NASCAR DFS: NASCAR Cup Series Championship @ Homestead-Miami Speedway

Welcome back, NASCAR fans. For the first time since Kyle Busch won his second championship back in 2019, the NASCAR Championship race returns to Homestead-Miami Speedway. Kyle Larson enters the week as a heavy favourite, sitting 67 points ahead of Christopher Bell in second and 70 points ahead of Denny Hamlin, who sits third. What makes this race interesting from a betting and fantasy perspective, especially regarding Larson, is that he only needs nine points to clinch the Championship. Will this change the way he races early in the race? Will it change the way others race him? We will have to wait and see!

NASCAR DFS: NASCAR Cup Series Championship

Track Preview & Fantasy Angle

Homestead is a 1.5-mile oval intermediate track with 18-20 degrees of progressive banking in the turns. One of the reasons many love this track as the host of the championship race is the multiple lanes and ability to use the whole track. It creates a ton of potential passing and, during the NextGen era, has produced the highest pass rate of all intermediate tracks. Even with the passing upside, Homestead has been more of a dominator track when looking at it from a fantasy perspective. All four of the NextGen races here have produced a driver leading 90 or more laps, while there have been just 26 drivers total to tally double-digit place differentials.

My fantasy builds will be focused on practice speeds and averages, looking to identify the top dominator upside. I will then fill in with a mix of place differential upside, current form, and track history. Let’s look at some of the top candidates heading into the weekend.

Top Pre-Qualifying Targets for DraftKings

Kyle Larson ($11,500)

There is a good chance Larson gets his nine points to clinch the championship in the first stage, and to me that would allow him to go full throttle to also grab the win. He is the only driver with multiple wins here at Homestead in the Nextgen era, and he enters the finale in elite form with three wins in the Chase and finishing eight of the nine races inside the Top 10. Almost impossible to fade the #5 team this week!

Tyler Reddick ($10,700)

Reddick was the heavy favorite to win the championship early on when he started the season with three straight wins and had five victories by mid-April. The season didn’t end up going the way the #45 team liked, but Reddick can finish it off strong here at a track he has been excellent on. He returns to Homestead with three top-10s in the four NextGen races and has five Top 10’10sn six total races here in the Cup series.

William Byron ($9,700)

Arguably the hottest driver heading into the season finale, Byron followed up a runner-up finish at Talladega with a dominating win (362 laps led) at Martinsville and is now one of just five drivers with at least six Top 10 finishes during the Chase. He now returns to Homestead, where he is second with an 8.5 average finish in the NextGen era and also picked up a win here in 2021 before the change to the new car. He doesn’t have a shot at the Championship, but should be a contender for a win and a great PTS/$ day for fantasy.

Austin Dillon ($6,300)

A lot of people will be looking at Allmendinger with his four straight Top 10s at Homestead, but I am more focused on Austin Dillon at this point in the week. The track history doesn’t jump off the page in the same way, but he has finished 13th or better in three of four races in the NextGen era and in nine of the last 10 races here overall. The form is also trending up for Dillon as he is coming off a 7th place finish at Martinsville and an 11th place finish at Talladega. Ideally, I would like to see him start outside of 20th.