finishing 6th. One could argue that Chastain has even better upside than Kurt.
FanDuel “Risky” DFS Picks for Pocono Sunday (Tournament Lineups)
Chase Elliott ($11,000) – It’s easy to go after place differential with Sunday’s slate, but don’t forget about Chase Elliott, who starts 9th. Hendrick Motorsports flexed its muscles again on Saturday and had three of top four cars at the white flag. The only Hendrick driver that wasn’t in that party? Chase Elliott, who got damage early in the race and never really recovered. This #9 team isn’t bringing out the backup car for Sunday’s Explore the Pocono Mountains 350, so they’re obviously not too worried about it, and with a good track position to start with, you have to think Chase has top 5 potential and could even lead some on Sunday.
Brad Keselowski ($10,500) – I’m still not 100% sure what happened to the #2 Ford in Saturday’s race, because Keselowski looked really strong early and then ended up fading majorly as the race went on (and while his two teammates were up running inside the top 5). With that being said, Kez is no slouch of a driver at Pocono Raceway, and obviously if his Penske teammates had top 5 speed on Saturday, common sense says that Keselowski has the potential to do that as well on Sunday. BK should go decently low owned in tournaments so there’s definitely a strategy play in being overweight on him.
FanDuel Driver Projections for Pocono Sunday
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 | Ceiling Proj Pts | Dollar Per Pt |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kyle Busch | $13,000 | 62.68 | 19 | 70.10 | $207 |
| Denny Hamlin | $13,500 | 61.42 | 17 | 67.00 | $220 |
| Kyle Larson | $14,500 | 60.80 | 12 | 67.00 | $238 |
| William Byron | $11,500 | 57.22 | 18 | 63.10 | $201 |
| Joey Logano | $10,000 | 53.90 | 14 | 65.30 | $186 |
| Kevin Harvick | $12,000 | 52.47 | 13 | 60.40 | $229 |
| Alex Bowman | $9,500 | 50.05 | 20 | 57.50 | $190 |
| Ryan Blaney | $10,300 | 49.65 | 16 | 56.90 | $207 |
| Brad Keselowski | $10,500 | 47.90 | 11 | 53.50 | $219 |
| Kurt Busch | $8,500 | 47.05 | 15 | 56.80 | $181 |
| Chase Elliott | $11,000 | 47.00 | 9 | 63.00 | $234 |
| Matt DiBenedetto | $8,200 | 46.25 | 32 | 55.00 | $177 |
| Ross Chastain | $6,000 | 46.25 | 33 | 61.70 | $130 |
| Austin Dillon | $8,000 | 44.00 | 21 | 52.00 | $182 |
| Martin Truex Jr. | $12,500 | 43.20 | 3 | 64.00 | $289 |
| Cole Custer | $5,500 | 40.25 | 38 | 45.50 | $137 |
| Ryan Newman | $5,300 | 40.00 | 37 | 48.00 | $133 |
| Erik Jones | $6,500 | 38.25 | 22 | 49.60 | $170 |
| Tyler Reddick | $8,700 | 37.40 | 10 | 48.50 | $233 |
| Aric Almirola | $6,500 | 36.25 | 5 | 47.00 | $179 |
| Christopher Bell | $9,000 | 35.95 | 4 | 50.00 | $250 |
| Daniel Suarez | $5,800 | 34.25 | 8 | 44.00 | $169 |
| Chase Briscoe | $5,000 | 33.75 | 24 | 44.50 | $148 |
| Bubba Wallace | $5,000 | 32.75 | 7 | 43.50 | $153 |
| Ricky Stenhouse Jr. | $7,500 | 32.00 | 6 | 37.00 | $234 |
| Corey LaJoie | $4,500 | 32.00 | 36 | 44.50 | $141 |
| Ryan Preece | $4,500 | 28.75 | 23 | 32.00 | $157 |
| Chris Buescher | $7,000 | 28.35 | 1 | 36.60 | $247 |
| Anthony Alfredo | $4,000 | 26.75 | 26 | 32.00 | $150 |
| Justin Haley | $2,500 | 23.15 | 27 | 28.00 | $108 |
| Michael McDowell | $5,200 | 23.05 | 2 | 30.70 | $226 |
| James Davison | $2,500 | 22.15 | 28 | 25.50 | $113 |
| Cody Ware | $3,000 | 20.90 | 25 | 30.00 | $144 |
| B.J. McLeod | $2,000 | 19.90 | 30 | 25.00 | $101 |
| Quin Houff | $3,500 | 19.15 | 31 | 24.00 | $183 |
| Josh Bilicki | $3,000 | 18.90 | 34 | 22.50 | $159 |
| Garrett Smithley | $2,000 | 18.90 | 29 | 26.00 | $106 |
| Timmy Hill | $2,000 | 16.55 | 35 | 20.00 | $121 |
