Daytona 2 Post Practice Fantasy NASCAR Predictions – Coke Zero 400
The Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway is on Saturday night and this marks the first “repeat” race track of the 2016 season. We’re getting into the summer schedule now, and after that awesome finish at Sonoma last weekend, we now have two Saturday night races in a row. When it comes to these big restrictor plate race tracks, the Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas have been the best at them this season and that’s probably not going to change now. Rain washed out both scheduled practices on Friday so NASCAR had to schedule a new one on Saturday morning (click here for results, click here for our notes) before qualifying. Greg Biffle won the pole for this year’s Coke Zero 400–click here for the full starting lineup–but if you have been watching this sport for any amount of time, you know that starting position and practice speeds don’t mean a whole lot here. With that being said, 75% of the July Daytona winners have come from a top 10 starting spot.
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Final Top 15 Ranking For Daytona 2
1. Denny Hamlin – Starts 9th – DraftKings Price: $9,800 – Yahoo! A Group
I’m not sure if anyone has looked at the recent Daytona races, but Denny Hamlin has been far and away the best fantasy pick in the Sprint Cup garage. So I was quite surprised when I saw that less than 20% of Yahoo! teams had him on their roster this weekend. Surprised isn’t even a strong enough word, I was shocked. Not only is Denny the most recent race winner here at Daytona, but he also hasn’t posted a result worse than 6th in a points-paying race here since the 2013 season. You simply don’t see that kind of consistency at restrictor plate race tracks, and it almost reminds me of that great run Clint Bowyer had at Talladega a while back. In addition to that, this #11 team is coming off of probably the biggest surprise run of the season at Sonoma even though that was just Hamlin’s fifth top 5 of the 2016 season thus far. I’m betting he grabs another one here on Saturday night, though. If you make your restrictor plate fantasy picks off of momentum, there isn’t a better pick at Daytona than Denny Hamlin. In Practice #1, his crew chief said that this week’s race car is similar to the Daytona 500 car, and Hamlin led 95 of the 200 laps in that race.
2. Kevin Harvick – Starts 21st – DraftKings Price: $10,300 – Yahoo! A Group
Well if you listen to crew chief Rodney Childers (tweet here), the #4 team definitely has a good race car for Saturday night’s Coke Zero 400. With that being said, Childers tends to be one of the more optimistic crew chiefs in the garage, and really when isn’t that #4 car not fast? There’s a reason Harvick posted top 10 finishes in thirteen of the first sixteen Sprint Cup races ran this season. Here at Daytona, Harvick is a two-time winner and has posted nine top 5s (30%) and fourteen top 10s (46.7%) in thirty career starts. Statistically, he has the 3rd-best career average finish (15.4) among all active Sprint Cup drivers here at Daytona–right behind Austin Dillon and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. Part of that can be attributed to the fact that “Happy” only has three DNFs here. Currently, Harvick is on a three-race streak of top 5 finishes at Daytona and he could easily make that four in a row this weekend. He finished 4th in this year’s Daytona 500 and followed that up with a 15th-place effort at Talladega. His average driver rating of 94.2 between those two races is good enough for 6th-best in the series (see full chart here). Harvick is going to be a popular pick this weekend in all leagues, and he was the 2nd-most-picked A Group driver in Yahoo! behind Dale Earnhardt, Jr.
3. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. – Starts 16th – DraftKings Price: $10,600 – Yahoo! A Group
Those that have went against the norm and avoided Dale Earnhardt, Jr. at the restrictor plate races this season look like geniuses as the #88 Chevrolet wrecked out of both the Daytona 500 and the Talladega race. Now the question becomes, will “third time’s a charm” come true? Junior is going to be the most popular Fantasy NASCAR pick on Saturday night, and the reason is simple: he’s one of the best restrictor plate drivers in the series. The thing is, his race cars haven’t been handling to his liking on these big tracks this season, so I think it’s definitely worth considering staying away from the #88 on Saturday night. Now, obviously this move could come back to bite us in the ass, but it’s something to consider. Junior is the defending winner of this race and his record at Daytona speaks for itself. But if you look at this team’s performance over the last few months, they’re definitely not hitting on all cylinders; in the last eight Sprint Cup races, Earnhardt has only one finish better than 11th, and that was his 2nd-place effort at Pocono. Junior used to be a shoo in when it came to Fantasy NASCAR at Daytona, but that isn’t the case this weekend.
