NASCAR DFS: YellaWood 500 Talladega Superspeedway

Welcome back, race fans. With just three races left in the Chase, NASCAR heads to Talladega for the YellaWood 500 this Sunday. The Phoenix race brought more shakeup to the standings as regular season leader Denny Hamlin and current points leader Kyle Larson both posted DNF’s last week. The biggest benefactor from that chaos was Christopher Bell, who jumped up four spots in the standings and is now just five points behind Larson.

In this article, we will break down the track, fantasy angle, and then go over some drivers who are going to be on our radar heading into the weekend. Let’s get started.

NASCAR DFS: YellaWood 500

Track Preview & Fantasy Angle

The longest non-road course track (2.66 miles) on the schedule is one of two true superspeedways joining Daytona. With very high banking (33 degrees at Dega), these tracks consistently lead to carnage due to wrecks. The biggest difference between superspeedways and any other track is the drafting that happens. Not only do we see teammates working together, but we often also see manufacturers working together. This leads to the main strategy when playing fantasy, and that is place differential. You often hear the term “stack the back,” and it is exactly how we should approach things. We almost never see one main dominator here but rather three to four drivers who lead around 20-40 laps. What we do see at Talladega is the highest double-digit place differential of any track. There have been at least 12 drivers who have reached the double-digit threshold in five straight races here and in seven of the nine races in the NextGen era. I almost always build my lineups with at least four drivers starting outside of 20th and drivers starting outside of 30th.

While we wait for qualifying on Saturday afternoon to finalize our lineups, let’s look at some drivers who have strong track history, excellent form, or both!

Top Pre-Qualifying Targets for DraftKings

Carson Hocevar ($9,000)

Hocevar pretty much checks all the boxes, as he not only won the spring race here but returns to Talladega with three straight Top 10 finishes. What stands out even more is that he didn’t qualify well in those races, which resulted in double-digit place differentials in each and +57 overall. The only risk with Hocevar is that he has burned a lot of bridges with his driving style, which could hurt his chance of getting any drafting help in crunch time.

Chase Elliott ($8,900)

Elliott and the #9 have been trending up lately with Top 10 finishes in three of his last four races and now returns to Talladega, where he has been excellent in the NextGen era. Over the nine races with the new car, Elliott has a win and is tied with teammate William Byron with five Top 10s and is third with a 13.7 average finish. The Chevy camp, and more specifically Hendrick Motorsports, has always been a top team when looking at superspeedways, and I will be stacking this week.

Todd Gilliland ($6,900)

From a value standpoint, no driver stands out more than Gilliland. He posted a career-high 2nd place finish here in last fall’s race, has six finishes of 13th or better in the nine NextGen races, and has the second-best average finish (13.2) of any driver during that stretch.

Zane Smith ($6,800)

Another value play at the top of my list is Zane Smith. He returns to Talladega with back-to-back Top 10s and also has five Top 10s on all superspeedways since the start of last season. He has just two Top 20s in the Chase, but good news: they have come in each of the last two races. I think he keeps that streak alive this week, and as a driver who doesn’t usually qualify well, that could be more than enough for him to smash from a PTS/$ perspective.