From the track “Too Tough to Tame” to the “Last Great Coliseum”, the NASCAR Cup series moves from Darlington to Bristol Motor Speedway for the Food City 500 this Sunday afternoon. The track is .533 mile concrete short track with 24-28 degrees of banking in the turns and 4-8 degrees of banking in the straightaways. Bristol produces constant action on track with cars racing so close together and with it’s short length and high banking can create a ton of chaos as lap cars become an issue for the leaders a lot earlier in a run than at other tracks.
From a fantasy perspective, while the correlation of starting position sits just 19th of 26 tracks, it is a heavy dominator track due to the race consisting of 500 laps to get to the finish. Kyle Larson absolutely dominated the playoff race here last year leading 462 laps en route to a victory. There has been at least one driver to led 100 or more laps in seven straight races with two drivers leading 100+ in six of those and to top it off, there has been three races during that stretch where three drivers have led 100 or more laps. Of the 16 drivers who have led 100 or more laps in the last seven Bristol races, 14 of them have come from a Top 10 starting position and eight of them from a Top 5 starting position. Place differential is a very tough one to predict here at Bristol as we have seen as few as three and as many as 13 drivers tally double-digit place differential over the last 10 races here. It will not only come down to qualifying but also cautions during the race. Building around dominators will be key!
Let’s dive in and look at some trends leading up to race weekend.
Food City 500: Track History
Kyle Busch used to be the king of Bristol and leads all active drivers with eight career wins here but comes into this one with five straight finishes of 20th or worse. Denny Hamlin is second to Busch in career wins with four but has been one of the best here recently winning two of the last three here. Kyle Larson’s recent history has been even better as he has tallied five straight Top 5’s with two wins and leads all drivers in average finish(3.3), laps led(535), and both average DK(107.6) and FD(107.1) points per race in the NextGen car. Neither Chase Elliott or Christopher Bell have a win here at Bristol but have not been too far off the pace of the Hamlin and Larson car. They both have finished Top 10 in all four races in the NextGen car with Elliott picking up two runner-ups and a 4.8 average finish while Bell has three Top 5’s, 359 laps led, and a 5.5 average finish. From a value perspective, keep an eye on Ryan Preece and Michael McDowel. Preece has Top 20 finishes in seven straight with and a 11.0 average finish in the NextGen car while McDowell has finished 14th or better in six of his last seven and 11th or better in four straight.
Food City 500: Track Type History
Track type history is ranked much lower this week as we only have two tracks fitting the criteria with Bristol and Dover. The sample size is small with just five races over the last two years but is has been Denny Hamlin who has dominated. He has three wins, hasn’t finished worse than 5th, has led 445 laps and owns a series-leading 2.4 average finish! Kyle Larson has four straight Top 5’s and with his dominating Bristol race last year, jumped ahead of Hamlin with 540 laps led in those five races. Two other drivers in Chase Elliott and Christopher Bell have four Top 10’s in the five races and only Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott, Chris Buescher, and Ty Gibbs have finished all five inside the Top 20.
Food City 500: Form
The Joe Gibbs Racing team has on fire to start the season. It started with Christopher Bell collecting three straight wins at Atlanta, COTA, and Phoenix and now Denny Hamlin comes into this week off two straight wins at Martinsville and Darlington. Denny has tallied four Top 5’s in the last five races while leading the Cup Series in average finish(6.8) and both DraftKings(74.4) and FanDuel(78.8) points per race. Hendrick Mtorsports is not far behind as William Byron(9.2), Chase Elliott(10.0), and Kyle Larson(11.0) make up the other three drivers ranked Top 5 in average finish over the last five races. Byron has been the better fantasy option leading the series in laps led(337) during that five-race stretch. Joey Logano joins Elliott as the only two drivers finishing inside the Top 20 in each of the last five races. Overall, Logano’s start to the season has been a bit surprising as he still has just one Top 10 finish but does have an average run position(12.5) over four positions better than his average finish(16.8). From a value perspective, Daniel Suarez has the third-worst average starting position(28.6) over the last five races but that has led to double-digit place differential points in three of his last four races helping exceed his projected PTS/$ value.
Food City 500: Top NASCAR DFS Targets
Denny Hamlin (DK $11,100 / FD $14,000) & Kyle Larson (DK $11,000 / FD $13,500)
I group them together as they are in a class of their own in my model this week. They both have multiple wins over the last five races and both have an average finish under 4.0 in four races in the NextGen car. At this point of building mock lineups, my strategy is to have one or both of them in almost all my lineups this week. Stay tuned for practice and qualifying.
Chase Elliott (DK $9,600 / FD $12,500)
At this point of week, Elliott is one of the best PTS/$ values in the top tier of pricing. He has yet to win in 2025 but has been very consistent as the only driver to finish all eight races inside the Top 20, has the fourth best average finish(11.1), and has four Top 10’s over his last five races. He now returns to Bristol with some excellent history having tallied a Top 10 in all four races in the NextGen car and trails only Larson and Hamlin with a 4.8 average finish during that stretch. His best value comes on DraftKings where he is sixth in salary.
Ryan Preece (DK $7,500 / FD $7,000)
Despite a disappointing 26th place finish last week at Darlington, Preece had an average run of 11th as he continues to run strong in 2025. Before Darlington he tallied three straight Top 10’s while averaging 53.9 DK/73.3 FD points per race. I will be looking for him to qualify further back than last week to lower the risk and increases the place differential upside. Stay tuned.
